Tag Archives: Culture

The Dystopian Western World

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As the second decade of the 21st century comes to an end, democracy and free speech no longer exist in the Western World. In all its respects, Western civilization no longer exists.

In the United States, which poses as the model for democracy, a presidential election has just been stolen in full view of everyone. There is expert testimony by qualified experts about how the voting machines and software were used to bias the vote count for Biden. There are hundreds of signed affidavits of eyewitnesses who saw the fraudulent use of mail-in ballots to boost Biden’s vote count. We know for facts that dead people were voted, illegal aliens were voted, out of state residents were voted, and some precincts had more votes cast than there are registered voters and even residents in the precincts.

Despite the abundance of evidence, except for members of state legislatures in some of the swing states, no one is acquainted with the evidence. The presstitutes speak with one voice and deny that any evidence exists. So do the Democrat election officials in the Democrat-controlled counties in the swing states where the presidential election was stolen. The courts have refused to even look at the evidence. The presstitutes misrepresent the courts’ refusals to examine the evidence as the judiciary’s ruling against the validity of the evidence despite the fact that no court has looked at the evidence.

The level of hostility of Biden supporters toward those who protest the electoral fraud is extraordinary. Biden supporters threaten Trump supporters with loss of employment and with arrest and prosecution. Tucker Carlson on Fox News reviews the extraordinary situation here.

Radicalized blacks, unaware that they are being used by the Establishment, see the stolen election as their chance to rule and to displace white people. That the winner is the Establishment is beyond their grasp.

It is obvious that if the evidence of election theft were bogus, the media would seize the opportunity to discredit President Trump and his supporters’ claims of electoral fraud by investigating the evidence for that purpose.

The Supreme Court knows that that the evidence is real. Being an Establishment institution, the Court does not want to damage America’s reputation by ruling that the election was stolen. Moreover, the Supreme Court Justices know that the American Establishment and its presstitutes would not accept a decision that the election was stolen. The Supreme Court understands that the Establishment intends to rid government of a non-establishment president who is hostile to the Establishment’s agendas, which include globalism, destruction of the American middle class, war, more profit and power for the ruling class, and fewer civil liberties for the governed class.

The American Establishment includes the Republican Party. In order to protect its agendas—war and US hegemony, the concentration of income and wealth, the elimination of the middle class which gave stability to the country and limited the ability of the Establishment to exercise complete control, and the overthrow of the First Amendment and our other civil liberties which limited the Establishment’s ability to control all explanations—the Establishment is willing to pay the price of the destruction of public confidence in American institutions. The Establishment assumes that it can use the ensuing conflict to its advantage. The country will be further split apart and less able to unite against the Establishment’s self-serving agendas.

Conservatives blame the presstitutes for the Russiagate hoax that for three years kept Trump from his agenda and the subsequent attempt to impeach Trump over false charges that he bribed the Ukrainian president. In actual fact, these efforts to destroy an elected president of the United States were orchestrated by the CIA and FBI. It was CIA director John Brennan who alleged Trump was a traitor in league with the Russians, and it was FBI director James Comey who contrived false indictments and false prosecutions of General Flynn, Roy Cohn, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone hoping to extract in exchange for leniency false testimony against Trump. It is difficult for patriotic conservatives to get their mind around the fact that the CIA and FBI, which they think protect Americans against Russian and Chinese communists and Muslim terrorists, are in fact internal enemies of the people of the United States.

Except for a few Internet websites unknown to the majority of the people in the Western world, the only information people in the West receive is controlled explanations that serve the agendas of the Establishment. Consider Covid, for example. All experts who are critical of lockdowns, mask mandates, the suppression of effective treatments and the focus on vaccines, and who are skeptical of the seriousness of the pandemic are censored by the print and TV media and by Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. As far as I can tell, there are more real experts—and by experts I do not mean doctors and nurses brainwashed in their training by Big Pharma—who are skeptical of the agenda of public health authorities than experts who support lockdowns and vaccines.

The presstitutes serving Fauci portray the dissenting experts’ views as “conspiracy theory.” But clearly Dr. Kamran Abbasi, executive editor of the British Medical Journal and editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, is not a conspiracy theorist. As I recently reported, he has this to say:

“Science is being suppressed for political and financial gain. Covid-19 has unleashed state corruption on a grand scale, and it is harmful to public health. Politicians and industry are responsible for this opportunistic embezzlement. So too are scientists and health experts. The pandemic has revealed how the medical-political complex can be manipulated in an emergency—a time when it is even more important to safeguard science.

“The UK’s pandemic response relies too heavily on scientists and other government appointees with worrying competing interests, including shareholdings in companies that manufacture covid-19 diagnostic tests, treatments, and vaccines. Government appointees are able to ignore or cherry pick science—another form of misuse—and indulge in anti-competitive practices that favour their own products and those of friends and associates.” 

Yet in place of such expert informed opinion, Western peoples only hear the ignorant propaganda from the bought-and-paid for whores on CNN, NPR, MSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post, and the rest of the paid liars.

There can be no democracy, no accountability, when people only have controlled explanations that serve the ruling agendas.

The disrespect for free inquiry, the only known basis for the discovery of truth, is so powerful today throughout the Western world that even in the West’s most famous universities—Oxford and Cambridge—censorship is entrenched. Any student, especially a privileged “person of color” can brand any scientific fact, any historical fact, any expressed view or opinion to be “offensive.”

