Category Archives: Politics

Individualism and the Industrial Revolution

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Liberals stressed the importance of the individual. The 19th-century liberals already considered the development of the individual the most important thing. “Individual and individualism” was the progressive and liberal slogan. Reactionaries had already attacked this position at the beginning of the 19th century.

The rationalists and liberals of the 18th century pointed out that what was needed was good laws. Ancient customs that could not be justified by rationality should be abandoned. The only justification for a law was whether or not it was liable to promote the public social welfare. In many countries the liberals and rationalists asked for written constitutions, the codification of laws, and for new laws which would permit the development of the faculties of every individual.

A reaction to this idea developed, especially in Germany where the jurist and legal historian Friedrich Karl von Savigny (1779–1861) was active. Savigny declared that laws cannot be written by men; laws are developed in some mystical way by the soul of the whole unit. It isn’t the individual that thinks—it is the nation or a social entity which uses the individual only for the expression of its own thoughts. This idea was very much emphasized by Marx and the Marxists. In this regard the Marxists were not followers of Hegel, whose main idea of historical evolution was an evolution toward freedom of the individual.

From the viewpoint of Marx and Engels, the individual was a negligible thing in the eyes of the nation. Marx and Engels denied that the individual played a role in historical evolution. According to them, history goes its own way. The material productive forces go their own way, developing independently of the wills of individuals. And historical events come with the inevitability of a law of nature. The material productive forces work like a director in an opera; they must have a substitute available in case of a problem, as the opera director must have a substitute if the singer gets sick. According to this idea, Napoleon and Dante, for instance, were unimportant—if they had not appeared to take their own special place in history, someone else would have appeared on stage to fill their shoes.

To understand certain words, you must understand the German language. From the 17th century on, considerable effort was spent in fighting the use of Latin words and in eliminating them from the German language. In many cases a foreign word remained although there was also a German expression with the same meaning. The two words began as synonyms, but in the course of history, they acquired different meanings. For instance, take the word Umwälzung, the literal German translation of the Latin word revolution. In the Latin word there was no sense of fighting. Thus, there evolved two meanings for the word “revolution”—one by violence, and the other meaning a gradual revolution like the “Industrial Revolution.” However, Marx uses the German word Revolution not only for violent revolutions such as the French or Russian revolutions, but also for the gradual Industrial Revolution.

Incidentally, the term Industrial Revolution was introduced by Arnold Toynbee (1852–1883). Marxists say that “What furthers the overthrow of capitalism is not revolution—look at the Industrial Revolution.”

Marx assigned a special meaning to slavery, serfdom, and other systems of bondage. It was necessary, he said, for the workers to be free in order for the exploiter to exploit them. This idea came from the interpretation he gave to the situation of the feudal lord who had to care for his workers even when they weren’t working. Marx interpreted the liberal changes that developed as freeing the exploiter of the responsibility for the lives of the workers. Marx didn’t see that the liberal movement was directed at the abolition of inequality under law, as between serf and lord.

Karl Marx believed that capital accumulation was an obstacle. In his eyes, the only explanation for wealth accumulation was that somebody had robbed somebody else. For Karl Marx the whole Industrial Revolution simply consisted of the exploitation of the workers by the capitalists. According to him, the situation of the workers became worse with the coming of capitalism. The difference between their situation and that of slaves and serfs was only that the capitalist had no obligation to care for workers who were no longer exploitable, while the lord was bound to care for slaves and serfs. This is another of the insoluble contradictions in the Marxian system. Yet it is accepted by many economists today without realizing of what this contradiction consists.

According to Marx, capitalism is a necessary and inevitable stage in the history of mankind leading men from primitive conditions to the millennium of socialism. If capitalism is a necessary and inevitable step on the road to socialism, then one cannot consistently claim, from the point of view of Marx, that what the capitalist does is ethically and morally bad. Therefore, why does Marx attack the capitalists?

Marx says part of production is appropriated by the capitalists and withheld from the workers. According to Marx, this is very bad. The consequence is that the workers are no longer in a position to consume the whole production produced. A part of what they have produced, therefore, remains unconsumed; there is “underconsumption.” For this reason, because there is underconsumption, economic depressions occur regularly. This is the Marxian underconsumption theory of depressions. Yet Marx contradicts this theory elsewhere.

Marxian writers do not explain why production proceeds from simpler to more and more complicated methods.

Nor did Marx mention the following fact: About 1700, the population of Great Britain was about 5.5 million; by the middle of 1700, the population was 6.5 million, about 500,000 of whom were simply destitute. The whole economic system had produced a “surplus” population. The surplus population problem appeared earlier in Great Britain than on continental Europe. This happened, first of all, because Great Britain was an island and so was not subject to invasion by foreign armies, which helped to reduce the populations in Europe. The wars in Great Britain were civil wars, which were bad, but they stopped. And then this outlet for the surplus population disappeared, so the numbers of surplus people grew. In Europe the situation was different; for one thing, the opportunity to work in agriculture was more favorable than in England.

The old economic system in England couldn’t cope with the surplus population. The surplus people were mostly very bad people—beggars and robbers and thieves and prostitutes. They were supported by various institutions, the poor laws,1 and the charity of the communities. Some were impressed into the army and navy for service abroad. There were also superfluous people in agriculture. The existing system of guilds and other monopolies in the processing industries made the expansion of industry impossible.

