Life Under Hitler’s Rule: Don’t Let Freedom Slip Away

This article is written by Kitty Werthmann a woman who lived under Hitler’s rule:

I believe that I am an eyewitness to history. I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history. We elected him by a landslide – 98% of the vote. I’ve never read that in any American publications. Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force.

In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25% inflation and 25% bank loan interest rates.

Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily. Young people were going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn’t want to work; there simply weren’t any jobs. My mother was a Christian woman and believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people – about 30 daily.

The Communist Party and the National Socialist Party were fighting each other. Blocks and blocks of cities like Vienna, Linz and Graz were destroyed. The people became desperate and petitioned the government to let them decide what kind of government they wanted.

We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany, where Hitler had been in power since 1933. We had been told that they didn’t have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living. Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group — Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria. We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler also said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back. Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler.

We were overjoyed, and for three days we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens and everyone was fed.  [read more]

Sounds like Hitler promised the Austrians everything they wanted. Most unscrupulous leaders do that—pretend they are Santa Clause. And the people were happy for awhile. 

“For awhile” is the key phrase here. She goes on:

• Hitler Eliminates Religious Instruction for Children.  The education was nationalized. Crucifix’s were replaced by Hitler’s picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Hitler wasn’t a Christian. He only used God’s name to make the German people like him. If anything the Nazi’s were pagans—they worshiped the god’s of ancient Germany. Hitler, I read, thought Christianity was a weak religion and Germany would have been better served by a stronger religion like Islam. I kid you not. By having his picture replace the Crucifix Hitler is saying he is now God. Kitty goes on to say that Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. If parents did not send their children to school they got a written warning. The second time they did not send their children a $300 fine, the third time the parents would go to jail. All the kids received political indoctrination at the school.
• The Full-employment Law.  All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn’t work, you didn’t get a ration card, and if you didn’t have a card, you starved to death.
• The Labor Camps. It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps. During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys.
• Hitler Restructured the Family Through Daycare. When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government. She says the people who took care of the children were child psychologists.
• Health Care Suffer Under Government Controls. Kitty says before Hitler arrived Austria had very good health care then he socialized it. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries. She goes on to say tax rates went up 80% under Hitlercare (that’s my term not hers). What she is describing (except for doctors leaving part—they will just quit) will happen to America under Obamacare.
• Economic  Regulations.  We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn’t meet all the demands. Soon, he went out of business. If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control. We had consumer protection. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the live-stock, then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it.

The oppression and evil continues. Mentally retarded people were murdered by the state. People had to register their guns at police stations (does that sound familiar?). Hitler said that was the real way to catch criminals. Not too soon after the state said it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. Since the guns were registered it was futile for people not to comply voluntarily.

Finally, freedom of speech was suppressed. Anyone, not only the Jews, who spoke against the state were taken away.

She writes:

Totalitarianism didn’t come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria. Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism.

That’s exactly how socialism or any other oppressive system get installed in a country. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snowstorms or Snowflakes?

An article by Lawrence W. Reed on FEE.org (Feb 25.):

There are two basic prisms through which we can see, study, and prescribe for human society: individualism and collectivism. These worldviews are as different as night and day, and they create a great divide in the social sciences. That’s because the perspective from which you see the world will set your thinking down one intellectual path or another.

No Two Alike

I think of it as the difference between snowstorms and snowflakes. A collectivist sees humanity as a snowstorm, and that’s as up-close as he gets if he’s consistent. An individualist sees the storm, too, but is immediately drawn to the uniqueness of each snowflake that composes it. The distinction is fraught with profound implications.
No two snowstorms are alike, but a far more amazing fact is that no two snowflakes are identical either—at least so far as painstaking research has indicated. Wilson Alwyn Bentley of Jericho, Vermont, one of the first known snowflake photographers, developed a process in 1885 for capturing them on black velvet before they melted. He snapped pictures of about 5,000 of them and never found two that were the same—nor has anyone else ever since. Scientists believe that changes in humidity, temperature, and other conditions extant as flakes form and fall make it highly unlikely that any one flake has ever been precisely duplicated. (Ironically, Bentley died of pneumonia in 1931 after walking six miles in a blizzard. Lesson: One flake may be harmless, but a lot of them can be deadly).

Contemplate this long enough and you may never see a snowstorm (or humanity) the same way again.

Dr. Anne Bradley is vice president of economic initiatives at the Institute for Faith, Work and Economics. At a recent FEE seminar in Naples, Florida, she explained matters this way:

When we look at a snowstorm from a distance, it looks like indistinguishable white dots peppering the sky, one blending into the next. When we get an up-close glimpse, we see how intricate, beautiful, and dissimilar each and every snowflake is. This is helpful when thinking about humans. From a distance, a large crowd of people might look the same, and it’s true that we possess many similar characteristics. But we know that a more focused inspection brings us nearer to the true nature of what we’re looking at. It reveals that each of us bears a unique set of skills, talents, ambitions, traits, and propensities unmatched anywhere on the planet.

