"[Rodney] Stark, [author of The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success,] a professor of social sciences at Baylor University, is
absolutely correct in his rare identification that a commitment to
reason was the fundamental cause of the spectacular progress achieved in
the West and nowhere else. But he is profoundly mistaken in ascribing
the basis of that commitment to Christianity." The Objective Standard
Ayn Rand, when asked by Playboy Magazine, "Has no religion, in your estimation, ever offered anything of constructive value to human life?", answered
"Qua religion, no -- in the sense of blind belief, belief
unsupported by, or contrary to, the facts of reality and the conclusions
of reason. Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it
is the negation of reason."
In ascribing the victory of reason to that which is inimical to reason is ludicrous. Even Thomas Aquinas, the most rational of Christian theologians, was led to some irrational conclusions as a result of his faith.
Some heroic thinkers have tried to reconcile them. "[John] Locke emphasizes the
reasonableness of faith to such an extent that a religious doctrine’s
irrationality—conflict with itself or with known facts—is a sign that
it is unsound." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
This alone would seem to indicate that reason wins out where faith is irrational; and where faith is rational, it must be reason, not faith, even when it involves matters traditionally ascribed to religion.
"In a nutshell Marx's Theory of Alienation is the contention that in modern industrial production under capitalist conditions workers will inevitably lose control of their lives by losing control over their work. Workers thus cease to be autonomous beings in any significant sense. Under pre-capitalist conditions a blacksmith, e.g., or a shoemaker would own his own shop, set his own hours, determine his own working conditions, shape his own product, and have some say in how his product is bartered or sold. His relationships with the people with whom he worked and dealt had a more or less personal character." http://faculty.frostburg.edu/phil/forum/…
I agree this is possible, but I stood at machines for years doing the same thing over and over. And I thought about what I was going to do with the money I would have performing such work. I appreciated that if I had to create by myself, like the old blacksmith, the entire piece of work that was being constructed in that factory, that I would not have as much money. Instead I would be like the shoemaker in the fable, who only had enough money to buy the leather to make one pair of shoes, and with the profits he had just enough money to buy leather for one more pair of shoes, and enough food to see him buy until he sold that pair of shoes.
If workers feel alienated as Marx said they would, it is because the merits of capitalistic division of labor have not been made clear to them. Instead, what has been made clear, is that while they stand at a machine all day long investing nothing but their time, "the man" who put up the money to pay them for their time is reaping profits.
The very system that allows the worker under capitalism to take home a bigger check than he could have dreamed of as a shoe maker, is make to appear to be the bad system.If you want your luxury car, your Iphone or your Ipad, your vacation to Orlando, your swimming pool, your McDonald's burgers and your children's bicycles and the braces for their teeth, you must have the division of labor.
Feel alienated, if you want to, but capitalism is the currier who brings the bigger paycheck.
Unfortunately, the messenger who would teach them that has already been shot.
"Dictatorship and determinism," wrote Ayn Rand, "are reciprocally reinforcing corollaries: if one seeks to enslave men, one has to destroy their reliance on the validity of their own judgments and choices—if one believes that reason and volition are impotent, one has to accept the rule of force. “Representation Without Authorization,” The Ayn Rand Letter, I, 21, 1
Today, we see the spectacle of a federal government nearing totalitarian power over society. It seeks to re-create the nation in its own image--green, "socially just", ignoring the power of the individual and his right, both Constitutional and natural, to empower his own will; and it is doing so by giving us cause to relinquish our reliance on the validity of our own judgments and choices.
It is telling us that General Motors and Chrysler no longer know how to manage their own companies, because in a world where they naturally lost their share of the market to competition, they also lost money when a disaster struck the economy after government interference in that economy.
Of course, the government has interfered in the capitalist economy almost from the beginning of our nation's founding. But once it became large enough to be a real force, then the concept of capitalism was replaced by the concept of the "mixed" economy. But no one calls it that.
They still call it capitalism, and so when this mixed economy fails because the capitalists have lost control over their own capital, lost it to bureaucrats who were not seeking to protect capital but rather to protect special interests from the capitalists, then the bureaucrats could claim the capitalists were incompetent of maintaining a healthy economy. It isn't "socially just" to allow a few incompetent money mongers to destroy everything for everyone.
The real capitalists knew better, but the majority of people alive today believe that the government has proved "capitalism" is the special interest who must be shackled and told how to manage its own affairs; when the fact is, it has been shackled for so long it no longer knows how to do what it is supposed to do.
It is supposed to say no to government interference, relying on the validity of its own choices based on objective market values. No such values can exist when a mixed economy by definition is subjective.
And since the government can now make the claim that "health care" is inefficient and have that backed up by the health care industry climbing naked into bed with it, "the people" are beginning to believe that reason is impotent---when it is not governed.
When a new piece of electronics hits the market, it is always expensive at first. Look at the price of the IPhone, which now has dropped by more than 60%. The first real laptop computer for under $200 is being advertised heavily on TV by a major wireless internet carrier who sells that laptop.