In those precapitalist ages, there was a sharp division between the classes of society who could afford new shoes and new clothes, and those who could not. The processing industries produced by and large for the upper classes. Those who could not afford new clothes wore hand-me-downs. There was then a very considerable trade in secondhand clothes—a trade which disappeared almost completely when modern industry began to produce also for the lower classes. If capitalism had not provided the means of sustenance for these “surplus” people, they would have died from starvation. Smallpox accounted for many deaths in precapitalist times; it has now been practically wiped out. Improvements in medicine are also a product of capitalism.

What Marx called the great catastrophe of the Industrial Revolution was not a catastrophe at all; it brought about a tremendous improvement in the conditions of the people. Many survived who wouldn’t have survived otherwise. It is not true, as Marx said, that the improvements in technology are available only to the exploiters and that the masses are living in a state much worse than on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. Everything the Marxists say about exploitation is absolutely wrong! Lies! In fact, capitalism made it possible for many persons to survive who wouldn’t have otherwise. And today many people, or most people, live at a much higher standard of living than that at which their ancestors lived 100 or 200 years ago.

During the 18th century, there appeared a number of eminent authors—the best known was Adam Smith (1723–1790)—who pleaded for freedom of trade. And they argued against monopoly, against the guilds, and against privileges given by the king and Parliament. Secondly, some ingenious individuals, almost without any savings and capital, began to organize starving paupers for production, not in factories but outside the factories, and not for the upper classes only. These newly organized producers began to make simple goods precisely for the great masses. This was the great change that took place; this was the Industrial Revolution. And this Industrial Revolution made more food and other goods available so that the population rose. Nobody saw less of what really was going on than Karl Marx. By the eve of the Second World War, the population had increased so much that there were 60 million Englishmen.

You can’t compare the United States with England. The United States began almost as a country of modern capitalism. But we may say by and large that out of eight people living today in the countries of Western civilization, seven are alive only because of the Industrial Revolution. Are you personally sure that you are the one out of eight who would have lived even in the absence of the Industrial Revolution? If you are not sure, stop and consider the consequences of the Industrial Revolution.

The interpretation given by Marx to the Industrial Revolution is applied also to the interpretation of the “superstructure.” Marx said the “material productive forces,” the tools and machines, produce the “production relations,” the social structure, property rights, and so forth, which produce the “superstructure,” the philosophy, art, and religion. The “superstructure,” said Marx, depends on the class situation of the individuals, i.e., whether he is a poet, painter, and so on. Marx interpreted everything that happened in the spiritual life of the nation from this point of view. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) was called a philosopher of the owners of common stock and bonds. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was called the philosopher of big business. For every change in ideology, for every change in music, art, novel writing, play writing, the Marxians had an immediate interpretation. Every new book was explained by the “superstructure” of that particular day. Every book was assigned an adjective—”bourgeois” or “proletarian.” The bourgeoisie were considered an undifferentiated reactionary mass.

Don’t think it is possible for a man to practice all his life a certain ideology without believing in it. The use of the term “mature capitalism” shows how fully persons, who don’t think of themselves as Marxian in any way, have been influenced by Marx. Mr. and Mrs. Hammond, in fact almost all historians, have accepted the Marxian interpretation of the Industrial Revolution.2 The one exception is Ashton.3

“Everything the Marxists say about exploitation is absolutely wrong! Lies! In fact, capitalism made it possible for many persons to survive who wouldn’t have otherwise.”

Karl Marx, in the second part of his career, was not an interventionist; he was in favor of laissez-faire. Because he expected the breakdown of capitalism and the substitution of socialism to come from the full maturity of capitalism, he was in favor of letting capitalism develop. In this regard he was, in his writings and in his books, a supporter of economic freedom.

Marx believed that interventionist measures were unfavorable because they delayed the coming of socialism. Labor unions recommended interventions and, therefore, Marx was opposed to them. Labor unions don’t produce anything anyway and it would have been impossible to raise wage rates if producers had not actually produced more.

Marx claimed interventions hurt the interests of the workers. The German socialists voted against [Otto von] Bismarck’s social reforms that he instituted circa 1881 (Marx died in 1883). And in this country the Communists were against the New Deal. Of course, the real reason for their opposition to the government in power was very different. No opposition party wants to assign so much power to another party. In drafting socialist programs, everybody assumes tacitly that he himself will be the planner or the dictator, or that the planner or dictator will be intellectually completely dependent on him and that the planner or dictator will be his handyman. No one wants to be a single member in the planning scheme of somebody else.

These ideas of planning go back to Plato’s treatise on the form of the commonwealth. Plato was very outspoken. He planned a system ruled exclusively by philosophers. He wanted to eliminate all individual rights and decisions. Nobody should go anywhere, rest, sleep, eat, drink, wash, unless he was told to do so. Plato wanted to reduce persons to the status of pawns in his plan. What is needed is a dictator who appoints a philosopher as a kind of prime minister or president of the central board of production management. The program of all such consistent socialists—Plato and Hitler, for instance—planned also for the production of future socialists, the breeding and education of future members of society.

During the 2,300 years since Plato, very little opposition has been registered to his ideas. Not even by Kant. The psychological bias in favor of socialism must be taken into consideration in discussing Marxian ideas. This is not limited to those who call themselves Marxian.

Marxians deny that there is such a thing as the search for knowledge for the sake of knowledge alone. But they are not consistent in this case either, for they say one of the purposes of the socialist state is to eliminate such a search for knowledge. It is an insult, they say, for persons to study things that are useless.