This uniqueness is critical when we make policy decisions and offer prescriptions for society as a whole; for even though we each look the same in certain respects, we are actually so different, one to the next, that our sameness can only be a secondary consideration.  [read more]

 

A great analogy. In psychology the snowflake perspective is called differential psychology. The snowflake perspective is how conservatives look at their fellow human beings. Or at least they should try to look at people. Classifying things and treating things alike is fine. Things don’t care. But doing this to people is dehumanizing at worst and disrespectful at best. But classifying or grouping things is what the mind naturally does to make sense of the world. Putting people into groups is hard not to do.

Yes, groups of people have similarities. For example, women like to go shopping and like to express their feelings (okay, this an attempt at stereotypical humor).

There even some people who think that teenagers are going to have sex no matter what so let’s give them condoms. Or that all women are for abortion rights. Or African-Americans will always vote Democrat. Or even that all homosexuals are for same-sex marriage (they’re not. Dennis Miller says he has gay friends who are not for same-sex marriage.) I could go on.

But having similarities is not the same as being the same. You can only generalize so much from the similarities then you start to diverge. Take a lesson from chaos theory. Small differences can lead to big changes later on. The butterfly effect if you will.

When an artist does a painting he leaves his own personality in the painting. The same with novelists and even software engineers. That’s what makes the world interesting. Trying to make everyone act the same or believe the same is a cult at worst at best group think.

The Founding Fathers saw American’s as snowflakes. Remember in the Declaration of Independence it says the inalienable right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"?” That line wasn’t talking about groups. Only individuals have rights. The Bill of Rights are about individual rights too.

We are treated same under the law (or should be) but we are not completely the same mentally or physically. Even identical twins aren’t completely identical. God made us as individuals not as clones.  We attain individual salvation. “Collective salvation” is not a concept in God’s mind. The Ten Commandments are about individual morality.

This Crazy Cyprus Deal Could Screw Up A Lot More Than Cyprus...

From Business Insider.com (Mar. 16):

Cyprus's banks, like many banks in Europe, are bankrupt.

Cyprus went to the Eurozone to get a bailout, the same way Ireland, Greece, and other European countries have.

The Eurozone powers-that-be gave Cyprus a bailout — but with a startling condition that has never before been imposed on any major banking system since the start of the global financial crisis in 2008.

The Eurozone powers-that-be (mainly, Germany) insisted that the depositors in Cyprus's banks pay part of the tab.

Not the bondholders.

The depositors. The folks who had their money in the banks for safe-keeping.

When Cyprus's banks reopen on Tuesday morning, every depositor will have some of his or her money seized. Accounts under 100,000 euros will have 6.75% of the funds seized. Accounts over 100,000 euros will have 9.9% seized. And then the Eurozone's emergency lending facility and the International Monetary Fund will inject 10 billion euros into the banks to allow them to keep operating. [read more]

Cyprus’ gov’t hasn’t approved the deal yet, but they closed the banks temporarily to stop a possible dry run on the banks. So, a citizen of Cyprus can’t use an ATM or transfer money out of the country

The Obama administration response? Ask the treasury. Huh? What? You got to be kidding me.

Could this happen to America? It could or something similar to it if Congress  and the POTUS don’t act fiscally responsibly. And if we have to borrow money from another country that country could do the same thing that Germany did.

If you notice the “tax” on the bank holder’s deposits are progressive ie the more you have saved the more you will be taxed.

Sen. Graham claims Benghazi survivors 'told to be quiet' by administration

From Fox News.com (Mar. 15):

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, in an extensive interview with Fox News, alleged that the injured survivors of the Benghazi terror attack have been "told to be quiet" and feel they can't come forward to tell their stories -- as he urged the House to subpoena the administration for details if necessary.

The South Carolina senator said he’s “had contact” with some of the survivors, calling their story “chilling.” He told Fox News that "the bottom line is they feel that they can't come forth, they've been told to be quiet."
The White House is denying any attempt to exert pressure on the surviving victims.

"I'm sure that the White House is not preventing anyone from speaking," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said, when asked about the survivors.

But Graham said he thinks the administration is “trying to cover it up,” citing the valuable information the survivors hold. [read more]

Not sure Obama is not preventing anyone from speaking? Really? You mean you don’t know? Hmm. The administration denies trying to hush the survivors’ stories. So, who is telling the truth? The Obama admin. or the survivors? I am going with the survivors. Why would they lie? I agree with Sen. Graham Obama is trying to cover up the Benghazi terror attack. Not only is Obama covering it up but so is the lame stream press. Could possibly be a violation of the First Amendment to me.