Those found to be the most offensive are white people whose statues and memorials are being taken down at both Oxford and Cambridge. The founder of the famous Oxford University Rhodes Scholarships himself has been erased. Cambridge University’s white academics and administrators have accepted a person of color as their political commissar to control their lectures, choice of words, and reading lists in order to ensure that no truth can emerge that might be declared by some ignorant student “offensive.” Of course, white students cannot complain that it is offensive to denigrate the white creators of British accomplishments as racists. The use of political commissars to control what can be spoken was the way Stalin controlled Russia. This Stalinist practice has now been institutionalized throughout the Western world in schools, universities, media, corporations, and government.

Oxford University, in an act of contrition, has proudly announced that admission to Oxford will no longer be based on the outmoded and racist concept of merit. Oxford University declared that the university is reserving 25 percent of its annual admissions to those unqualified to be at Oxford.

How are those unqualified to be at Oxford to succeed in graduating? According to Oxford, before they begin on their degree studies they will be given up to two years in remedial preparation so that they become qualified to attempt receiving a degree. In other words, they will be coached through the process. Such an act of contrition cannot possibly be permitted to fail.

In other words, Oxford has abandoned merit and is discriminating against those students who displayed merit (and their parents who fostered merit) in favor of those who did not. Twenty-five percent of those qualified to be at Oxford will not be permitted to be there in order that those not qualified to be there can be. This is what “affirmative action” amounts to.

Cambridge has abandoned academic freedom and subjected the knowledge of its distinguished faculty to censorship in subservience to the idea that truth can hurt feelings and be offensive. A university that values feelings more than truth is not a place where learning can take place.

In the event you think I am exaggerating the direness of the situation, here is an emeritus professor at the University of Kent in Canterbury explaining the factual situation.  The situation is so bad that even the professor himself is trapped in his opponents’ use of language. He refers to the truths under attack as the “dissident views.”

In the Western World the policing and censorship of thought and expression has now been institutionalized. As the native-born white inhabitants of these countries have no right or privilege to censor the attacks on them, they are set-up for second class citizenship leading eventually to extermination. Their civilization will proceed them in extermination. Indeed, it is already gone. White people are people without a culture and without a country.

Paul Craig Roberts, UNZ Review

America: An Appreciation

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America, know there are countless people in the world who would gladly trade places with you.”

“I chose to be an American. What did you ever do, except for having been born?” —Ayn Rand

I was born under the flag of the People’s Republic of China, a country that remains under the absolute rule of the Chinese Communist Party to this day. I have very few memories of my early childhood in mainland China, save for a visit to the Forbidden City—a brief tourist stop when my family traveled to the American consulate in Beijing to apply for a visa.

While Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms eliminated the worst economic collectivization from the Mao era and gradually opened China to the outside world, political and social freedom were never fully embraced. Nevertheless, the limited opening allowed my family the opportunity to explore options for a better life. In 1993, under the kind sponsorship of an American physician, my mother left for a research position in the United States with less than $200 in her pockets. My father and I followed her a few months later, and, from the moment we landed on American soil, we put down our roots in our new adopted country.

Like the countless waves of other immigrants who came before us, my family and I arrived as strangers in a new land, found freedom and opportunity, gradually assimilated into our adopted country, and eventually worked ourselves into the upper middle class. In a time when vast swaths of the population are losing faith if not outright rejecting American founding principles, history, and institutions, I wish to provide a counternarrative for my fellow citizens and international allies who still believe in the fundamental goodness of this country and its people. Let my family history and personal experiences living in America be that story.

As long as I can remember, I despised those who sought to dominate and coerce others, whether they be the playground bully, a frenzied mob, or a tyrannical government.

My childhood growing up in Ohio was relatively carefree (as long as I met the demanding academic standards set by my parents), and I learned as much as I could about American life. Star Wars: A New Hope was the first movie I can remember watching in English. It left me completely mesmerized with ideals of heroism, adventure, and epic battles between good and evil. As a total bookworm, I made the local library my second home and frequently maxed out the limit of books a kid’s library card could check out. Although I read widely across genres, I especially enjoyed reading about the accomplishments of great individuals. Whether they were mythical heroes of ancient Greece and Rome, the American Founding Fathers, brilliant scientists, trailblazing entrepreneurs, intrepid explorers, or our modern astronauts, I was awestruck by those who left their mark in history. If there was one common theme I learned from my reading, it is that anything is possible for free peoples with free minds and the courage to use their freedom.

There was never a single political awakening moment for me. A nerd at heart, I saw myself in the spirit of freethinking scientists like Richard Feynman, Charles Darwin, and Carl Sagan, all of whom pushed the boundaries of human knowledge, refuted superstition, displaced ignorance, and carried the beacon of the Enlightenment. Long before I ever learned the intricacies of the First Amendment, I treasured the values of free speech, open debate, and unfettered inquiry. (Becoming exposed to South Park in elementary school probably helped. My culturally-ignorant immigrant parents remained blissfully unaware.) I grew up in a world where all ideas—good, bad, and ugly—were freely available (my friends quickly introduced me to those ideas the adults wanted to censor or hide) and where everything was shared nonstop. It was an eye-opening experience for this young Chinese-American boy.

As long as I can remember, I despised those who sought to dominate and coerce others, whether they be the playground bully, a frenzied mob, or a tyrannical government. I knew from the examples of my early heroes that these were the enemies they fought. Even if I had never read a single page of F. A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, and gained a deeper understanding and appreciation for free market economics and conservative–libertarian philosophy, as I did later in life, nothing could have stopped me from becoming a civil libertarian in the mold of Christopher Hitchens, Ira Glasser, and the old-guard ACLU.

As I grew up, my parents gradually revealed more details of their former destitute life in Maoist China, which made me grateful that I never had any experience remotely comparable here in the United States. For my parents—after starting life anew in a foreign country, establishing themselves as respected medical professionals, working their way into the upper middle-class, becoming naturalized citizens, and raising two healthy, successful children (my sister and me)—the American Dream was real as it can be.