Now I want to discuss the meaning of the ideological distortion of truths. Class consciousness is not developed in the beginning, but it must inevitably come. Marx developed his doctrine of ideology because he realized he couldn’t answer the criticisms raised against socialism. His answer was, “What you say is not true. It is only ideology. What a man thinks, so long as we do not have a classless society, is necessarily a class ideology—that is, it is based on a false consciousness.” Without any further explanation, Marx assumed that such an ideology was useful to the class and to the members of the class that developed it. Such ideas had for their goal the pursuit of the aims of their class.

Marx and Engels appeared and developed the class ideas of the proletariat. Therefore, from this time on the doctrine of the bourgeoisie is absolutely useless. Perhaps one may say that the bourgeoisie needed this explanation to solve a bad conscience. But why should they have a bad conscience if their existence is necessary? And it is necessary, according to Marxian doctrine, for without the bourgeoisie, capitalism cannot develop. And until capitalism is “mature,” there cannot be any socialism.

According to Marx, bourgeois economics, sometimes called “apologetics for bourgeois production,” aided them, the bourgeoisie. The Marxians could have said that the thought the bourgeoisie gave to this bad bourgeois theory justified, in their eyes, as well as in the eyes of the exploited, the capitalist mode of production, thus making it possible for the system to exist. But this would have been a very un-Marxist explanation. First of all, according to Marxian doctrine, no justification is needed for the bourgeois system of production; the bourgeoisie exploit because it is their business to exploit, just as it is the business of the microbes to exploit. The bourgeoisie don’t need any justification. Their class consciousness shows them that they have to do this; it is the capitalist’s nature to exploit.

A Russian friend of Marx wrote him that the task of the socialists must be to help the bourgeoisie exploit better and Marx replied that that was not necessary. Marx then wrote a short note saying that Russia could reach socialism without going through the capitalist stage. The next morning he must have realized that, if he admitted that one country could skip one of the inevitable stages, this would destroy his whole theory. So he didn’t send the note. Engels, who was not so bright, discovered this piece of paper in the desk of Karl Marx, copied it in his own handwriting, and sent his copy to Vera Zasulich (1849–1919), who was famous in Russia because she had attempted to assassinate the police commissioner in St. Petersburg and been acquitted by the jury—she had a good defense counsel. This woman published Marx’s note, and it became one of the great assets of the Bolshevik Party.

The capitalist system is a system in which promotion is precisely according to merit. If people do not get ahead, there is bitterness in their minds. They are reluctant to admit that they do not advance because of their lack of intelligence. They take their lack of advancement out on society. Many blame society and turn to socialism.

This tendency is especially strong in the ranks of intellectuals. Because professionals treat each other as equals, the less capable professionals consider themselves “superior” to nonprofessionals and feel they deserve more recognition than they receive. Envy plays an important role. There is a philosophical predisposition among persons to be dissatisfied with the existing state of affairs. There is dissatisfaction, also, with political conditions. If you are dissatisfied, you ask what other kind of state can be considered.

Marx had “antitalent”—i.e., a lack of talent. He was influenced by Hegel and Feuerbach, especially by Feuerbach’s critique of Christianity. Marx admitted that the exploitation doctrine was taken from an anonymous pamphlet published in the 1820s. His economics were distortions taken over from [David] Ricardo (1772–1823).4

Marx was economically ignorant; he didn’t realize that there can be doubts concerning the best means of production to be applied. The big question is, how shall we use the available scarce factors of production. Marx assumed that what has to be done is obvious. He didn’t realize that the future is always uncertain, that it is the job of every businessman to provide for the unknown future. In the capitalist system, the workers and technologists obey the entrepreneur. Under socialism, they will obey the socialist official. Marx didn’t take into consideration the fact that there is a difference between saying what has to be done and doing what somebody else has said must be done. The socialist state is necessarily a police state.

The withering away of the state was just Marx’s attempt to avoid answering the question about what would happen under socialism. Under socialism, the convicts will know that they are being punished for the benefit of the whole society.

Ludwig von Mises was the acknowledged leader of the Austrian school of economic thought, a prodigious originator in economic theory, and a prolific author. Mises’s writings and lectures encompassed economic theory, history, epistemology, government, and political philosophy. His contributions to economic theory include important clarifications on the quantity theory of money, the theory of the trade cycle, the integration of monetary theory with economic theory in general, and a demonstration that socialism must fail because it cannot solve the problem of economic calculation. Mises was the first scholar to recognize that economics is part of a larger science in human action, a science that he called praxeology.

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Leftist Destruction of Great American Cities: Not Stupidity; It’s Obscenity

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Brietbart News headline: “Portland [OR] Mayor Admits Failure in Dealing With Antifa, Asks for Federal, State Help”

Defund and demoralize police. Arrest law-abiding people for operating their businesses during a flu outbreak. Order police NOT to arrest thugs and looters who falsely label themselves “peaceful protestors”. When chaos results: Whine, complain, refuse help from Trump. Then blame Trump. Then demand people from other states pay to clean up your mess. This isn’t stupidity. It’s an obscenity.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Why the Left Always Wins

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On the morning of November 3, I texted a friend about how proud I was of America. After all the vilification, Trump would win because the system works. The last thing I said to my son-in-law as I went to bed that night was, “Don’t worry. They can’t overcome a nine-point lead in Pennsylvania. Trump is going to win.”