So, what’s the POTUS going to do if they do talk openly about their experiences? Have drones go after them?

Miscellaneous Thoughts Part 27

• I am not pro-gun, I am pro self-defense. If you live in a dangerous area either learn self-defense or get a gun. The police may not get there in time to save you. Self-defense is what the 2nd Amendment is all about.
• According to the Left, if you think the federal gov’t is fallible or imperfect then you are anti-gov’t.  After all to them Big Gov’t = God. And God is perfect.
• Guns don’t kill people. Crazy or evil people do. Jack the Ripper didn’t use a gun and England’s very strict gun laws didn’t protect his victims. Even the Soviet Union had a serial killer. And that was supposed to be a utopia.
• The Left wants everybody to sacrifice except for Big Gov’t, Big Labor, lawyers, Hollywood, and universities (ever hear a Leftist want a university to lower its tuition?)
• Humor: I am waiting for Killing Garfield and Killing McKinley by Bill O’Reilly. Those are two presidential assassinations that he hasn’t written about.
• If you take a drink every time you hear a Leftist mention President George W. Bush’s name you could get drunk in no time.
• Humor: If a polka musician gets hit on the head does he see accordions revolving around it?
• If the POTUS can’t take blame for the state of the economy then he can’t take credit for anything that good happens to it either. Responsibility goes both ways. Otherwise you are delusional.
• A country’s constitution is its conscience. A week or non-existence one could lead to a sociopath dictator (like Hitler or Saddam Hussein) to rise to power.
• If so-called experts say society as a whole is responsible for a person’s bad choices then are these experts partly responsible for that same person’s bad choices? After all aren’t these experts part of society too?

The Left’s Version of The Book of Genesis Part 2

2:7 And the LORD Gov formed man’s mind of a progressive.

2:8 And the LORD Gov planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whose mind he had formed.

2:9 And out of the ground made the LORD Gov to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of truth.

2:10 And the LORD Gov commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

2:11 But of the tree of  truth, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely be ostracized.

2:12 And the LORD Gov said, It is not good that the man be indoctrinated by himself; I will indoctrinate him a help mate. So, Gov found a woman to indoctrinate.

2:13 And they were both indoctrinated and were none the wiser.

2:14 Now the conservative was more subtil than any person. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath Gov said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

2:15 And the woman said unto the conservative, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

2:16 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, Gov hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye be ostracized.

2:17 3:4 And the conservative said unto the woman, Ye maybe ostracized:

2:18 For Gov doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall know the truth of Gov and progressives.

2:19 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

2:20 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were being conned; and they knew Gov was fallible and did not need him so much. That Gov would also treat them as children. That there no such thing as collective salvation. And liberty and self-control is healthy.

2:21 And they heard the voice of the LORD Gov walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD Gov amongst the trees of the garden.

2:22 And the LORD Gov called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

2:23 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was duped by thou; and I hid myself.

2:24 And he said, Who told thee that thou was duped by thee? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

2:25 And the man said, The woman whom thou indoctrinated with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

2:26 And the LORD Gov said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The conservative talked to me, and I did eat.

2:27 And the LORD Gov said unto the conservative, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all people, and thou will be ridiculed, insulted, and blamed for all the days of thy life:

2:28 And the conservative said, What else is new.

2:29 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

2:30 And so both Adam and Eve were kicked out the garden because they had their eyes opened and became conservatives or at least not progressives anymore. They had children and their children had children who also became conservatives which really ticked off Gov.

Is Obama a Narcissist?

According to the DSM-IV-TR these are symptoms of the disorder:

1. Reacting to criticism with anger, shame, or humiliation
2. Taking advantage of others to reach own goals
3. Exaggerating own importance, achievements, and talents
4. Imagining unrealistic fantasies of success, beauty, power, intelligence, or romance
5. Requiring constant attention and positive reinforcement from others
6. Becoming jealous easily
7. Lacking empathy and disregarding the feelings of others
8. Being obsessed with self
9. Pursuing mainly selfish goals
10. Trouble keeping healthy relationships
11. Becoming easily hurt and rejected
12. Setting goals that are unrealistic
13. Wanting "the best" of everything
14. Appearing unemotional

In my opinion, he has every symptom but 10. I am not sure on symptoms six and twelve. Since he doesn’t want to be seen governing I don’t know what his goals for the country are other than destroying the republican party and wanting the country to be another France.

He didn’t like criticism of his ears. That fits symptom 11 and possibly one.

Since he uses people around him as props for photos and deliberately canceled any white house tours so he could use the sequestration as an excuse that is symptom two.

When he gave his first inauguration speech he was by himself without any family standing in front of columns. He also said his speaking ability was a gift when asked. These behaviors are symptom three.