My story is an extension of theirs. Many children of first-generation immigrants struggle with reconciling parallel lives in two worlds: the traditions and values from their ancestral homelands versus the liberal culture of America. It was not always easy, but I would like to think I have found the balance over the years. I accepted that my Chinese heritage and upbringing is a fundamental part of who I am, but I also fully embraced my identity as a full-blooded American and the limitless opportunities of this country.

This background, I believe, has provided me a unique perspective on the American political scene.

Although I hesitate to embrace political labels, I consider myself a classical liberal or libertarian and, above all, an individualist. Throughout my life, I never felt that I truly belonged to a single social clique, tribe, or political party. In the words of Rudyard Kipling, “The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you’ll be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”

Kipling was right. Being one’s own man is a very difficult path to walk, but I am proud to say that I have kept my intellectual independence and integrity and still found acceptance and success in my professional and personal life. And this was only possible in the United States of America.

But this kind of freethinking and independence is being threatened by a new form of collectivism represented by social justice ideology, intersectionality, identity politics, critical theory, and postmodernism. Many excellent commentaries have already identified the roots and core beliefs of these ideologies and movements. Their central tenets can be summarized as follows:

  • There is no “you” as an individual. Your identity is constructed by race, gender, and class.
  • You exist only as part of a collective group. These groups are in zero-sum conflict with each other.
  • There is no objective truth, only subjective interpretations and narratives. “Truth” is only a cover that allows dominant groups to exercise power over others.
  • Scientific knowledge and even science itself is a social construct.

In sum, this new collectivism rejects the foundational principles of the Enlightenment. It is not surprising, then, that most social justice activists are hostile towards free speech, due process, and the very concept of individual rights—exemplified in our current “cancel culture.”

There is a difference between “cancel culture” and honest criticism. Jonathan Rauch prepared a thoughtful guide distinguishing the two. The latter is about finding truth, moral persuasion, and, most importantly, an attitude of good faith. The former is distinguished by punitiveness and the goal to “make the errant suffer”:

“Canceling…seeks to organize and manipulate the social or media environment in order to isolate, deplatform or intimidate ideological opponents. It is about shaping the information battlefield, not seeking truth; and its intent—or at least its predictable outcome—is to coerce conformity and reduce the scope for forms of criticism that are not sanctioned by the prevailing consensus of some local majority.”

As early as 2015, when I first encountered social justice ideology for the first time, I was unnerved by its authoritarian undertones. Knowing the history of modern China and my family’s experiences, it was not the first time I saw the dangers and potential for tyranny when self-righteous egalitarian activists tear down institutions and run roughshod over individuals in the name of the greater good. More often than not, they proved themselves to be nothing more than humanitarians with guillotines. I cannot help but suspect people who cloak their lust for power and domination using the same rhetoric and rationales.

And I am not alone in this. As social justice ideology and its offshoots continue their long march into schools, universities (even STEM fields), corporations, professional societies, and now mainstream American life, I cannot help but notice that people who push back against groupthink and mob rule tend to be first-generation immigrants from former or current communist countries who are familiar with the collectivist tactics and propaganda from their native homelands.

Mobs invaded private neighborhoods and demanded home owners take down their American flags.

While most of this summer’s racial justice protests were peaceful, there were notable cases where activists went too far. Mobs invaded private neighborhoods and demanded home owners take down their American flags. In another high-profile incident, mobs surrounded innocent restaurant patrons and tried to force them to raise their hands in solidarity. However, what disturbed me the most were the ritual self-flagellations. Appalling videos showed white people kneeling to black organizers, confessing to racism, begging for forgiveness, and, in some cases, even washing  their feet. Similar behavior was observed in Democratic politicians—despite their actual records—who profess to be sympathetic to racial justice.

Knowing the sorry tales from my own family history, these degrading acts were eerily reminiscent of the struggle sessions from China’s Cultural Revolution. During that decade of nonstop chaos, ideologically-possessed mobs would surround victims and then verbally and physically abuse them (if not killing them outright) until they completely broke down and confessed to imaginary crimes.

These acts to coerce free human beings—to make them believe, say, and do things against their sincere conscience—crossed the line for me. Whether they take place in the United States, China, or any other country, these exercises of raw political power on the unwilling are flat-out wrong, no matter the cause or pretext.

Take it from a first-generation immigrant from a current communist regime: Forcing people to live a lie is a hallmark of tyranny. As a public service to our fellow citizens, immigrants like me have no choice but to speak out when we see the parallels. Free Americans and any self-respecting human being should resist participating in the Great Lie.  

Let me be clear: I am not blind or deaf to injustice, which existed historically and continues to exist in this country. There are deep, serious flaws with the American criminal justice system. For far too long, African Americans and other minorities have been denied the full freedoms and privileges that most white Americans enjoy and take for granted. Clark Neily at the Cato Institute had nothing but the harshest words for our present reality:

The United States’ criminal justice system is fundamentally rotten, but the effects of its dysfunction are not felt equally by all Americans. Instead, it is the marginalized and politically disenfranchised who bear the brunt of that injustice, including particularly communities of color. Although both the root causes and the significance of racial disparities in our criminal justice system are debatable, the existence of those disparities is not. And when people perceive—correctly in my judgment—that some lives are counted by the system as less sacred than others, they are going to be angry about it. And they damn well should be.

The killings of George Floyd, Breanna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Eric Garner, and too many other black Americans were heinous crimes. I supported (as did the vast majority of Americans across ethnic groups and the political spectrum) the initial protests for accountability and justice.