How could I have been so blind? Because I had faith in the law. As the most destructive interstate crime campaign in American history was playing out, videos emerged (Philadelphia, Detroit, Gary) of authorized poll-watchers being barred from entering election headquarters by latter-day Bull Connors. Other poll-watchers were frog-marched out of buildings. Why did law-abiding people obey the criminals? Why didn’t they go full Rosa Parks and refuse to move? Or Gandhi up with passive resistance and have to be dragged out of buildings? Why did they shuffle out like segregated blacks going to the back of the bus? Would BLM or Antifa blackshirts plead for lawful entry while pathetically presenting credentials? Was it fear of arrest? The Republican poll-watchers didn’t look afraid as they submitted to felonious leftists. Just as I believed in the election, they did as they were told because the essence of the reverential American political orientation is faith in the law. Furthermore, it is abhorrent to the character structure that underlies that orientation to make a public scene.

The American right and left wings can be conceptualized as two incompatible political orientations: reverential and deconstructivist. The former sustains America as a constitutional republic. The goal of reverentialism is summarized in Jefferson’s description of God-given freedoms protected by the just operation of law, which descends from the Constitution. Reverentialism believes that the Constitution should be literally interpreted but can be changed by amendment, as has happened 27 times. Reverentialism is essentially positive and is based on the belief that America is inherently good and special.

Because reverentialism draws its inspiration from God, it is not merely a belief, but an eternal conviction worth dying for. While many reverential Americans are Christians, many are not. Reverentialism constitutes a civic morality derived from an intuition of the supreme significance of freedom for all and is independent of religion or changing political circumstances. A recent theory of morality suggests that the highest moral character has three primary traits: truthfulness, humility, and faith. These traits are developed in reverentialism and diminished in deconstructivism, especially humility. The humility of reverentialism derives from the premise “God is great; I am not.” Work to preserve the right to life and liberty should be done with as little self-reference and egoic noise as possible. The humility of this orientation ennobles taking an oath to defend the Constitution and pledging allegiance to the flag. The reverential personality type prefers to join stable organizations with written bylaws and recognized leadership structures. This is due not to submissiveness to authoritarianism, as the contemptuous left charges, but from humility which enables the reverential personality to submerge the ego to follow righteous leaders in a worthy cause.

God is irrelevant to the deconstructivist political orientation, which is based on the premise, “With or without God, my greatness lies in recognizing the wrongs of America.” The deconstructive orientation does not include written, affirmative foundational beliefs that can serve as the basis of a complete body of legal governance. Deconstructivism is driven by an evolving, progressive interpretation of historical and temporal conditions focusing on perceived grievance and intolerance. Deconstructivism is entirely reactive and inherently negative. It is fueled by the energy of enmity against America, driven by an ever changing horizon of injustice, especially white racism. Deconstructivists who claim to love America are hypocrites. Their politics is sneaky and duplicitous and promotes disrespect for the law.

Deconstructivism asserts that America must fundamentally change to promote an ill defined goal called social justice. Because the deconstructivist is hero of his own drama, the orientation does not foster humility. Political deconstructionism thrives on exhibitionism, ostentation, obscenity, and criminality. Energy is expended in a display of phony virtue, creating inertia for any form of selfless service. The marquee performers in deconstructivist politics — Antifa, BLM, and Ocasio-Cortez’s “Squad” — commit squalid financial crimes and murder, or more exotic ones like marrying your own brother to circumvent immigration law. They are never held responsible for their crimes. A preposterous double-standard in law enforcement protects left-wing crime because the DOJ and the government in general have taken cover in the lazy, self-serving deconstructivist worldview.

Trump is so wildly popular because he has a bold, deconstructive, exhibitionist personality with reverential politics superimposed upon it.

Leftist deconstructivism ultimately makes people incapable of loyalty to anyone but themselves. The deconstructivist personality tends to disrespect “organized” religion and other chartered organizations because of its toxic egoism. Furthermore, membership in such organizations often involves useful work. Deconstructivist people prefer touting vaguely defined identity communities, which doesn’t entail charity or service and conveniently shifts in the ever changing winds of victimologies. The deconstructivist orientation tends to discredit oaths of loyalty to country and to the people who take them. Disrespecting the flag is a cheap, gaudy way to display self-appointed moral superiority without personal sacrifice.

The deconstructivist political orientation controls government on all levels, corporations, and the educational system because in post-scarcity America maintaining a constitutional republic is just too much work. Deconstructivism is simpler to learn, easier to embrace, and tons more fun to practice than patriotic sacrifice. The leftist has only to dilate on racism to other smug communitarians, COVID air-hug in delusional moral superiority, and his work is done. Furthermore, the streets have been filled with kids looting stores, beating people up, even killing people, and the police don’t care. So much fun! The alternative is a conviction to stand for God-given liberty, respect the law, bear arms, and from time to time refresh the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots. Who’s buying that — especially when your professor tells you people who believe that stuff are deplorable racists.

As I examined my shame about believing in a lawful election, I thought about the horrific criminality that has descended upon America. I work in a poor community. I have knowledge of two serious crimes, a murder and a devastating home break-in. In both cases, the victims know the perpetrators, but months later, no arrests have been made. Left-wing deconstructivism has visited this lawlessness upon our nation, and more is planned.

Even if by some miracle Trump remains president, the criminal left will keep winning, winning, winning because we are playing their game. I won’t be fooled again. America is no longer one nation under God. One road ahead is armed rebellion. It is justified but won’t solve the problem. Neither will political secession. Our liberty remains God-given, and we don’t need a new Constitution. America’s better half, the 75 million–plus whose votes were stolen, need to face that we live in a nation controlled by hostile occupiers.