The main stream press and his accolades never criticism him. We are told he is the smartest and coolest president ever. Also, the press never investigated him during the first election. That’s symptom five.

As for lacking empathy and disregarding the feelings of others, he calls republicans or anyone who disagrees with his progressive\socialistic perspective  “evil” or even racist. Even if he doesn’t do it he doesn’t apologize or condemn those on the Left who do.

When he sang one time at a press conference when someone asked about his singing ability that’s symptom eight.

I could go on but you get the point.

Obama could very well be a Phallic narcissist. According to a wikipedia article this kind of  “individual is elitist, a ‘social climber’, admiration seeking, self-promoting, bragging and empowered by social success.” Yea, he fits most of those traits.

The Left’s Version of The Book of Genesis

c 1:1 In the beginning Gov* created money and power.

1:2 And the power was without form, and void; and liberty was upon the face of the country.  And the Spirit of Gov moved upon the faces of the people of the country.

1:3 And Gov said, Let there be regulations: and there were regulations.

1:4 And Gov saw the regulations, that it was good: and Gov increased regulations which diminished liberty.

1:5 And Gov called the regulations Gov’t Agencies, and liberty he called Dangerous.

1:6 And Gov said, Let the country increase taxes, regulations and more gov’t agencies across the land. Taxes then were created to feed Gov.

1:7 And Gov bailed out banks, car companies, and other businesses deemed too-big-too-fail. The Gov also gave money to solar power companies that failed in the end.

1:8 And Gov blessed the gov’t agencies, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and let regulations multiply in the country.

1:9 And Gov said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over things Gov doesn’t care about.

1:10 So Gov created man in his own image, in the image of Gov created he him; Secular and Progressive created he them.

1:11 And Gov blessed them, and God said unto them, Be resentful, and power-hungry, and propagandize the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the Commoners.

1:12 And Gov said, Behold, I have created public education where you can learn that Gov knows what is best for you and you don’t need your parents, friends or charities to help you. That individuality is not good and group’s have rights but individuals don’t. That guns and businesses are evil.

1:13 And to every Commoner I give to you welfare, social security, and socialized medicine because you are incapable of taking care of yourself.

1:14 And Gov saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And even more gov’t agencies were created.

1:15 Thus the money and power were finished, and all the host of them.

1:16 And on some unknown day Gov ended his work which he had made; and he rested temporarily on a gov’t holiday from all his work which he had made.

 

*Government as in Big Government

Taylorism, Progressivism, and Rule by Experts

The Progressive movement at the turn of the twentieth century—the doctrine from which the main current of modern liberalism developed—is sometimes erroneously viewed as an “anti-business” philosophy. It was anti-market to be sure, but by no means necessarily anti-business. Progressivism was, more than anything, managerialist.

According to Rakesh Khurana of the Harvard Business School (in From Higher Aims to Hired Hands), the first corporation managers came from an industrial engineering background and saw their job as doing for the entire organization what they’d previously done for production on the shop floor. The managerial revolution in the large corporation, Khurana writes, was in essence an attempt to apply the engineer’s approach (standardizing and rationalizing tools, processes, and systems) to the organization as a system.

And according to Yehouda Shenhav (Manufacturing Rationality: The Engineering Foundations of the Managerial Revolution), Progressivism was the ideology of the managers and engineers who administered the large organizations; political action was a matter of applying the same principles they used to rationalize their organizations to society as a whole. Shenhav writes (quoting Robert Wiebe):

Since the difference between the physical, social, and human realms was blurred by acts of translation, society itself was conceptualized and treated as a technical system. As such, society and organizations could, and should, be engineered as machines that are constantly being perfected. Hence, the management of organizations (and society at large) was seen to fall within the province of engineers. Social, cultural, and political issues . . . could be framed and analyzed as “systems” and “subsystems” to be solved by technical means. . .

During this period, “only the professional administrator, the doctor, the social worker, the architect, the economist, could show the way.” In turn, professional control became more elaborate. It involved measurement and prediction and the development of professional techniques for guiding events to predictable outcomes. The experts “devised rudimentary government budgets; introduced central, audited purchasing; and rationalized the structure of offices.” This type of control was not only characteristic of professionals in large corporate systems. It characterized social movements,the management of schools, roads, towns, and political systems.

Source:  Taylorism, Progressivism, and Rule by Experts by Kevin A. Carson.

What the Left doesn’t understand is that human systems are complex because the human being is not an atom or molecule that can be easily analyzed. People have free will atoms don’t. An atom doesn’t care what you do to it. People do care what you do to them. Free will is one of the main reasons psychology, sociology, and other sciences like them are called “soft sciences.” 

Grasshopper and Ant

Just as the "Rocky" and "Star Wars" movies had their sequels, so should the old classic fables. Here is the sequel to a well-known fable.