So when a new piece of medical equipment, or new medicines, hit the market, they are always expensive. The difference is, there are not hundreds of thousands of hospitals rushing out to buy the new equipment, and the meds are not immediately prescribed to millions of people, so there is no reason for the price to come down.
Yet, everyone who gets sick and can be helped by the new equipment want it used on them, and they then complain about the cost of health care, and they equate it with health care itself. There is nothing wrong with health care. There is something wrong with everyone wanting the best and the most expensive procedures used on them, while complaining about the costs.
"Social justice" is a form of alleviating the effects of determinism, but it's all smoke and mirrors. Determinism doesn't exist, but if the philosophers can get you to believe it does, then they have power over everything and everyone, including government policy, because it is they who taught the policy wonks everything they know.
Obama, the Democrats, and the Republicans have the entire idea of how a capitalist economy works backward. The mortgage melt-down was because government promoted unethical and unhealthy capitalist processes.
Q: How many people does it take to "stimulate" the economy?
A: Only as many capitalists as have the money to do it.
I ask and answer this question, because of several things that have come to the attention of the public:
President Obama goads legislators on both sides of the isle to forget that wealth is created by capital investments, and to forget that
[A]spending money without
[B] thinking about where it is going,
[C] where it is coming from,
[D] how long this spending spree will take to work,
[E] how long it will take to pay itself off, or even
[F] whether our grandchildren will be illegally indentured servants to the spending whimsies of Obama and the 111th United States Congress--is not capitalism;
In order to spend more money on projects than would be necessary under a fair-bidding policy, President Obama signed an Executive Order that stating that "it is the policy of the Federal Government to encourage executive agencies to consider requiring the use of project labor agreements in connection with large-scale construction projects in order to promote economy and efficiency in Federal procurement," where "project labor agreements" mean the exclusive use of union labor, as described elsewhere in the Order. A "large-scale" project is one over $25 million;
The spending of public monies by Wall Street capitalists and others on projects that put people to work is strictly forbidden, as in the example of the corporate jets that are no longer acceptable to purchase or use, and the junkets that are no longer acceptable that would have put hundreds of hotel and restaurant workers to work, which puts hotel and restaurant suppliers to work, which puts the manufacturers to the suppliers to work, which puts farmers, textile workers, commercial laundries, garbage removal companies, cab drivers, truck drivers, and gasoline suppliers, and others to work.
In other words, Obama and the Democrats and the Republicans who agree we must spend, have the entire idea of how a capitalist economy works backward. The mortgage melt-down was not because of capitalism; it was because government promoted unethical and unhealthy capitalist processes.
It has been argued by many that if the government wants to put people to work and create or save jobs, it should give the money directly to those who will spend it immediately. Brookings senior fellow in governance studies Pietro Nivola suggested that Congress "proceed in two tranches. The first would pump money directly into the hands of consumers and businesses through a combination of judicious tax relief and quick-hitting expenditures (including, as one example, ramping up military equipment procurement and recruitment of personnel). Subsequent legislation could take up the long-term infrastructure spending and more exotic projects..."
But it would seem President Obama would rather injudiciously scold Congress for their attempt at being responsible with the people's money. "I’ve heard criticisms of this plan that echo the very same failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis," he said.
Would these be the theories of Congressman Barney Frank, who encouraged the sub-prime lending that got us into this crisis? "These two entities—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—" said Frank, "are not facing any kind of financial crisis." Frank was (and remains) the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."
Would these be the theories of President Bush who as early as 2003 sent out the distress calls that the mortage crisis was on the way? Would these be the theories--[1][2][3]--never listened to, that statistically demonstrated how government spending, when used as stimulus, never works?
No. Instead, the President said, "Let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the essential. Let’s show people all over our country who are looking for leadership in this difficult time that we are equal to the task."
What he means is that what is "essential" is the profligate spending that Vice President Joe Biden publicly declared had only a 70% chance of success. "If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, there's still a 30 percent chance we're going to get it wrong," Biden said.
"Some critics, said the President, contend the bill 'is full of pet projects. When was the last time that we saw a bill of this magnitude move out with no earmarks in it? Not one.' "Ratcheting up the sarcasm, the president said: 'So then you get the argument, "well, this is not a stimulus bill, this is a spending bill." What do you think a stimulus is?' "'That's the whole point,' he said, as the audience hooted and applauded."
From Wall Street to Main Street, every business owner and capitalist knows you don't throw money at debt hoping for a 70% success rate at getting out of debt.
The Democrats and Republicans both should leave it to the free market to solve the problems. Their success will come faster than anything government can do, but 21st century government doesn't want to ever have to admit that capitalism is better than socialism. Biden warned that the consequences of failing were too great for the country, to allow it to allow politics to prevent action.
What Washington can't see is how greatly they have prevented the free market from acting, by promising free money that generations of Americans will discover is not free at all.
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
Natural economics do not require the coercion and the gun-in-hand tactics of collectivism, nor is it up to the government to "allow" naturalism, but only to prevent unnatural economic acts.
Many times over the course of the lifespan of this blog, I have written about capitalism as the rational economics of metaphysical naturalism.