In the case of George Floyd’s killing, all four officers responsible were quickly fired and charged. Public outcry made an impact and the world witnessed in America that no one was above the law. Under the American political system, We the People are the true sovereigns and can ultimately force the government to deliver accountability and respect and to expand our rights, or dissolve outright. Our track record of success is undeniable.

In a real authoritarian country, none of that would have happened. In China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Cuba, and other tyrannical regimes, agents of the state routinely murder, torture, rape, imprison, and violate human rights with impunity on a mass scale, and there is absolutely no recourse.

That is why comparing America’s ills to any of these is grotesque and factually wrong. For all its flaws, the United States remains a beacon of freedom and hope to the world’s oppressed peoples.

It does not stand for racism and bigotry. And this adopted son of liberty will not give it up to those who do.

We can empathize with those who suffer without being bullied into accepting the sins of others. We can stand against injustice without forsaking independent thinking and personal dignity. We can include historically-marginalized perspectives into curriculums without throwing out the best of Western canon. We can have a nuanced look into our past without being ashamed of our history.

Contrary to the claims of the 1619 Project and other revisionists, the United States was founded in 1776 on individual liberty and unalienable rights, not slavery. The American flag stands for the proposition “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It does not stand for racism and bigotry. And this adopted son of liberty will not give it up to those who do.

The fundamental principles of America—embodied in the Declaration of Independence and secured in the Constitution—belong to everyone. The promise and limitless potential of this country also belong to everyone. We will always struggle to live up to our highest ideals as long as flawed human beings continue to exist.

Americans will continue to have heated debates on the continued relevance of those principles, where we fall short, and just about every other issue one can imagine.

But to me, actions speak louder than words. When immigrants risk everything to come to the United States, they do so under the sincere belief that its ideals and promises are real. For my family and me, the American Dream is real. And I know many others share (and will share) this sentiment.

The American Dream will endure as long as we keep alive its fundamental principles and resist the current climate of entitlement, victimhood, and collectivism.

If I could offer some advice to future immigrants and to my fellow American citizens: Remember the country owes you nothing but a chance to be free. Use that freedom wisely.

No matter how frustrated or aggrieved you may be with your current life in America, know there are countless people in the world who would gladly trade places with you.

Take advantage of the myriad opportunities that are part of America’s core social fabric and run with them. Do not capitulate to bitterness and pessimism when you encounter setbacks and failure. This country offers unlimited chances to reinvent yourself.

Speak out against injustice. But do not succumb to hate and envy. Regardless of their intentions, do not let anyone exercise arbitrary power. And remember: Despite all the attempts to pigeonhole people into identity groups, in the end, there are only individual human beings.

Do not be afraid to be an individualist.

The world you desire can be won. It exists. It is real. It is possible. It is yours.

Aaron Tao, The Atlas Society

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Who is to Blame for Black Poverty ?

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We’re all familiar with the cycle of poverty in Black urban neighborhoods that Democrat politicians have run for decades. Everybody assumes it’s because Democrats are so wedded to their policies, they keep throwing good money after bad. Maybe that’s not the problem, though. Maybe Black Democrat politicians don’t want to help these areas, and the citizens in those areas don’t actually want to be helped. 

“Diversity” and “inclusion” are two of the most often heard buzzwords in our lives these days, with a heavy helping coming from the media, of course.  Tucker Carlson addressed the subject very well recently in an opinion piece where he discussed diversity versus the meritocracy, using Biden’s recently-announced cabinet selections to make his case. The evident theme for Joe Biden’s picks has nothing to do with whether his picks are actually qualified for their postings. Rather, that must check off the appropriate victim identity group box: female, Black, Hispanic, gay, trans, or (Jackpot!) a combination of two or more, where being a black Hispanic lesbian is the pinnacle of the victim hierarchy.  

In particular, I noted in the public remarks made by soon-to-be repeat offender against our economy, Janet Yellen, that a big part of her focus as Fed Chair is to address economic inequality, wage inequality, food insecurity, poverty — all seemingly benevolent causes until you peel back the onion just slightly and realize that she’s not talking about these things in the scope of helping everyone, regardless of race.  No, she’s specifically talking about “communities of color.”  Just so we’re clear, a group of people is going to receive different (preferential) treatment based solely on the color of their skin.  I’m pretty sure that’s called racism.

Yellen goes on to say that she also wants to provide more opportunities for people of color, because, she says in so many words, these opportunities are denied to people of color. She specifically states that opportunities are denied, so I must ask the question: Who exactly is doing the denying?  

If we look at the largest areas of concentration of Black people, which would be the large urban centers of New York City, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, and Detroit, just to name a few (and I’m not even crossing the Mississippi!), those areas presumably contain large numbers of black-owned businesses or at least Black people who would like to start a business . . .  you know, they’d like to, but they’re being denied the opportunity.  (I think we all know the subtext when someone is saying that “people of color” are being allegedly mistreated, the alleged mistreatment is at the hands of Evil White Conservatives.)

So, again, who is doing this denying?  All of the major cities that I just listed, and dozens more just like them across the country, have been run for decades by Democrat mayors and city councils, with assistance from Democrat Congressmen on both a state and federal level.  One must therefore assume that these same people in charge are also very influential regarding who receives economic opportunities or assistance, right?  Thus, this horrible denying is being done, in fact, by the very people now crying about the fact that the denying is happening!

As usual, it takes mental gymnastics on an Olympic level to reconcile leftist thinking.  Democrats have had control of these cities for decades and what have their policies brought their “people of color?”  Misery, poverty, violence, and addiction.  Obama and Biden had eight years, with two of those eight having the benefit of both houses of Congress on their side, but they didn’t come up with any miracle salve to soothe the troubles of the inner cities.  What on earth would lead us to believe that this will be any different under Biden and Harris?  