Once upon a time, a grasshopper and an ant lived in a field. All summer long, the grasshopper romped and played, while the ant worked hard under the boiling sun to store up food for the winter.

When winter came, the grasshopper was hungry. One cold and rainy day, he went to ask the ant for some food.

"What are you, crazy?" the ant said. "I've been breaking my back all summer long while you ran around hopping and laughing at me for missing all the fun in life."

"Did I do that?" the grasshopper asked meekly.

"Yes! You said I was one of those old-fashioned clods who had missed the whole point of the modern self-realization philosophy."

"Gee, I'm sorry about that," the grasshopper said. "I didn't realize you were so sensitive. But surely you are not going to hold that against me at a time like this."

"Well, I don't hold a grudge---but I do have a long memory."

Just then another ant came along.

"Hi, Lefty," the first ant said.

"Hi, George."

"Lefty, do you know what this grasshopper wants me to do? He wants me to give him some of the food I worked for all summer, under the blazing sun."

"I would have thought you would already have volunteered to share with him, without being asked," Lefty said.

"What!!"

"When we have disparate shares in the bounty of nature, the least we can do is try to correct the inequity."

"Nature's bounty, my foot," George said. "I had to tote this stuff uphill and cross a stream on a log---all the while looking out for ant-eaters. Why couldn't this lazy bum gather his own food and store it?"

"Now, now, George," Lefty soothed. "Nobody uses the word 'bum' anymore. We say 'the homeless'."

"I say 'bum'. Anyone who is too lazy to put a roof over his head, who prefers to stand out in this cold rain to doing a little work---"

The grasshopper broke in: "I didn't know it was going to rain like this. The weather forecast said 'fair and warmer'."

"Fair and warmer?" George sniffed. "That's what the forecasters told Noah!"

Lefty looked pained. "I'm surprised at your callousness, George---your selfishness, your greed."

"Have you gone crazy, Lefty?"

"No. On the contrary, I have become educated."

"Sometimes that's worse, these days."

"Last summer, I followed a trail of cookie crumbs left by some students. It led to a classroom at Ivy University."

"You've been to college? No wonder you come back here with all these big words and dumb ideas."

"I disdain to answer that," Lefty said. "Anyway, it was Professor Murky's course on Social Justice. He explained how the world's benefits are unequally distributed."

"The world's benefits?" George repeated. "The world didn't carry this food uphill. The world didn't cross the water on a log. The world isn't going to be eaten by any ant-eater."

"That's the narrow way of looking at it," Lefty said.

"If you're so generous, why don't you feed this grasshopper?"

"I will," Lefty replied. Then, turning to the grasshopper, he said: "Follow me. I will take you to the government's shelter, where there will be food and a dry place to sleep."

George gasped. "You're working for the government now?"

"I'm in public service," Lefty said loftily. "I want to 'make a difference' in this world."

"You really have been to college," George said. "But if you're such a friend of the grasshopper, why don't you teach him how to work during the summer and save something for the winter?"

"We have no right to change his lifestyle and try to make him like us. That would be cultural imperialism."

George was too stunned to answer.

Lefty not only won the argument, he continued to expand his program of shelters for grasshoppers. As word spread, grasshoppers came from miles around. Eventually, some of the younger ants decided to adopt the grasshopper lifestyle.

As the older generation of ants passed from the scene, more and more ants joined the grasshoppers, romping and playing in the fields. Finally, all the ants and all the grasshoppers spent all their time enjoying the carefree lifestyle and lived happily ever after---all summer long. Then the winter came.

Source: The Thomas Sowell Reader (2011) by Thomas Sowell.

Einstein’s God

When asked if he was religious Einstein answered: “Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am in, in fact, religious.”

As a child, Einstein had gone through an ecstatic religious phase, then rebelled against it. For the next three decades, he tended not to pronounce much on the topic. But around the time he turned 50, he began to articulate more clearly---in various essays, interviews, and letters---his deepening appreciation of his Jewish heritage and, somewhat separately, his belief in God, albeit a rather impersonal, deistic concept of God.

More quotes from Albert Einstein about his religion:

The highest satisfaction of a scientific person is to come to the realization that God Himself could not have arranged these connections any other way than that which does exist, any more than it would have been in His power to make four a prime number.

As I child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.

No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.

I am not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.

I am a determinist. I do not believe in free will. Jews believe in free will. They believe that man shapes his own life. I reject that doctrine. In that respect I am not a Jew.

Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe---a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious  feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.

The cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research.

Einstein never felt the urge to denigrate those who believe in God; instead, he tended to denigrate atheists. “What separates me from most so-called atheists is a feeling of utter humility toward the unattainable secrets of the harmony of the cosmos,” he explained.