Ben Bernanke, former Chairman of the Fed, co-authored a syllabus called Principles of Economics, while teaching at Princeton. The authors do not describe "economic naturalism" as that which would apply to the nature of man if man was uncoerced by any policy other than the free, natural market.
They describe it, instead as "the ability to see economic principles in the everyday details of life as well as national and international events." Why does the small business woman in Minnesota who operates as though she were in a truly free marketplace need to see international "events" as part of her naturalistic view of business?
It was my understanding that all economists who are not concerned merely with the "big macro-economic picture" will understand that that "big picture" is made up of "principles in the everyday details of life." Any economist who only looks at the macro-economics of "international events" is a fool.
But what details of what life? As it has been said that we are already a socialist nation, the "details of life" are going to be those of a civilization living under the rules of socialism.
That, in short, has nothing to do with "naturalism" in economics. Natural economics do not require the coercion and the gun-in-hand tactics of collectivism. This may be the reason that former Treasury Secretarys Henry Paulson and Bernanke, and President Bush, put forward on September 18, 2008, a brief, three-page proposal without details about how the program would be overseen.
Bernanke, and obviously Paulson, are of that school of economics that does not recognize a natural market, not even after Bernanke defined what it means to him; in that three page proposal there were no "details of life." There were no details at all.
He and Paulson spent days in front of Congress conceding problems with the plan while at the same championing it as the solution to the nation's current financial problems. It has not been the solution. We are now looking at a boondogle spending bill of well over $800 billion.
"Try acting as a laissez-faire capitalist," I wrote here. "It will get you a prison sentence for ignoring all the laws that prevent it."
Acting as though the laws did not exist is not coercive. It twists no one's arm to keep your prices low.
It is, however, proper to make laws about capitalism that prevent such things as lowering prices below costs to put competitors out of business, or about the taking of public bail-out money then spending it on bonuses for the very people who took the bail-out. Legislating what are improper ethics is not the reverse position of allowing sound business practices that some people with certaain ideologies don't like. The government has no business and no right to allow that which is non-coercive because it is, instead, the right of the people to do anything they please that is not coercive, i.e., that does not require a gun, whether it be a literal or a virtual gun.
It is not up to the the government to allow anything. It is up to the government only to prevent that which is unlawful, and it is not up to the government to make unlawful those things which are not coercive. Naturalistic economics as would exist without any government interference is naturalistic economics and is therefore non-coercive.
Economic naturalism is the state of any economy that is not controlled by the governement, nor by any means of coercion--or worse--used by businesses or individuals in that economy.
Today, Americans are walking with eyes wide open into the kinds of scenarios that could have come right out of "Atlas Shrugged". As I speak, a pay cap is being legislated for businesses who take government bail-outs that never should have been paid in the first place but which will continue to be standard practice for many years to come. This will cause the best of our business leaders to get out.
The Governor of my state, Michigan, has vowed to cap the prices of health care costs. This will only drive doctors out of the state. Then the only way to prevent that is to make it illegal for doctors to leave the state because they have taken government money in the form of Medicaid or Medicare or some other plan.
Take WalMart as the biggest literal example of a business that every local government tries to control in some way, in the belief that WalMart is the big bad economic wolf who sets out to destroy local small businesses, that will cause traffic problems, and look like an eyesore. Sam Walton could have written these words, and if he had, and if he was alive today, he might become one of the "deserters" of the world of "Atlas Shrugged":
"I do not want my attitude to be misunderstood. I shall be glad to state it for the record...I work for nothing but my own profit--which I make by selling a product they need to men who are willing and able to buy it. It do not produce it for their benefit at the expense of mine, and they do not buy it for my benefit at the expense of theirs; --and I am proud of every penny that I have earned in this manner. Do I wish to pay my workers more than their services are worth to me? I do not. Do I wish to sell my product for less than my customers are willing to pay me? I do not. Do I wish to sellit at a loss or give it away? I do not. If this is evil, do whatever you please about me, according to whatever stnadards you hold. These are mine." Hank Reardon, industrialist in Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand, at his trial for ignoring laws that prevented doing business as his standard told him he ought to. [condensed]
...big government as epitomized by Obama's ideas thinks that causing business to spend and then to lose money is a good policy...
In one of President Obama's first outright, overt attempts to redistribute the wealth from those who have to those who were too lazy over the last 14 months to purchase--with Federal Assistance Rebates--their hdtv converters, he wants to delay the February 17th transition to the new broadcasting frequencies.
Neowin.net reported Obama made it clear that to him, "many Americans are not ready for the switch. The cut off date was scheduled for February 17, 2009 in America, which was to free up airwaves for emergency services.
"'We are extremely pleased the incoming administration is supportive of consumer efforts to ensure that the poor, elderly and rural consumers do not face economic hardship as we move broadcasting to digital transmission," said Gene Kimmelman, vice president for federal policy for Consumers Union.'" Neowin.net
Those Kimmelman is speaking of are the have-nots. Redistributing the wealth to them would be in the form of billions of dollars lost from first responders whose frequencies will change to the old TV frequencies and were ready to make the switch; and broadcasting companies who did not budget nor prepare to run two transmitters at the same time. Are advertisers ready to pick up the tab to run their commercials for another four months on not one, but two, frequencies at the same time?