We can’t kill them, but we can stop playing by their rules. We need a written charter to establish a massive, subnational economic partition, social apartheid, moral renaissance, and a sacred oath to uphold reverential ideals. We can stop giving deconstructivists money. We need our own currency with a preferential dollar exchange rate for members, our own culture, our own police. These changes are happening piecemeal with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and social media like Parler. But we must proceed, economically and culturally, in an organized, comprehensive manner, canceling and replacing left-wing corporations, media, and educational institutions.

The deconstructivists need us. We do not need them.

Deborah C. Tyler, American Thinker

After Trump: The Two-Party System May Die

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Growing up in Louisiana, there was a term known as “Conservative Democrat” or Blue Dog Democrats. Having been raised in the same general neighborhood as Britney Spears’ parents and the family of Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, we all knew what it meant to be fiscally conservative, have quality public health care, and we knew how to care for our environment to protect hunting, fishing, farming, and tree cropping.

Governor Edwards won re-election. Did I think he would win? Yes, and it had nothing to do with Trump. As a matter of fact, the overwhelming winners statewide in Louisiana were republicans in recent elections where one statewide Republican candidate beat the Democrat by 250,000 votes 59%-41% (WAFB9, n.d.).

In the end, John Bel Edwards only needed a fraction of the Republican or Blue Dogs to vote to win 51-49. Because of Governor Edwards’ credentials from the military and other right of center issues such as being pro-life (Bridges, 2019), he is a natural candidate for traditional & centrist Louisiana voters. Thus, anyone saying that Trump helped Edwards get elected is a political buffoon if they see the facts.

So, what is the moral of the story? Do I think that Democrats will begin running “pro-life” veterans in all of the states to capture power in the elections? The answer is no because to win the nomination and the primary, the candidates need to appease the 33% hard core leftist voters who have some fairly extreme litmus tests to follow. However, Governor Edwards is being labeled a DINO Democrat in Name Only. Honestly, that is not a bad label to get these days.

Since the Republican party has become the home to the working families or labor voters, it may be best for the Republican Party to operate more like the old Farmer Labor party of Minnesota (“Minnesota Farmer–Labor Party,” n.d.). Today. it seems that the Farmer Labor Party selects the best candidates to be supported by the Larger Democratic Party of Minnesota. For Republicans to replicate this process, it may be best for the Republicans to enter and take over the Democrat party from the inside and begin to approve the best candidates internally with the conservative democrats during a one party primary rather than put up republicans that can’t win. That is the way it was in Louisiana before Reagan anyway.

Once the Republican party fills up the Democrat party, then the old republican party could be morphed in to a Worker, Teacher Farmer Labor Reform Party which nominates the best candidate within the Democrat Party. Thus, the country will be a one party system and conservative worker voters would control the democrat party for the next 80 years. This would force the democrat party to nominate candidates who are best for ALL the people instead of just 1/3rd or 1/4th of the people who control the democrats today.

In this way, all voters could be registered in the Democrat party, and it would immediately begin to lean to the center right for the next 80 years. The reason it would lean right is that if all the working families were in one party, they would be able to outvote those who just want political control to fleece the people and the government.

In the case of Gov. John Bel Edwards, he only needed 4-6% of the Blue Dog or republican vote to take the statewide election. However, the sad news is that when governors like Edwards win, the spoils tend to go almost exclusively to the democrat party leftist-loyalists while the vast majority of entrepreneurs, small business and working folks who are not registered democrats are cut out of influence and leadership.

Before the re-election of Edwards, I spoke to an UBER driver in New Orleans at length, and the democrat party was primarily unified on one issue which was Medicaid expansion. Medicaid is not Obamacare. Thus, Obama crashed the free Louisiana Health Care System that worked for the most needy, and now, Medicaid expansion is the only way to keep the least fortunate covered and happy. Medicaid pays for health care for more than 74.5 million people nationally (National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), 2019a). Although participation is optional, all 50 states participate in the Medicaid program. As crazy as that sounds, Medicaid may be the only issue that holds the democrats together that they can all agree upon.

The moral and ethical problem of having a one party system is that many Republicans of today left the democratic party years ago because the democrat party leaders of the past were involved in: segregation, Jim Crow, the KKK and other natural law violations like slavery, lynching, and the loss the Civil War (O’Donnell, 2018). Thus, if everyone moved over to the “one party system”, it would be best to have a vote to repudiate the old party and it’s complicity in the crimes of the past, fold the Democratic party in the same way the NAZI party had to be “shut down” after WWII, and then create a new party name for the ‘one party system”.

Similar to Louisiana Governor Edwards, a conservative labor oriented leader like President Trump who is focused on working families will also defeat Democrats every time against a liberal because Trump only needs a small percentage of Reagan Democrats or Trump Democrats to win.

Maybe it would be best to just have one new party called the: TWF or “Teacher, Worker, Farmer Party”. Then we can avoid costly elections altogether, save the money, and whoever wins the TWF nomination will end up being the elected official?

George Mentz JD MBA CWM Chartered Wealth Manager ® is a licensed attorney and CEO of GAFM ® global education, which is an ISO 29990 Certified professional development company operating in over 50 nations. He is an award-winning author and advisory board member to several companies around the world in education, charities, and FinTech Companies.