In fact, Einstein tended to be more critical of the debunkers, who seemed to lack humility or a sense of awe, than of the faithful. He said the fanatical atheists  are creatures who “in their grudge against traditional religion as the ‘opium of the masses’---cannot hear the music of the spheres.”

He wrote to a Brooklyn minister: “The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.”

Source: Einstein. His Life and Universe (2007) by Walter Isaacson.

The 13 Tax Increases in 2013

13 Tax Increases That Started January 1, 2013

Tax increases the fiscal cliff deal allowed:

1. Payroll tax: increase in the Social Security portion of the payroll tax from 4.2 percent to 6.2 percent for workers. This hits all Americans earning a paycheck—not just the “wealthy.” For example, The Wall Street Journal calculated that the “typical U.S. family earning $50,000 a year” will lose “an annual income boost of $1,000.”

2. Top marginal tax rate: increase from 35 percent to 39.6 percent for taxable incomes over $450,000 ($400,000 for single filers).

3. Phase out of personal exemptions for adjusted gross income (AGI) over $300,000 ($250,000 for single filers).

4. Phase down of itemized deductions for AGI over $300,000 ($250,000 for single filers).

5. Tax rates on investment: increase in the rate on  dividends and capital gains from 15 percent to 20 percent for taxable incomes over $450,000 ($400,000 for single filers).

6. Death tax: increase in the rate (on estates larger than $5 million) from 35 percent to 40 percent.

7. Taxes on business investment: expiration of full expensing—the immediate deduction of capital purchases by businesses.

Obamacare tax increases that took effect:

8. Another investment tax increase: 3.8 percent surtax on investment income for taxpayers with taxable income exceeding $250,000 ($200,000 for singles).

9. Another payroll tax hike: 0.9 percent increase in the Hospital Insurance portion of the payroll tax for incomes over $250,000 ($200,000 for single filers).

10. Medical device tax: 2.3 percent excise tax paid by medical device manufacturers and importers on all their sales.

11. Reducing the income tax deduction for individuals’ medical expenses.

12. Elimination of the corporate income tax deduction for expenses related to the Medicare Part D subsidy.

13. Limitation of the corporate income tax deduction for compensation that health insurance companies pay to their executives.

Each of these 13 tax increases will slow the economy, meaning that businesses will create fewer jobs. Fewer jobs will make it even more difficult to land a job than it already is for the more than 12 million Americans looking for work.

Source: What Are the 13 Tax Increases in 2013?

Obama’s NLRB Pushes “Snap Elections” for Union Gain

From blog.heritage.org (June 21, 2011):

Obama’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has been aggressively reinterpreting the law to foist unions on workers—whether they want them or not. The Board famously filed charges against Boeing for creating jobs at a nonunion plant in South Carolina. Today the Board announced its most aggressive move yet: snap elections.

Currently the NLRB takes between five and six weeks to conduct unionizing elections. Under the procedures the Board just proposed that time would fall to between 10 and 21 days.

Employers usually have no idea that unions have begun an organizing drive until the union files for an election. By that point the union has spent months selling workers on the value of unionizing. It is during the election campaign that employers get to respond.

Snap elections short-circuit employers’ ability to make their case. If the election takes place in a matter of days workers will base their decision (largely) on information received from the union. This does not benefit workers. [read more]

The blog goes on to say that some organizers use a sales tactic called “SPIN.” SPIN is an acronym for Situation, Problem, Implication, and Need payoff. Using this emotional method of persuasion the organizers try to get members. I emphasize the word “emotional” because using an emotional persuasive approach is easier than using a logical or rational approach. Anymore that’s what the Left has left in its arsenal—appealing to base emotions.

First, Big Labor wanted card check where the union leaders could see how an employee voted. Now this. If unions are supposed to be a good deal for the working guy then why all the tricks? Does Big Labor think that left up to a persons own judgment he or she won’t join a union? Then again the public never got a chance to read the ObamaCare bill before it was rushed through.

God’s Warning About Power

The early Israelites wanted a king like other nations so they can be judged. Before that they had judges but the judges were corrupt.

Samuel didn’t like the idea but prayed to God for help anyway. This is what God told Samuel:

Samuel 8:7 And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.

8:11 And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.

8:12 And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.

8:14 And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. [my emphasis]

8:15 And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. [my emphasis]

8:17 He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants. [my emphasis]

Let me make some observations about the passage above.

First the Israelites were being influenced by peer pressure. All other nations had kings so why can’t we? I mean if its good for them won’t having a king be good for us? People are people.

Secondly, God understood human nature very well. He knew about power corrupting. Look at the phrases I emphasized. Don’t they sound like socialism or at least fascism? God said the king will take not ask for volunteers to serve him. Not ask for food contributions but take whatever he needs. After all if he is the king then God will bless any actions he does even if God doesn’t bless them. All is needed is for the king to believe his actions are blessed. Because he is anointed.