Or is it more practical and pragmatic if we believe that, via Occam’s Razor, the simplest answer is the correct one: These so-called leaders in Democrat-run enclaves have no real interest in helping their constituents pull themselves out of the cycle of poverty.  For decades, Democrats have had their faithful Black voters right where they want them; namely, poor and dependent on the government. We give you stuff, you vote for us. That’s the unspoken agreement.  But when a true leader finally comes around who has a plan and the political will to do something to help these communities — like Kimberly Klacik in the Baltimore Congressional district formerly ruled by the late Elijah Cummings — she receives a paltry 28% of the vote.  Now the always useless 10-year Congressional veteran Kweisi Mfume has Cummings’s old job and somehow those precious opportunities are still being denied.

I’ve already established solid evidence that Democrat politicians — even and especially Black Democrat politicians — have little to no interest in helping their Black constituents.  But there is another side to that coin. The evidence seems to show that Black people themselves appear to not want to be helped.  One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.  So, are Black voters in these areas insane?  They keep voting for the likes of Sheila Jackson Lee, Maxine Waters, and Kweisi Mfume, but expect these serial grifters to suddenly start working for them. 

In my eyes, that puts the blame squarely on both parties, the politicians and the voters who keep sending them back to their offices.  Is it because the way things stand now, those voters are cozily wrapped up in their blanket of victimhood?  Is it so comfy in there receiving their government subsistence handouts that they can’t be bothered to get out and do something about it?  Is the alternative to this abusive, co-dependent relationship — personal responsibility, hard work, and entrepreneurialism — just too difficult to face?  

My prediction for all of these cities that I’ve mentioned, and any other Democrat-run major cities around the country, is that if a Biden/Harris ticket sets up shop in the White House, in four years’ time those cities will look much the same as they do now, except with four more years’ worth of decay, addiction, and violent crime.  But those citizens can comfort themselves that they still have someone else to blame for their problems. 

H.P. Smith, American Thinker

Confusing Free Market Capitalism with the Corrupt Interventionist State

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It is difficult to see the difference between an actual free market and the interventionist system under which we live because so many across the political spectrum refer to ours as a “capitalist” society. 

When most people put on their “reality” hats about politics, there are few among them who do not cynically see the power-lusting, the corruption, and the hypocrisy in most of what is said and done by those running for or sitting in political office. A constant point of dispute and disagreement is over how and why it is that governments have this seemingly inescapable tendency. The all too frequent answer in modern democratic societies is the claimed nefarious influences of businessmen to use government at the expense of most others everywhere around the world.

The latter is a near permanent theme in literature, movies, and the mass media. Widely used political and ideological rhetoric is portrayed as a false cover for what is really an often-successful attempt to dupe most people into thinking that what is “good for business is good for America.” Far too many politicians are the partners and accomplices to these private sector abusers of the public trust, it is said, since government is supposed to assure fairness and “social justice” for the many rather than privileges and favors for the capitalist few.

While mostly left unstated in any explicit or direct manner in movies and on television, the implicit message is that businessmen are inherently exploiting oppressors and abusers of their workers, their customers, and “the earth” due to their physical harms to the planet that threaten environmental sustainability. “Business” has to be heavily regulated and restricted if public harm is not to be done. Or . . . maybe there are just some if not many sectors of everyday life that must be placed outside of private reach through government production and provision of publicly necessary and needed goods and services. Otherwise, not just public harm, but human death and destruction will come in the wake of allowed private enterprise.

“Roadkill’s” Twisted Conception of a Libertarian

One example of these views may be seen in the recently aired four-part Season One of “Roadkill,” broadcast as part of Masterpiece Theater on PBS, starring Hugh Laurie (known to many American television viewers for his role as the medical doctor, “House,” which ran from 2004 to 2012). In this latest outing, Laurie plays Peter Laurence, a British Conservative Party cabinet member who serves, at first, as Minister of Transportation.

He is “hip” and “progressive,” saying that in his personal life and in his politics, he always looks at what’s ahead, and not at what has happened or what might otherwise tie you to the past. He regularly appears on a radio talk show with glib remarks outside of the seeming mainstream of even his own party’s politics. The first episode opens with him having won a libel case in which a newspaper reporter had accused him of corruption and bribery in the service of a consortium of businessmen wanting to make the world safer for their ill-gotten profits.

It seems that our Minister of Transportation may have been in cahoots with American medical companies who want to “privatize” parts of the British National Health Service (NHS). What could be more damning than the idea of replacing socialized medicine with private enterprise health care and service? Oh, the horror!

At one point when he is challenged about whether he is really innocent of the accusation, he insists that the charge was absurd, since, after all, what he is all about is personal freedom and choice. He declares, how could he be guilty, why, he views himself as a “libertarian.” When he is mildly injured in a car accident with a deer, he praises the heroes of Britain’s NHS as he leaves the hospital where he has been treated. Clearly, there are limits to his public libertarianism.

Personal and Political Corruption Envelops the Main Character

In his personal life, he cheats on his wife, lies to his two daughters, views his mistress as a convenience rather than a commitment, and faces a new potential scandal just as he is made Minister of Justice in a cabinet reshuffle, when he discovers that he has a previously unknown daughter from an illicit relationship with a black woman 20 years earlier, a daughter who is in prison for major bank fraud. But don’t worry, he gets ahead of it by going public on television saying he is pleased to find out about this daughter and hoping to get to know her better; after the show, Peter Laurence tells his personal assistant that that should get his public support up a bit.