"As it stands now the FCC will not be backing down on its initial plan of February 17th unless Congress passes a judgment delaying the transition. As we get closer to the deadline the fighting will most likely intensify but at the end of the day the broadcasters already have plans in place to remove the old analog technology, the FCC has sold off the spectrum, it has advertised heavily for the transition and should not be delayed because a small minority procrastinated to upgrade their technology."
The billions of dollars already spent, compared to the loss that will be suffered by the procrastinators, is already money ready well spent, spent being the operative word.
In these hard economic times when big government as epitomized by Obama's ideas thinks that causing business to spend and then to lose money is a good policy, we can understand why President Reagan said big government is the problem.
The government had the absolute right to upgrade to the superior frequencies that will be used by TV broadcasters, in order to sell the old frequencies to other services who severly needed new ones.
But after delaying the transition for years because of technology problems, and then setting a date by which time billions of dollars have already been spent, that same government has no right to squander the money of the very capitalists who are going to help pay off the huge debts run up by Presidents Bush and Obama.
NOTE: "I do not want Obama to succeed."
On Wednesday, January 21, Rush Limbaugh explicitly stated about Obama, "I hope he fails."
The day before, in a blog about "lost art of communication" and saying what you mean, I published these words of my own:
"A President is [ ] a looter if he creates debt for future generations, robbing them of their ability to be free of the slavery of that debt. Our children and grandchildren, and probably our great-grandchildren, in other words our posterity, will be born as indendured servants of the IRS, or of whatever government agency is collecting the debt-reduction taxes in the future.
"That indenture may prevent our posterity from their own pursuit of happiness.
"The only people who want to see socialism succeed are
those who don't see [ ] that the fortune of America and its people is not made by redistributing wealth, but rather by its creation."
I am not one of those people who "does not see," and neither is Rush Limbaugh. I don't want our new President to succeed, either.
If he fails, I wrote, perhaps we will then get a President who is rooting for outright capitalism.
Obama's good-will may be in his lack of pretension, and of political posturing, but what is it that people mean when they say they want him to succeed?
There is a lost art to communication. It seems to be in the area of saying what you mean.
As as example, I will paraphrase a conversation between Bill O'Reily and Glen Beck, on O'Reily's program "The O'Reily Factor".
O'Reily said he thought Obama was a good guy, but wasn't sure if he wanted Obama's policies to succeed. If Obama fails, his socialistic policies will be out in four years, and someone with better--hopefully free market--ideas would be elected.
Beck, looking a bit puzzed as to how to respond, said he wanted to see Obama succeed. Beck himself is a nice guy, who like Obama, basically wants to see an end to "left" and "right" political bickering, and thinks all politicians are capable of being up to no good, or even "scoundrels" if the opportunity arises.
O'Reily, taken aback by conservative Beck's wish for Obama's success, asked how Beck could wish to see the liberal/collectivist policies of our incoming President actually work. If they work, we would see more of them.
O'Reily meant, "How could Beck wish to see socialism flourish and be successful?" O'Reily himself has said he has no ill will toward Obama the man, who to all appearances seems to be much more psychologically honest than any politician we have seen in decades, with the exception of Ronald Reagan, but even he was decades ago.
Beck replied that he didn't wish to see the President fail, because it meant America would not rise from its financial mess; but you could by looking at his expression that he was still lost for the right thing to say under the circumstance. He was struggling to explain how a conservative pundit, himself, actually want BIGGER government to succeed? Beck's reply, again paraphrased, was that he wished no ill toward any one trying to succeed at an honest job, and wanted to see America succeed.
The communication gap here was that while Beck was talking about the job of the Presidency itself being an honest one, he could not gather his thoughts quick enough to say that a looter in an honest job is still a looter. It wasn't the socialism Beck wanted to succeed; it was only the idealism of a strong, good, morally honest America that he wanted to see again.
But that is what he failed to say on "The O'Reily Factor." Instead, in a wishy-washy way he said he wanted whatever Obama wanted because if Obama failed, America failed.
A certified public accountant, obviously someone with an honest profession, is a looter if he makes off with his clients' money.
A President is still a looter if he creates debt for future generations, robbing them of their ability to be free of the slavery of that debt. Our children and grandchildren, and probably our great-grandchildren, in other words our posterity, will be born as indendured servants of the IRS, or whatever government agency is collecting the debt-reduction taxes in the future.
That indenture may prevent our posterity from their own pursuit of happiness.
A President who today takes from you to give to me or my children what what we do not have, is a looter. A President who removes the roadblocks preventing me from becoming wealthier on my own, and acquiring on my own and for my children what you have is doing an honest job in his administrative capacity.
Beck really doesn't want socialism to succeed. The only people who want to see it succeed are those who think that dishonest people operating in a capitalist environment will be stopped in a socialist environment.
The only people who want to see socialism succeed are those who don't see what our first millionaire, Ben Franklin, saw; who don't see what men and women like Carly Fiorina, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Oprah, and two thousand seven hundred forty new millionaires per day (in the year 2000) see--that the fortune of America and its people is not made by redistributing wealth, but rather by its creation.