Revising Classical Economics

There are five revisions that need to be made in the body of classical economics to transform it from a source of support for the exploitation theory into a source of complete and total opposition to the exploitation theory.

The conditions of the “early and rude state of society” assumed by Adam Smith, all income is actually profit, not wages.

The second necessary revision is the recognition of the positive productive functions of businessmen and capitalists and of the fact that they are the fundamental producers of products, inasmuch as they provide the guiding and directing intelligence in production at the highest level—and of the further fact that the variation of profits and interest with the size of the capital invested in no way contradicts these incomes being attributable to the labor of businessmen and capitalists.

The third necessary revision is consistent recognition of the role of private ownership of land in raising the productivity of labor in agriculture and mining. This leads to the conclusion that private ownership of land underlies the growth of the division of labor, by making labor available for industry and commerce.

Source: Capitalism by George Reisman.

Founders vs. Progressives

1. What is freedom? The Founders argued that adult human beings possess the
   right to be free from being ruled by others by the very fact of being born human.
   Additionally, the Founders argued that nature gives no human being a right to rule
   over, or to enslave, another human being. The Progressives argued that freedom is a
   product of human making, and not a natural right. The Progressives taught that there
   are two levels of freedom—negative freedom (freedom from subjection to the will of
   others), and positive freedom (or effective freedom, which requires both the forming
   of the individual in the ethical ideal as defined by government experts and also
   providing that individual with access to all the resources he needs to that end.)
2. What is the purpose of government? The Founders argued that government
   exists to protect man’s natural rights. If it fails to do this, it is unjust. The Progressives, having rejected natural rights, believe that government exists to create rights and to ensure that human beings are made equal. 
3. What constitutes good domestic policy? The Founders conceived of domestic
   policy as those things required for the protection of natural rights in the context of
   relations among fellow citizens. This list includes the criminal law, the civil law, the
   protection of the family, and the promotion of minimal citizen morality through
   government support of education and religion. Most of this fell within the power of
   the state and local governments. The Progressives countered that domestic policy
   should focus on equality and income redistribution, along with proper formation in
   the morality preached by Progressivism, because natural rights are nonexistent and
   true freedom requires “creating” people’s characters and giving them the necessary
   resources. They tasked federal and state government bureaucracies, rather than local governments, with achieving this end.  
4. What constitutes good foreign policy? The Founders believed that foreign
   policy serves the same purpose as domestic policy: the protection of the citizens’
   natural rights. A strong national defense and the protection of borders are necessary to achieve this end; imperialism is not. The Progressives, on the other hand, saw foreign policy as a tool for spreading democracy and for improving the lives of “inferior” races through imperialism.  
5. How important is the consent of the governed? Consent of the governed,
   as the Declaration states, is the only just means by which government derives its
   power and authority. It can never be discarded or ignored without becoming unjust
   and tyrannical. The Progressives rejected this argument. Without rejecting consent
   altogether, Progressives wanted to separate the institutions of government as far from the people as possible. They favored removing political power from local communities and centering it in state and federal bureaucracies staffed by “experts.”
6. Should government be limited or unlimited? The Founders believed in a
   government limited by its primary mission of protecting the natural rights of the
   people. Government was supposed to be powerful in regard to providing a strong
   national defense and to protecting individual rights by effective law enforcement and
   free markets. Beyond that, government was expected to leave people alone and set
   up self-governing private associations (families, churches, businesses, and clubs) to
   take care of the daily affairs of life. The Progressives completely abandoned limited
   government. The private sphere was no longer to be treated as private. An unrestricted government, they claimed, could effectively solve all social and economic problems, both for private institutions and individuals.

Source: Study Guide to “Overview: Founders vs. Progressives” Hillsdale College lecture by Thomas G. West.

Mr. West also talks in his lecture about post-60’s Progressivism where there was a split between the old Left and new Left. The new Progressives believed in multiculturalism, sexual expressionism, and environmentalism. The early progressives rejected these “isms.”

Mr. West also says that universities today are churches of the Left and the professors are its priests.

Edmund Burke on Power and Other Topics

Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to anything but power for their relief.

Yea, that pretty much sums it up back then in 1791 when he wrote that quote and now. Human nature hardly ever changes if at all especially when it comes to power.
Edmund Burke was the person who said “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Which is still true. Evil will never give up.
Other interesting quotes of his are:

Manners are of more importance than laws.... Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in.
Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.*
When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.
People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.
Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.
Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.
Society is indeed a contract.... It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.
To drive men from independence to live on alms, is itself great cruelty.^
And having looked to government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them. To avoid that evil, government will redouble the causes of it; and then it will become inveterate and incurable.^
Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.
The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science, because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate. (A criticism of socialism?)
The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.
The great must submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long submit to the dominion of the great.