But things are not all blue skies for our main character. The news reporter who brought the corruption charges against him won’t give up; she finds a witness who can confirm that Laurence was where he said he wasn’t, working for an Anglo-American lobbying group and earning a $500,000 “speaker’s fee” for an hour’s presentation; but the witness mysteriously dies. However, the news reporter doggedly heads over to Washington, D.C. to still get the goods on Laurence; alas, she is killed in a hit-and-run on the streets of the U.S. capital.

Not that Peter Laurence is, himself, behind the murder of the young reporter. Oh, no, that has been taken care of by an arms consortium and others, because they have bigger plans for our Minister of Justice. When it turns out that weapons used by the Saudi Arabian government that have killed three British NGO representatives in war-torn Yemen were sold by those U.K. armament manufacturers to the Riyadh government, the Conservative Party Prime Minister orders a temporary arms sale embargo to calm public outrage.

British Prime Ministers may come and go, but the pursuit of private profits never comes to an end, even if it kills innocent fellow citizens doing humanitarian work in a faraway country. The armament consortium engineers a vote of no confidence in the British Parliament to oust the current Conservative Prime Minister from 10 Downing Street.

Your Political Friends Can Get You to 10 Downing Street

Peter Laurence meets with the head of the British Conservative Party and one of the leading U.K. armaments manufacturers; he is reminded about how the three of them have been such good friends for, oh, so long a time. Yes, what a tragedy about the unfortunate death of that British reporter while she was over in the States. But, well, that just means one less thing for everyone to worry about. They just need to remember that without the tourist trade and the armaments industry there is no British economy, so what’s good for armament manufacturers is good for Great Britain. They just know they can count on Laurence not forgetting that.

The final episode of Season One ends with our “hero” stepping into 10 Downing Street as the newly elected Prime Minister of Great Britain. What could go wrong? The betrayed wife is beside him as they enter their new residence, many in the public look on him as that “progressive” forward-looking Conservative Party leader, and, clearly, his “friends” in British industry have shown their appreciation for his right-thinking by helping his arrival at that lofty political position of power and privilege.

But shadows of his personal and professional past that he says he always tries to put behind him are still looming just ahead. So how and what will bring about the downfall of Peter Laurence, or the misstep from his past that he says might make him the next “roadkill” in the processes of political power-lusting, corruption, and abuses of positions in high governmental authority?

The answers await Season Two, if there is one, because the show’s producers have not yet announced whether it will be back next year.

All the Marxian Messaging About “Capitalism” is There

All the elements of the standard anti-capitalist tale are here, with its subliminal Marxian presumptions. Public statements of believing in personal choice and individual liberty, and a claimed “public good” arising from profit-pursuing private enterprise are all part of the rhetorical “false conscience”-creating manipulators of public opinion. It is all a smokescreen to hide the “real” power relationships of greedy businessmen using politicians and government organs of power to acquire their ill-gotten gains by wanting to undermine national health care and make millions by manufacturing the means by which innocent people are killed in various conflicts around the world.

Self-labelling libertarians like Peter Laurence in “Roadkill” are corrupt and manipulative people using the rhetoric of freedom to live their own comfortable lives in government positions that are theirs only because they serve and work with the “real” power behind “the system,” that being evil, murdering businessmen. The honest people, like that truth-seeking reporter, end up dead as their reward for trying to unmask the powers-that-be. Governments are put in place and torn down by capitalist wire pullers behind the curtain.

It is of note that far less frequently in such movies and on television is corruption and abuse of power shown to be in socialist or left-of-center governments in office. Rarely if ever is their rhetoric portrayed as the cover to advance the special interests of labor unions wanting closed shops, or leftist-friendly businesses wanting subsidies to cover their unprofitable enterprises, or socialist ideologues hungry for power to coercively socially engineer the lives of tens or hundreds of millions of ordinary people.

The heroic person in almost all movies and television shows with some political message imbedded in it is the lone person trying to stand in the way of lumber companies destroying the rainforests, or oil companies poisoning the land, sea and air, or businessmen willing to murder their own grannie for an extra buck. If there is a “good” businessman, he is always someone who in some way sacrifices his profits for a higher and more socially just cause. But even one of these is few and far between. Or if there is a good businessman, he is the small underdog enterpriser who, also, is a victim, just like the other “little people” against “big” business.

The Free Market and Its Institutional Premises

What all such films and shows are portraying are the intrigues and workings of the Interventionist State, not the nature and reality of a functioning free market economy in which governments actually are limited to the few functions of securing and protecting the individual rights of each person to their life, liberty and honestly acquired property. And a system of an impartial rule of law, under which there are the same equal individual rights for all, but privileges and favors for none.

Under such a true political-economic system of classical liberalism, politicians like Peter Laurence in “Roadkill” have no role to play because there are no special favors to give or take away. A way to see the difference, perhaps, is by laying out an eight-point contrast between the liberal free market economy and the interventionist state. The institutional presumptions and premises of a liberal market economy are:

  1. All means of production are privately owned.
  2. The use of the means of production is under the control of private owners, who may be individuals or corporate entities.
  3. Consumer demands determine how the means of production will be used.
  4. Competitive market forces of supply and demand determine the prices for consumer goods and the various factors of production (including labor).
  5. The success or failure of individual and corporate enterprises is determined by the profits or losses these enterprises earn, based on their greater or lesser ability to satisfy consumer demand in competition with their rivals in the marketplace.
  6. The market is not confined to domestic transactions and includes freedom of international trade.
  7. The monetary system is based on a market-determined commodity (for example, gold or silver), and the banking system is private and competitive (neither controlled nor regulated by government).
  8. Government is limited in its activities to the enforcement and protection of each individual’s life, liberty and honestly acquired property under impartial rule of law.