What Bill O'Reily really meant to say--but didn't--was that he wants the U.S. to succeed but not because of Obama's policies. What Glen Beck really meant to say was that he wanted Obama to succeed--in spite of his policies--for the sake of America.
Those are the things that I want for our nation, too. This really is a new era dawning, because it seems we have a President who, despite his own very leftist political leanings and beliefs, has the ability to unite Americans--for the moment at least--under his umbrella of good-will, lack of pretension, and lack of political posturing.
It still remains to be seen just what kind of leader Mr. Obama will be. A week before in innauguration he already muscled Congress into giving him the out-standing $35b, by threatening a veto he knew could not be overturned.
We have already seen him sidestep the issue of his alleged-Marxism, which began with his now-famous remark made to the now-famous Joe the Plumber (who is no longer a plumber, but a "reporter of the people" for Pajamas Media).
If actions speak louder than words, Paul understands the art of saying what you mean.
But if is true about actions, President Obama will have the loudest voice in the world, and he will say through his collectivist actions precisely what he means.
I want his personal integrity to succeed; I want his charm and his ability to unite this nation, to succeed; I want to watch his family succeed growing into their new position as First Family; I want the "feel-good" metaphysics of Mr. Obama to succeed.
I do not want his socialism to succeed, and I sincerely hope that in some way, an idea of capitalism begins to creep into his policies. We've had "creeping socialism" for so long that we are now unable to stop it from steam-rolling over us.
Who is to decide which things must fail, the employee who attempts to buck the evidence-driven policies of their company, or the evidence-driven companies themselves?
"Failure is never an option--not in America." Barrak Obama to CBS's Catie Couric
"COURIC: 'And let me just end by asking you about the stimulus package...some critics have said, "hey, that didn't really happen the last time." Why will it this time?'
"OBAMA: 'Well, there are a couple of things. [ ] We're gonna invest billions of dollars in health information technology so that we can drive down costs for average families. [ ] But the general framework, the general outlines of the plan are ones we have run by economists from the left and the right, conservative, liberal. This is a package that I think is gonna make sense. I have every confidence that it's gonna work. [ ] '
"COURIC: 'And if it doesn't work?'
"OBAMA: 'Failure is never an option. Not in America.'"
So, investing billions will drive down costs for average families? How? This pie-in-the-sky thinking ignores that those billions will take generations before a pay-off is seen. By then, the cost of living, combined with any possible inflation, will make today's $1000 emergency room visit cost us--perhaps--double or triple that.
By then, economists will be tripping over themselves to prove that the nominal price at that time, say in thirty years, actually is less than the nominal price was before the investment of those billions. I think the value in real-dollars will not prove a savings to anyone. It will cost our posterity billions more than was spent.
Ask yourself this: if, in a real-world economy--in other words, one that is not manipulated by government policies--the cost of doing business for a hospital proved that such computerized infrastructure would actually save their patients money, why wouldn't they do it anyway?
We see hospitals competing all the time. One cancer center competes with another, perhaps not only for prices by being as effective and evidence-driven as possible, but also certainly for the best hope and the best care.
Hospitals who want to keep their emergency rooms filled compete with others in their area for the quickest service possible. One emergency room in my area advertises "no waiting" service for heart and other fatal symptoms. Another advertises "no more than a 30 minute wait" for any emergency.
Ina recent news piece on Fox News Network, the reporter was showing the debate between companies that raise insurance rates on obese employees, or otherwise take some action against the obesity, vs the obese people who say it is discrimination. The reporter even cited several cities around the nation where such things as "girth" and "body fat percentages" are protected by law--as "traits" and other silly descriptions.
But the reporter made it very clear that the corporations would not care to day anymore than they cared before if it was not for the fact that every thing a company does today must be driven by evidence, and the evidence is that obesity costs money and decreases profits because 368 million work days are lost as a direct relationship to obesity in this country every year.
Suits against employers who attempt such measures sometimes make the claim that no employer has the right to tell an employee what he or she must do or can or cannot do outside the workplace.
To that, I say it may or may not be true, since some employers have gotten away with the same tactics against smokers. But an employer does have the right to say that as soon as an employee walk into the workplace they must be healthy enough to work. Employers have always been able to send home employees who have the flu, or some other spreadable disease. It isn't fair to let one employee cost other employees a share of their paycheck because they themselves are home sick.
So how can it be fair to let an obese employee cost an otherwise healthy employee a larger pay rate or a larger check from the profit-sharing pool because the obese employee cost the company a measurable share of earnings?
"In August 1990, Stephen Grindle was hired by Watkins Motor Lines as a driver/dock worker. The job's duties included loading, unloading, and arranging freight. The job's description noted that it involved climbing, kneeling, bending, stooping, balancing, reaching, and repeated heavy lifting.