The Wisdom of Ayn Rand

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Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man’s values, it has to be earned—that of any achievements open to you, the one that makes all others possible is the creation of your own character—that your character, your actions, your desires, your emotions are the products of the premises held by your mind—that as man must produce the physical values he needs to sustain his life, so he must acquire the values of character that make his life worth sustaining—that as man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul—that to live requires a sense of self-value, but man, who has no automatic values, has no automatic sense of self-esteem and must earn it by shaping his soul in the image of his moral ideal, in the image of Man, the rational being he is born able to create, but must create by choice—that the first precondition of self-esteem is that radiant selfishness of soul which desires the best in all things, in values of matter and spirit, a soul that seeks above all else to achieve its own moral perfection, valuing nothing higher than itself—and that the proof of an achieved self-esteem is your soul’s shudder of contempt and rebellion against the role of a sacrificial animal, against the vile impertinence of any creed that proposes to immolate the irreplaceable value which is your consciousness and the incomparable glory which is your existence to the blind evasions and the stagnant decay of others.

How Did America Become A Lawless Nation? “Gradually, Then Suddenly”

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A Bronx judge cut a teen murder suspect loose, only for him to allegedly slash a young woman in the stomach — and then get sprung again by the same jurist, The Post has learned.

Supreme Court Justice Denis Boyle freed 16-year-old Jordon Benjamin without bail for the more recent December knife attack, allowing him to roam the streets despite the two pending cases for violent crimes.

His alleged victims and their families are now furious over the kid-gloves treatment.

“This is crazy,” Tynisha Smith, the mother of slashing victim Amya Hicks, said Monday.

“We thought he was still in jail,” said Smith, 33. “She doesn’t have an order of protection or nothing. He’s local. He hangs out two blocks away.”

“Nobody called us,” she said. “I’m going to ring her now and tell her to get home. They didn’t give us a heads up or nothing. This is ridiculous. He can hurt another person.”

The first case against Benjamin is from Christmas Eve 2019. Sixty-year-old Juan Fresnada was walking with his roommate when police said the pair were assaulted by a group of teenagers — allegedly including Benjamin.

Video of the brutal attack shows that Fresnada was stomped and pounded with a garbage can. He died from his injuries three days later at Lincoln Hospital, police said.

The teens got away with $1.

Benjamin was initially confined to the Crossroads Juvenile Center in Brooklyn on a manslaughter charge but freed by Boyle in March due to concerns over the coronavirus behind bars.

Benjamin then allegedly slashed Hicks on Intervale Avenue in the Bronx on Dec. 14, not far from his Hall Place home.

He was arrested three days later and charged with felony assault and attempted assault, and misdemeanor weapons possession — but released without bail at his arraignment.

Hicks spent two days in the hospital and underwent surgery, her mother said.

juan fresnada-web

“I’m shocked,” Bayron Caceres, Fresnada’s roommate, said Monday when told that Benjamin remained free.

“It’s injustice,” said Caceres, 30. “I thought he was on trial. I thought he was in jail. It is unbelievable to me, the injustice.”

Fresnada’s building is just steps away from where Benjamin and his friends regularly hang out — and where he continues to hang out.

“I can’t believe they let him back out here,” a neighbor told The Post. “Now I gotta keep looking back over my shoulder.”

The lawyer who represented Benjamin in the murder case did not respond to a call and email seeking comment Monday.

Boyle did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But in a statement, the state Office of Court Administration said Boyle followed the law.

“Judges follow the law and the law clearly states that the least restrictive alternative should be the preeminent driver in bail consideration,” OCA spokesman Lucian Chalfen said in the statement.

“Once released on his manslaughter charge, this defendant returned to court for all subsequent appearances, and the expectation is that that will continue with the new charge,” Chalfen wrote.

John Derbyshire, UNZ Review

The Time is Perfect to Decentralized D.C.

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Much has been written about the pandemic-driven favorable aspects, promise, and implications of virtual working compared to traditional in-person interfaces. We are all woke to the now known to be unnecessary complications, inconveniences and costs of physical offices, urban crime, commuting, and virus-transmitting.

Much less has been written about virtual management’s implications for decentralizing the federal government and putting the decision-makers physically among the decision-affected — real instead of virtual reality.
How about considering the following departmental tectonic shifts: Interior to Wyoming, Utah, or Colorado; Agriculture to Iowa, Nebraska, or South Dakota; and Commerce to Florida or Louisiana?

Regulators of the environment could literally step out their back doors and visit a forest, see a farm, soybean, cornfield, or cow; or visit a vibrant multicultural economy on the hemisphere’s doorsteps.

Relocating individuals could cash in on D.C.’s inflated housing prices and boost their quality of life with bigger homes and maybe even a back 40, or at least a backyard. Fourth of July parades in clean, healthy open air and Eagle Scouting could be reborn.

Sub-Cabinet-level relocation possibilities are equally endless: Fisheries to New England, FDA to the university-rich Research Triangle in North Carolina, and the FAA to an actual hub such as Nashville, St. Louis, or even Chicago.

The movement even lends itself to a catchy slogan, “Decentralize D.C.,” which fits nicely on a bumper sticker.

Carlisle Johnson, American Thinker

Author’s credits: Emisoras Unidas (ABC Radio affiliate), Canal Antigua TV, VOA (radio and TV), American Thinker, BBC4, El Periodico, Cincinnati Enquirer, Guatemala Post, Atlantic, Washington Times, Mexico News Daily, St. Petersburg Times (comments). MarriottGolden

Despairing America: The Astonishing Psychological Cost of Lockdown

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Recently, a series of special health alerts and reports have come out warning of growing numbers of people and a country at the breaking point. Sadly, little of that information has reached the public.