Under such a system there are no possibilities for corrupt acts by politicians to bestow special privileges and favors on some at others’ expense, since by definition and institutional constraint there is nothing to politically buy or sell from the government, for as long as these “rules of the game” are recognized, abided by, and enforced.

The Interventionist State and Its Institutional Premises

Contrast this with the institutional presumptions and premises of the interventionist state that more closely resembles the type of world with its personalities and incentives as represented in Masterpiece Theater’s “Roadkill.” In the interventionist state:

  1. The private ownership of the means of production is restricted and abridged.
  2. The use of the means of production by private owners is prohibited, limited or regulated.
  3. The users of the means of production are prevented from being guided solely by consumer demands.
  4. Government influences or controls the formation of prices for consumer goods and/or the factors of production (including labor).
  5. Government reduces the impact of market supply and demand on the success or failure of various enterprises, while increasing its own influence and control over market outcomes and earned incomes through such artificial means as pricing and production regulations, limits on freedom of entry into segments of the market, and direct or indirect subsidies, and compulsory redistribution.
  6. Free entry into the domestic market by potential foreign rivals is discouraged, restricted, or prohibited through import bans, quotas, or tariffs, and other means.
  7. The monetary system is regulated by government for the purpose of influencing what is used as money, the value of money, and the rate at which the quantity of money is increased or decreased. These, and other policy instruments, are used for affecting employment, output, and growth in the economy.
  8. Government’s role is not limited to the protection of life, liberty, and property.

Here, in the political arena, is a potential cesspool of corruption and abuse. With the government’s hand increasingly in more and more aspects of everyday economic life, the future of every enterpriser’s business now depends on what, how, and for whom the political interventions are introduced and secured. Politics rather than markets more and more determines the fortunes and fate of any private enterprise. Businessmen find it necessary to cultivate the qualities of political entrepreneurship, rather than simply that of a market-oriented entrepreneur.

Ludwig von Mises on the Workings of the Interventionist State

This was explained nearly 90 years ago by Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973), at the twilight of the interventionist and corrupt Weimar Republic in Germany, shortly before the coming to power of Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi) Party. In 1932, during the Great Depression and amid a wide belief that the prolonged and severe economic downturn was “proof” of the failure of a capitalist economy, Mises explained the institutional nature and behavioral characteristics of those attempting to get ahead in the interventionist state:

“In the interventionist state it is no longer of crucial importance for the success of an enterprise that the business should be managed in a way that it satisfies the demands of consumers in the best and least costly manner. It is far more important that one has ‘good relationships’ with the political authorities so that the interventions work to the advantage and not the disadvantage of the enterprise.

“A few marks’ more tariff protection for the products of the enterprise and a few marks’ less tariff for the raw materials used in the manufacturing process can be of far more benefit to the enterprise than the greatest care in managing the business. No matter how well an enterprise may be managed, it will fail if it does not know how to protect its interests in the drawing up of the customs rates, in the negotiations before arbitration boards, and with the cartel authorities. To have ‘connections’ becomes more important than to produce well and cheaply.

“So the leadership positions within enterprises are no longer achieved by men who understand how to organize companies and to direct production in the way the market situation demands, but by men who are well thought of ‘above’ and ‘below,’ men who understand how to get along well with the press and all the political parties, especially with the radicals, so that they and their company give no offence. It is that class of general directors that negotiate far more often with state functionaries and party leaders than with those from whom they buy or to whom they sell.

“Since it is a question of obtaining political favors for these enterprises, their directors must repay politicians with favors. In recent years, there have been relatively few large enterprises that have not had to spend very considerable sums for various undertakings in spite of it being clear from the start they would yield no profit. But in spite of the expected loss it had to be done for political reasons. Let us not even mention contributions for purposes unrelated to business – for campaign funds, public welfare organizations, and the like.” (Ludwig von Mises, “The Myth of the Failure of Capitalism” [1932] in Selected Writings of Ludwig von Mises, Vol. 2 [2000], pp. 188-189)

Ayn Rand and the Mindset of the Politically Privileged and Powerful

The psychological atmosphere of the interventionist state and its users and abusers was also captured in Ayn Rand’s famous novel, Atlas Shrugged (1957), when a group of the business plunder participants meet for a drink to discuss how they cannot be held responsible for the bad times through which the country is passing. That their failing businesses and falling profits, their inabilities to meet contractual obligations and commitments, are not the fault of the poor management of their enterprises.

No, it’s “the system,” it’s the unreliability of others, it is due to business rivals not willing to sacrifice for the “common good” and contribute a “fair share” to others in the industry, with, instead, those “selfish” rivals attempting to compete more effectively for consumer business that leaves these others financially less well off. “The only justification of private property,” one of them says, “is public service.” Another insists that, “After all, private property is a trusteeship held for the benefit of society as a whole.” One other points to “the blight of unbridled competition,” while still another argues, “It seems to me that the national policy ought to be aimed at the objective of giving everybody a chance at his fair share . . .” (pp. 49-50)

Represented here are the politically oriented businessmen about whom Mises was referring. People not focused on making better and less expensive goods, or whose attention is directed at meeting consumer demands, and at those from whom they buy and to whom they sell as the basis upon which any profits may be earned. No, their interest is in gaming the interventionist state to hinder their competitors, gain subsidies and protections through government regulations, and to weaken respect for and belief in private property rights by insisting that coerced sharing and service to a “common good,” as the ideological means of rationalizing the political interventions to win those privileges and favors that without the government would never be theirs on an open and free market.

Confusing Free Market Capitalism with the Corrupt Interventionist State

This points to one of the most commonly made and dangerous confusions in modern society, that being the assumption that the economic system under which we have been and currently are living, represents and reflects a liberal free market economy. It is difficult for many people to see the difference between an actual free market and the interventionist system under which we live because so many across the political spectrum refer to ours as a “capitalist” society.