"In November 1995, he sustained an on-the-job injury. [ ]he commenced a leave of absence...[ ] On June 26, 1996, Watkins ordered Grindle to see the industrial clinic doctor, [who] found that he had a limited range of motion and that he could duck and squat but was short of breath after a few steps [and] noted that on physical examination, the most notable item was that Grindle weighed 405 pounds. [Though] Grindle met U.S. Department of Transportation standards for truck drivers, he couldn't safely perform the requirements of his job. Watkins placed him on safety hold. Since he was on safety hold, he eventually was fired because he was unable to return to work in 180 days.
"Grindle believed he was discharged because of his weight, so he filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The agency filed a claim on his behalf in federal court claiming Watkins' actions violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. The trial court ruled in the company's favor..." HRHero.Com
If, as Obama says, failure is never an option in American, who is to decide which things must fail? It must be either the employee who wishes to remain obese who fails in his attempts to buck the evidence-driven desires for the best for their company, or it must be the evidence-driven desires that fail.
Obama wishes to spread the wealth, and legally speaking, it can be done two ways: the obese person can lose weight or be fired in order to spread more wealth (less wasted work days) among the other employees:
or it can spread the wealth by giving to the obese employee what he/she is taking from the healthy employees.
The second method is the method of Marxism, whereby we get the humanist dictate "From each according to his ability..." meaning the obese person, "to each according to his needs"--which means the obese person.
There is no way that dictate can ever benefit the socialist-valued "greater good". That "greater good" would be all the other employees who are not lowering profits. Instead, to the Marxist, it means we all have needs and if the need of the obese person is to have a paycheck, it must come from the paychecks of all the others, "according to his ability."
Obama's plans to invest billions upon billions of dollars until they equal into the trillions means that money must come from each according to his ability, because when payback time comes in twenty to fifty years--when we are dead or collecting social security--the only one's paying it back will be those who can do so.
Those who can afford the payback because of "ability" will not be the Stephen Grindles and all the other Americans with "needs."
And it may not be our grandchildren either, because anecdotal evidence, collected by soviet bureaucrats, has it that when honest employees see the dishonest, the corrupt, and the sick collecting their loot, then they too will become dishonest by claiming "illness" in order not to have to contribute to the "common good" of those who take without giving.
Sally and Jose and Matumbe will become active hypochondriacs, but they will never believe their illnesses to be real; they will only believe their illnesses are necessary if they are to be treated equally with people who collect the loot, because, after all, "to each according to his need." Let the "chumps" provide civilization with their "abilities."
If psychology is "evidence," then "evidence-driven psychology" backs up the anecdotal stories collected by the soviets in their own Marxist empire. When the cost to society became too large for the economy to keep providing the sick with their "needs," they were simply taken out and shot.
That is the way that an "evidence-driven" collectivism solves its problems, or it collapses.
But the U.S. would never become that evil and ruthless, which means, Mr. Obama, that failure of your policies and a total collapse of the non-capitalist economy is the only option in America.
Try acting as a laissez-faire capitalist. It will get you a prison sentence for ignoring all the laws that prevent it.
On the subject of the economy, VP-Elect Biden is reported to have said, "We’re at war.” Biden told this to congressional leaders of both parties during their sit-down with Barack Obama in the Capitol, according to two sources familiar with the exchange.
I hardly think the "embrace of the war metaphor" is the heralding of the new New Deal--but it is most certainly coming, and it is going to hit American's swiftly. Obama already has asked for the $350 billion not yet spent so he has it on his first day in office. Thank that God, in whom we supposedly "trust", to have put some severe reservations about that money in the heads of even the liberal Democrats. They want it properly accounted for.
But there is no doubt it is coming. Obama has trumpeted loudly how about approximatly how much it is going to cost the taxpayer to pay for public works projects which will "pay off" quickly in the form of jobs created, in cash flow, and in such things as alternative energy, which of course the consumer will wind up paying twice for: once in the debt created by the loan, and once in the purchase of the product created.
And our children and grandchildren will pay off the loans that do not create direct profits, as a wind farm or some other means of production might. Someone will have to pay for the infrastructure rebuilding of roads and bridges, which, let's face it, really do need rebuilding.
But the Governors and the Mayors of America have been asked for their wish lists. Obama has already said many things will not be financed from this economic "stimulus" package.
But the fact that it already has a name--"stimulus package"--means the new administration won't have to give it a formal name, like the "New Deal."
Even the New Deal didn't spend as much of the GDP as a percentage, as did Eisenhower's interstate freeway system, which took 35 years to complete. When it was complete, Congress approved funding to go to work building a few more freeways, and upgrading the old ones.
"Roosevelt’s first inaugural address tends to be remembered as an attempt to calm the public, a warning against “fear itself.” The martial metaphors that appear throughout the speech make clear, though, that F.D.R. wanted fear replaced by collectivist ardor," Healy writes.
And what is it that Obama has already been saying? "The US economy will become 'dramatically worse', wrecking the dreams of a generation of Americans, if Congress does not act quickly to drive through huge fiscal stimulus plans, as fresh data showed deepening recession. He said the unemployment rate was at risk of reaching double digits and recession "could linger for years".
While very probably true, it is the rhetoric used in politics about such subjects that, Cato says, is good for nothing but "centralizing power."