American people are crying out for help and dying − not from a virus with an “infection fatality rate” of 0.15-0.2% across all age groups, and 0.03 to 0.04% in those under 70 years old. (This means, 99.96% of nearly everyone who gets the virus lives.) No, the desperation and distress are in response to the government’s unprecedented mandates and lockdowns.

Masking, isolation, business closures, shuttered churches, ended normal school classes, seniors confined secluded in nursing homes, people left to die alone in hospitals, sporting events ended, music silenced, jobs and livelihoods destroyed. American life has been cancelled – from Easter to Memorial Day, 4th of July to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and now New Year’s..

Many people have lost everything and now face losing their country. The level of despair is palpable. Growing numbers have lost the ability to cope.

What would happen as a result of these unprecedented government mandates was well known. They cannot say they didn’t know or that it wasn’t anticipated.

Aftermath of Covid-19 “Pandemic” Declaration

Local and state governments acted in lockstep, issuing sweeping mandates in March with predicted devastating impacts on the economy. The 95 million Americans not in the labor force at the start of the year jumped by more than 10 million the first month after the emergency mandates. With the continued lockdowns and emergency orders, joblessness has accelerated, with the greatest impact on women and lower income workers. Over 40% are not expected to regain their jobs. This November, more than 100.6 million Americans were not working, 9.2 million more compared to this time last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Texas has had the second greatest number of business closures in the nation, after California, since March, according to the latest Yelp Local Economic Impact Report. More than 8,900 Texas businesses have closed permanently and another 5,300 are closed temporarily and barely hanging on. Even in Lubbock, for example, which had enjoyed stable low unemployment levels for years, unemployment rates shot up over 350% in April after Mayor Dan Pope’s emergency orders. Still today, the percentage of Lubbock residents without jobs is more than double what it had been the entire year before.

Every month of the economic shutdown has cost the U.S. economy $1.1 trillion, according to leading economists. Not only is this the worst unemployment crisis since the Great Depression, according to Goldman Sachs, but high unemployment and job uncertainty, which peaked at 25% across the country, are expected to continue. Unemployment levels were predicted to persist at around 8% through 2021.

The public is finally coming to realize that even this forecast is optimistic − there is no end in sight in the government’s plans to never allow the country to return to normal. Dr. Anthony Fauci has warned it would last two years, some academics have advocated for mandates to continue years until the virus is completely eradicated, and World Economic Forum stakeholders are saying that normal life (without masking, social distancing and other restrictions) won’t be permitted until after 2022, even after lockdowns are lifted.

“A thriving economy, of the kind that we are now throwing away, is the source of our security and the foundation of our children’s future. We would do well not to sneer at it. Poverty kills too. And when it does not kill, it maims, mentally, physically and socially.” − Lord Sumption

Being without work and job insecurity have long been recognized as risk factors for depression, anxiety, suicide, substance abuse and premature death. Unemployment is associated with an average 60% increase in mortality. There’s also a large body of research showing isolation and loneliness lead to worsening mental and physical health and premature death. Isolation and loss of close social contact raises risks of heart attacks and strokes, and increases death from all causes by 50%. Social isolation itself is increasingly contributing to cruel growing deaths among locked down elderly, by an estimated 20%, who simply don’t want to go on and have lost the will to live. It’s a form of punishment for felons, after all.

As mental health experts wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association, government mandates have created the perfect storm for increased suicides: economic stress from loss of jobs, loss of savings from stock market declines, closed businesses and schools, social isolation and loneliness, loss of community and religious services and activities, unknowns with loss of control over political mandates, and health worries, including people unable to access medical care as mandates restricted care for non-Covid patients.

According to the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in Family Medicine and Primary Care with Well Being Trust, the collective impact of the government’s emergency mandates will be even more devastating. “Massive unemployment, mandated social isolation for months and possible residual isolation for years,” along with the uncertainty and fear being created about a virus, is exacerbating the deaths of despair. Looking at the projected levels of unemployment from 2020 to 2029, they estimated 27,644 additional suicides if the shutdowns ended right away, to 154,037 suicides if the economic recovery is slower.

Public Health Crisis – Suicides

In a study published in Lancet Psychiatry, University of Zurich psychiatrists examined more than a decade of data from 63 countries and found a 9-fold higher number of suicides associated with unemployment.

In August, Kaiser Family Foundation researchers reported stress symptoms had nearly doubled since March, including difficulty sleeping, eating disorders, increased drinking and substance abuse, and worsening of chronic health conditions. Also in August, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s MMWR reported that since the pandemic, representative surveys across the country revealed that over 30% of Americans admitted suffering from anxiety or depression, 13.3% had started or increased use of substances trying to cope with the stress; and more than one in ten had seriously considered suicide in the previous 30 days.

Suicides and drug overdoses have soared across the country. Even children have become collateral damage of the government mandates. Suicides and drug overdoses have far exceeded deaths from Covid-19 among young people, CDC Director Robert Redfield reported this summer.

Cook Children’s hospital in Fort Worth, for example, reported a disturbing spike in suicide attempts among children, with 29 patients in August alone – one child suicide patient a day, more than double typically. By October, 192 kids had been admitted for attempting suicide – this compares to 88 patients in 2015. As children struggle from the isolation, missed social connections and fears, “kids are getting to the point where they’re becoming more hopeless,” said Kia Carter, MD, the hospital’s medical director of psychiatry.