*This is what the Founding Fathers also thought. The difference between liberty and freedom: Freedom + morality = liberty.
^Gee, I wonder what he talking about here. Hmmm……

Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates

Strictly speaking, the pirates' objective was economic more than political. The Barbary ships, in the service of dictatorial strongmen, had the job of holding to ransom foreign vessels plying the Mediterranean. The techniques were those of terror: the pirates perpetrated massacres and took the passengers of some ships hostage so that others would submit and pay tribute in order to travel in peace.

As the nineteenth century began, the young United States had already been the victim of hundreds of attacks against its merchant ships, and it decided to respond, in what would be its first large- scale foreign intervention. It was at this time that Washington assembled a naval force and that the United States, spurred by Thomas Jefferson, committed all available means to ridding itself of this scourge. After several unsuccessful attempts, the U.S. Navy helped free the Mediterranean of a peril that had tormented mariners for centuries.

At the time of its Mediterranean intervention, the United States was an insignificant nation absent from a geopolitical chessboard dominated by Europe: it is no coincidence that during the same period Napoleon Bonaparte sold off territory amounting to one- third of the present lower forty-eight American states to help finance his European campaigns. For its part, the American government decided to fully commit itself to a costly military campaign, whereas the Europeans had preferred to negotiate [my emphasis] with the Barbary dictators, incident by incident. But Jefferson had already understood what his successors would take more than a century to grasp: that America's interests were not confined to its national territory.

Source: The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to al Qaeda (2007)  by Gérard Chaliand and Arnaud Blin (editors)

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Negotiating with or appeasing evil (yes, I am calling these pirates evil) encourages more evil. It doesn’t ever make it go away. That’s what the Europeans back then and even before WWII never understood. Winston Churchill’s predecessor negotiated with Hitler. Hitler just laughed at the guy. Heck Hitler even broke his pact with the Soviet Union. I guess those appeasers can’t recognize evil for what it is. This is still a problem today.

I wonder what got the Muslim Barbary Pirates back then ticked off at America and the West back then. We didn’t occupy any of their lands back then. We were just minding our own business. And President George W. Bush wasn’t president back then.

One last thought. The editors makes an interest point about Jefferson. He wasn’t an isolationist. A good hypothetical question to presidential candidates: If you were Jefferson giving his situation what actions would you have take? I can take a good guess what Bush would have done.

The Concept of The “Pure-and-Perfect-Competition”

One definition of the “pure-and-perfect-competition (PPC)”:

Uniform products offered by all the sellers in the same industry, perfect knowledge, quantitative insignificance of each seller, no fear of retaliation by competitors in response to one’s actions, constant changes in price, and perfect ease of investment and disinvestment.

The “pure-and-perfect-competition” doctrine denounces capitalism because, as shown, businessmen refuse to suffer unnecessary losses.

Source: Capitalism by George Reisman

 

The PPC is just another example of a Utopia-like system. But mankind is imperfect therefore any social system will be imperfect. And since capitalism as well as socialism, communism, etc. is a social system it too will be imperfect. It is simple logic. But there are those who believe that man can evolve to be perfect by gov’t help. That gov’t can make a PPC system—hence socialism or even communism is formed as Karl Marx wanted.

In my college macroeconomics class I learned that equilibrium exists when supply equals demand. But this is just theoretical. It probably hardly ever happens. Supply and demand more than likely spirals chaotically around the equilibrium point. No gov’t I believe can ever prevent this behavior from happening. No matter how smart the economist they appoint. The free-market system is just too complex.

Socialism 101 Part 8

It follows directly from socialism’s fundamental moral and political premise, which is that the individual does not exist as an end in himself, but as a means to the ends of “Society.”

Private slave owners were motivated to treat their slaves with at least the same consideration they gave to their livestock, and to see to it that their overseers acted with the same consideration. But under socialism, the slaves are “public property”—the property of the state. Those who have charge of the slaves, therefore, have no personal economic interest in their lives or well-being. Since they are not owners of the slaves, they will not derive any personal material benefit if the slaves are alive to work in the future, nor suffer any personal material loss if the slaves are not alive to work in the future.

Government ownership does not give the alleged citizen-owner the psychological security that the possession of capital gives to a capitalist. Because, unlike the capitalist, he cannot sell his share in a government enterprise. Nor—except in the most unusual cases—does he receive dividends on his share.

The citizen’s share in government enterprises does him no good whatever. The fact that the enterprise is government owned merely means that it is operated without benefit of profit-and-loss incentives and the freedoms of individual initiative and competition. The result is almost always gross inefficiency, high costs, poor service, and low quality of products. (That’s exactly what Obamacare will be.)

Source: Capitalism by George Reisman