How much centralization can a supposedly capitalist economy take, before it breaks down as the forces of collectivist policies clash like butting-heads against the free market ideas so well established and so taken to heart by the very people and corporations who actually make the economy profitable?
It does appear that the big corporations who are reaping billions of dollars are beginning to allow "czarism" to dictate how they operate. There will be a "car czar," for example. Of course, the CEOs and all those in the upper eschelons of the banking and mortgage systems have had to be rightly criticized for doling out hundreds of millions of that money in golden parachutes and bonuses.
But what about the bedrock of capitalism, the entrepreneur, the mom-and-pop operation, the proprietor? Will they be so willing to allow centralization to push them this way and that, when they all know for certain, knowledge gained by experience and from historical perspectives, that decentralization is responsible for profit-making and for profit-motivation.
No one can be too motivated when a czar is looking over your shoulder, and you and I know that such a czar and his/her soldiers can look over the shoulders of small businesses much easier than over the shoulders of the likes of GM and "banks that are too big to be allowed to fail."
Big business and our leaders, both left and right, including the avowed whom Socialist Obama hired who does not need Senate confirmation, are selling the small business owner and the Average Joe down the river.
I hope the Average Joe knows how to quit before he gets behind. He is already saving whatever money he can, rather than spending it. New savings accounts in banks jumped several-hundred percent over the last six months.
But the next thing you know, our New Socialist government will be taxing our savings to pay for the loans they are making because we are not spending our savings. Obama said to Katie Couric just yesterday, "Failure is not an option, not in America."
As far as his Marxist "spread the wealth" attitude goes, I think he intends to use every means at his disposal to spread the misery. He is a Constitutional Law professor, and a brilliant man. I have no doubt that America is going to see him use tricks of law we have not seen before. After all, he has not been sworn in yet, but plans to get his hands on the $350 billion one way or another. He has told Congress he will use his first veto on his first day in office--to get that money. Congress will cave, one way or another.
We should all buy gold, because our paper and coins will soon be worth nothing, comparatively. From 2000 to yesterday, the price of gold rose more than $549 from $280.10, to $829.57, or nearly 350%. Relative to the GDP deflator, the dollar only rose 19.82%.
What will the dollar be worth when Obama gets done manipulating it? The free market, left alone, tells the truth. When manipulated by government economic engineering, it always lies, relative to the free market.
We are at war, but it is the honest capitalist at war against the dishonest, and against the illegal usurping of his powers in the market place by government rules he cannot conform to without become a socialist himself.
Try acting as a laissez-faire capitalist. It will get you a prison sentence for ignoring all the laws that prevent it.
How soon before the second hand stores, the used car dealerships, and the higher-priced food markets have shortages caused by the redistribution of the powers of the free market into the powers of social engineers?
The Environmental Protection Agency published this: "Sustainability means 'meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.'"
On the surface there seems nothing wrong and everything right about this definition. To discover what is wrong you simply need to click on the live link above, provided by the EPA, to read this: "...economic development must be ecologically viable now and in the long run."
No one denies the environment must be kept clean. I remember when Lake Superior was considered a "dead" lake, and the naysayers said nothing would fix it. The algae had taken over, and what fish were left in it were inedible and toxic. Science and the law went to work on it.
Now, "The average underwater visibility of Lake Superior is 27 feet, making it easily the cleanest and clearest of the Great Lakes. Underwater visibility in places reaches 100 feet. Lake Superior has been described as "the most oligotrophic lake in the world." from Lake Superior Facts
Conservatives attempt to limit such "ecological viability" by pointing out the insanity of protecting--for example--a species of frog, when that protection prevents the ability of current generations to meet their own needs, or when it actually costs a land owner the rights associated with his own lost capital when he is told to set aside the land declared protected.
The government has been guilty for decades of both environmental and social engineering that is based on political ends. The government has political ends that may not reflect the needs or protect the rights of its citizens to control their own resources--a political end that is precisely defined as "socialism"--a system that "relies on control of the means of production by the state, either through state ownership or regulation."Wikipedia
The Sustainability Institute is a private enterprise who's "staff includes biologists, writers, social scientists, system dynamics modelers, and facilitators." The "means of production" is the system designed by the owner of the capital and the resources to produce. The Sustainability Institute may employ social scientists and others who share the government's political, social, and scientific policies, but not their methods. You would never hear the government say, "We conduct stakeholder-based systems analysis..."[all emphases added]
That "stakeholder" is the capitalist and/or the owner of the means of production. Metaphysical naturalism (MN) comprehends that have a stake in one's own means of sustaining one's own philosophy, not to mention one's own life and health, means capitalism. MN specifically accepts capitalism as the only moral means of conducting the affairs of one's property. Even giving it away in philanthropy or in inheritance is according to the rights of capital; having the methods of distributing and using one's capital defined and altered by anyone but the owner can only be done at the point of a gun. Only the government has that gun.
Friends of the Earth International is typical of the sort of organization that helps shape government policies by lobbying toward environmental "sustainability," with mission statements such as, "...people’s environmental rights include access to the unspoiled natural resources that enable survival such as land, shelter, food, water and air."