A study by specialists at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston just published in the journal Pediatrics reported the results of more than 9,000 risk screenings done at their pediatric Emergency Department. They found significantly higher rates of suicide ideation and suicide attempts during this pandemic among ages 11-21, as compared to the same period last year.

Significant increases were specifically seen during the months when Covid-related stress and community responses were heightened, they reported. Suicides had already grown to become the second leading cause of death among young people 10-17 years old, with ER visits for suicide attempts among children increasing 92% between 2007-2015.

New Mexico, as an example, has endured some of the most stringent and unrelenting lockdown measures in the country by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. It’s a state that can ill afford the crippling measures. It has long ranked at the bottom of nearly every index from economy, jobs, schools performance, and illicit drugs problems; and highest for crime (more than twice the national average) and violence. It has also long had the highest rates of suicide deaths in the country, twice the national average, according to CDC data.

Yet New Mexico officials have been pretty silent about the consequences of Grisham’s policies on rising drug overdoses and suicides, even among kids. One tragic story was recently leaked to the news of an eleven year old in Hobbs who took his life, leaving a journal describing how he was going mad from stay-at-home orders and wanted to be able to go to school and play with his friends.

Nor have the public schools been outspoken about what’s happening among students. At the October 8 Board of Directors meeting of New Mexico Public Schools Insurance Authority, Julie Garcia, with Poms & Associates, a risk prevention insurance company that’s had NMPSIA’s contract since 1986, said in her loss prevention update that there had been several suicides in the past several months concerning school children. She was asked specifically if anyone had reached out to the Farmington schools about the athlete suicides, lamely replying with an offer of two mental health first aid trainers.

But the growing suicides among New Mexico’s youth were exposed in a December 8, special suicide report from the state’s Legislative Finance Committee. It revealed that suicides are a larger cause of death among 15-24 year olds than any other age group in the state. Suicide rates among these young people more than doubled from 13/100,000 in 2014 to 29.5/100,000 in 2017.

The pandemic lockdowns have exacerbated suicide risks, the analysis said. Already this year, there have been seven suicides in children under 15 years old, compared to five in 2019, along with increased numbers among ages 15-24. The report disclosed that there had been seven suicides among New Mexico’s student athletes this year, as well as two youths from Hobbs and another two in San Miguel County. Worse, it reported that according to the Public Education Department’s budget reporting, the state’s public schools had been allotted an additional $12 million this school year for guidance counselors, counselors and psychologists – money that has been left unspent.

Public Health Alert – Overdoses

This past week, the CDC took the unusual action of issuing an emergency Health Alert Advisory. Its most recent data revealed 81,230 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. during the 12 months ending in May.

“This is the largest number of drug overdoses for a 12-month period ever recorded.”

Since emergency mandates were enacted in March, the CDC stated, drug overdoses have skyrocketed – the largest increase occurring from March to May, “coinciding with the implementation of widespread mitigation measures for the Covid-19 pandemic.” The drug overdose crisis is accelerating with the pandemic declarations, it said. This is after overdoses had declined 4.1% between 2017 and 2018.

The primary driver is synthetic opioids – illicit fentanyl – a deadly street drug. Western states have had large increases in availability of illicit fentanyl in the streets, and had the largest increases in overdose deaths, confirmed in clinical toxicology drug tests, the CDC stated. Ten Western states have had a 98% increase in illicit drug overdoses, but all 38 jurisdictions with data have recorded significant surges in deaths since the government Covid-19 pandemic mandates.

The Overdose Mapping and Application Program, High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area initiative that collects data from ambulance teams, hospitals and law enforcement, sounded the alarm in May. It reported that overdoses had increased 20% between January and April compared to last year, with the greatest spike occurring in March.

The Washington Post reported that compared to last year, overdoses had jumped 18% in March and were continuing to increase: 29% in April and 42% in May. Calling it “Cries for Help,” they wrote that “as the pandemic has pushed massive doses of fear, uncertainty, anxiety and depression into people’s lives, it has cut off the human connections that help ease those burdens” of isolation, hopelessness, and distress.

A December 9 Issue Brief from the American Medical Association chronicled disturbing reports of drug overdoses across the country – with more than 40 states reporting increased drug deaths. By September, Cortland County in Texas, for example, had recorded a 200% increase in overdose deaths in less than two years. Drug trafficking gangs are increasing profit margins by cutting expensive heroin with cheaper synthetic substances like fentanyl or brorphine, said law enforcement officers, who are seeing growing evidence of illicit drugs.

Overdose deaths far exceed deaths to Covid-19 in cities across the country. A reported 173 deaths associated with Covid-19 have been reported in the San Francisco area this year. In contrast, a record 621 have died of drug overdoses, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. In November alone, 58 died in their streets, sidewalks, alleyways and parks – two a day. Officials at the city’s Drug Overdose Prevention and Education Project believe that these numbers are still a major undercount since they are self-reported.

In nearly every report of skyrocketing suicides and drug overdoses seen with the government’s pandemic measures, proposals by stakeholders call for more money and more mental health programs…while ignoring the most obvious root of the problem. If leaders really cared about people, the clearly rational and ethical thing to do would be to fully end the unsupportable government mandates. Continuing pandemic mandates is not just destroying people’s lives and livelihoods. It is killing people.

Sandy Szwarc, BSN, RN is a graduate of U.T. Austin and a researcher and writer on health and science issues for more than 30 years.