If we use as a benchmark the institutional characteristics defined, above, as the meaning of a free market economy, the U.S. is very far from that conceptual idea and ideal. Our system possesses and operates in the context of all the institutional characteristics outlined as defining the interventionist state.

Is there favoritism and privilege? Is the “system” manipulated by those who know how to “play the game” of political entrepreneurship at the expense of consumers and competitors? Do politicians rise to and retain power and position in government through political pandering and offer plunder to those special interests who can get them elected? Are false promises, often outright lies, and frequent appeals to irrational emotionalism and primal envy frequently the avenues to political success?

Yes, to each and every one of these. The events of the last year under the coronavirus crisis have only reinforced and intensified this trend down the interventionist road. No corner of society or the economy has been free of a hyper-politicization in which governments have determined who may work and under what conditions, what goods may be manufactured and sold and at what prices, and who may stay open for business and with what restrictions on how they may operate their enterprise.

This is the breeding ground for even more of the political hypocrisy and corrupt privilege and favoritism portrayed in programs like “Roadkill.” How can it be otherwise when everyone’s life and fate are in the hands of politicians like that fictional Peter Laurance, and the ideological and special interest groups that want to use government to get what might never be theirs under a real system of free market capitalism?

The important task for those who value personal freedom, economic liberty and the free market economy is to disabuse our fellow citizens from thinking that what we have is a fully capitalist system, and to appreciate that what critics of capitalism call for and want in the form of even more and bigger government would only magnify the corrosive trends already in play in the modern world.

Richard Ebeling, Capitalism Magazine

Mob Law: Time to Put the Foot Down Firmly

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When America was infested with “righteous” mobs who took the law into their own hands in the early 1800s, Lincoln left a remedy to future generations on how to defend against it: “… cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason.”

An utter disdain for mob law is encoded onto the DNA of the body politic, thanks to men like Lincoln.

No grievance is fit to be redressed by mob law, he said. When men “burn gamblers” and “hang murderers” unlawfully, the day will come when they will hang people who are neither gamblers nor murderers.

“[W]henever the vicious portion of the population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage and rob provision stores, throw printing-presses into rivers, shoot editors and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure and with impunity, depend on it, this government cannot last,” he said.

Government will collapse, Lincoln warned, when good men who obey the laws become so disgusted with a government that no longer protects them, that they feel they have nothing to lose.

We’re getting there.

Today, we’ve seen the “vicious portion” of our population loot, burn buildings, and beat innocent people “at pleasure” and – shockingly – “with impunity.” They do it in plain sight, repeatedly, and are applauded by political vultures as peaceful protesters.

It’s made the legs of government a bit wobbly.

But the street mobs are small beans compared to America’s most dangerous hordes: High-level, white-collar mobs who work like maniacs to uproot the philosophical underpinnings of the American Revolution and the Judeo-Christian ethic. They are politicians, judges, rogue intel alums, media, activist organizations, celebrities, leftist billionaires, tech companies, and educators who butcher our history, defy our laws, and give moral and financial support to the thugs who loot and burn things to enforce white-collar mob law.

These dignified mobs don’t swarm streets in farmers britches while carrying nooses, torches, and pitchforks. They take the law into their own hands from seats of government, courtrooms, newsrooms, big corporations, and inside algorithms of the world’s most advanced computer systems.

These are the people who got away with Russian collusion. They got away with impeachment. They got away with exploiting the pandemic. They got away with using Chinese-inspired algorithms to suppress speech. And they’ve gotten away with a hundred other disgusting schemes to take down Trump.

They are not the majority, but they’ve hijacked the wheels of the American ship, and they’re steering it toward La-La Land at flank speed against our wills. We’re starting to feel bound, gagged, and kidnapped in our own country.

And how have we dealt with all the chaos? By appealing to the cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason of “sober courts” and “ministers of justice,” as Lincoln called them.

It’s not working.

So now they’ve stolen Trump’s election. Packs of thieves, under the command of white-collar mobs, took voting laws into their own hands. We know it. The media knows it. Democrats know it. The Supreme Court knows it! Yet, our deranged institutions are incapable of dealing with the cold, hard realities of the biggest election theft in American history.

Why?

Because otherwise sober-minded men are terrified of running into a political buzz saw. They fear the mobs. “Good” men like John Roberts have a primal fear of being tarred and feathered. These are weak-minded men with no “iron in the blood” who “shrink from strife,” as Teddy Roosevelt put it. They believe that peace is the end of all things and strife is the worst of all things.

Fighting Democrats and leftists has become outrageously more expensive than fighting Republicans. Democrats have become unscrupulous, amoral, and crass. They’re at war. If the gods of Utopia wills that they deceive, cheat, intimidate, destroy lives, commit violence, and break laws – well, so be it. They are a high-level version of the “vicious portion of the population” that Lincoln talked about.

Something else primal is going on.

Journalist Walter Lippman, in 1955, quoted philosopher William Hocking as saying that human nature is “the most plastic part of the living world – the most adaptable, the most educable,” which also means that human nature can be the most “mal-adaptable” and “mis-educable.”

The cultural heritage must be acquired, Lippmann wrote in The Public Philosophy. We’re not born with it. If a country’s heritage must be acquired, it can also be rejected. It can be acquired badly, or not acquired at all.

“The ancient world … was not destroyed because traditions were false,” Lippman wrote. “They were submerged, neglected, lost. For the men adhering to them had become a dwindling minority who were overthrown and displaced by men who were alien to the traditions …”

Will Alexander, Townhall.com