Again, this doesn't sound bad on the surface. But ask these questions: which people have these rights; who defines what "unspoiled" means; "rightful access" is to who's land; whose shelter, whose food, water, and air? That "rightful access to land" must necessarily be to someone else's land, because the Friends of the Earth are certainly not the land owners to who's property they want "access."
How do unspoiled natural resources enable survival access to shelter and food? Does it mean forcing people to return to a time when we were nomads picking our food from the trees we did not nurture? If it does not mean this, you wouldn't know it, because the only other alternative is the one the Friends don't state: "survival" to them means the redistribution of the wealth of resources, from the owners, into the hand of the "looters." The Friends are "looters."
"If some men attempt to survive by means of brute force or fraud, by looting, robbing, cheating or enslaving the men who produce, it still remains true that their survival is made possible only by their victims, only by the men who choose to think and to produce the goods which they, the looters, are seizing. Such looters are parasites incapable of survival, who exist by destroying those who are capable, those who are pursuing a course of action proper to man." “What Is Capitalism?” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal Ayn Rand
"In our vision," writes Friends of the Earth, "environmental rights also include rights for indigenous peoples and other collectivities [looters], the right to information and participation in decision-making, freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to resist unwanted developments.
"We also believe in the right to claim reparations for violated rights, including rights for climate refugees and others displaced due to environmental destruction, the right to claim ecological debt, and the right to environmental justice." [all emphases added]
Again, ask yourself questions: why do collectives have priority over the individual sovereignty of those who own the capital and the resources; how is one's right to speak freely about unwanted developments affected so that it must be demanded; why do the demands about developments unwanted by collectives take precedence over the owner of the capital, the resources, and the means of production; does the right to participation in decision-making mean decisions over privately owned resources, or only over publicly-held resources; how does the First Amendment not apply in such a way that it needs to be demanded as applicable; what are "ecological debts" and "environmental justice," and against whom are they levied?
To be sure, not all government-engineered "sustainability" and "viability" has to do with the environment. It has taken a strange swing lately, in the direction of the automobile and energy industries. President-elect Obama, Congressmen, Senators, and even auto and energy executives have talked about the need for sustainability in those industries.
But it is one thing for private industry to speak in terms of saving their own livelihoods and those of their employees; it is quite another when they go begging for government handouts and promise to allow a "car czar" and an "energy czar" to carry out the virtually-socialistic duty of determining whether their industries are meeting government standards, or solving the economic problems themselves by letting the consumers and the markets determine what is "sustainable."
It is obvious that those two industries, as only two of many examples, believed the sky would never fall on them. But a quicker way to economic viability for the entire nation--and in a domino effect the rest of the world--is to let the economy fix itself.
Modern liberals see the Constitution as a "living document" instead of the concretized ideas of forward-thinking Renaissance liberals. They see the earth itself as "living" even as they know that what they paint as living is really only the processes of nature.
Of course frogs and pandas and salmon and flowers and trees are alive; but rivers, glaciers, the ozone layer, and methane from farting cows come from processes of nature, and they do not have rights. The rights of living things that are not homo sapien do not take precedence over the rights of living homo sapiens unless, as Keanu Reeves insanely made clear they did in his version of "The Day the Earth Stood Still", someone with political power (the power of the gun) holds a gun to the heads of people who believe in unalienable sovereignty and force them to act in a manner consistent with progressive liberalism, i.e., some form of collectivism.
The 2009 version of "Stood Still" could have been scripted by an apologist for the Friends of the Earth.
"Government-engineered sustainability" was what the Soviet Union attempted for nearly 80 years. Millions of people starved to death, or froze to death.
Food prices in the U.S. have skyrocketed because sustainability in the auto energy industry was thought by the Bush Administration to be in bio-fuels. This has pushed up the costs of everything that has corn in it--including automobiles themselves--and everything that has wheat in it, because wheat was forsaken by farmers for the subsidies paid them by government to grow corn.
Here in Michigan jobs were created by the construction of at least four bio-fuel plants and the labor to operate them, and corn farmers made profits. But it came at the expense of the cost of groceries and prepared foods and thus from the budgets of those who could no longer afford to purchase "luxury" items and go out to eat once in a while, let alone afford brand new clothes and shoes for their children. Sales at second-hand stores has skyrocketed, while sales at nearly every other store except WalMart has gone down considerably, and even WalMart says it did not see the gains it expected.
Now the Obama Administration wants to engineer the same sort of "sustainability" in the other energy markets. None of it will be done by the demands of the market, any more than bio-fuels were done by the demands of the market. The desires of those who control the markets as seen in market demands are thwarted by engineering government policies.
How soon will it be before the second hand stores, the used car dealerships, and the higher-priced food markets have either no more products to sell or cannot afford to sustain their own markets because of shortages caused by the redistribution of the powers of the market from those who have the capital and the means of production, to those who think they know what is best for "the ability of future generations to meet their own needs"?
As it stands now, at least the next two to three generations will be paying down the debts of the bailout schemes that do not allow the free market to be free. How can any future generation meet their own needs when they are not free even to determine their needs, a process that requires a free market, not one that is engineered for a "sustainability" that depends on market needs which the government cannot predict?
