How Many Capitalists Does It Take?

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:

• 200+ economists publicly declared the President is wrong;
• 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.

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The Tenth Amendment Newly Ascending

"Whereas, The scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment means that the federal government was created by the states specifically to be an agent of the states; and

Whereas, Today, in 2009, the states are demonstrably treated as agents of the federal government..."

"In case you didn't hear about it on the mainstream media (which you haven't because they want to keep us asleep), numerous states are currently declaring sovereignty, including: http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message720700/pg1

Washington [link to apps.leg.wa.gov]
New Hampshire [link to www.gencourt.state.nh.us]
Arizona [link to www.azleg.gov]
Montana [link to data.opi.mt.gov]
Michigan [link to www.legislature.mi.gov]
Missouri [link to www.house.mo.gov]
Oklahoma [link to axiomamuse.wordpress.com]
Hawaii [link to www.hawaii-nation.org] " Godlike Productions

What does this look like in legislative legaleze?

Here is that portion from the Michigan "Journal of the House of Representatives, 95th Legislature, Regular Session of 2009":

[all emphasis added for the purposes of this blog]
Rep. Opsommer offered the following concurrent resolution:
House Concurrent Resolution No. 4.
A concurrent resolution to affirm Michigan’s sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and to urge the federal government to halt its practice of imposing mandates upon the states for purposes not enumerated by the Constitution of the United States.
Whereas, The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads as follows: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"; and
Whereas, The Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being that specifically granted by the Constitution of the United States and no more; and
Whereas, The scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment means that the federal government was created by the states specifically to be an agent of the states; and
Whereas, Today, in 2009, the states are demonstrably treated as agents of the federal government; and
Whereas, Many federal mandates are directly in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; and
Whereas, The United States Supreme Court has ruled in New York v. United States, 112 S. Ct. 2408 (1992), that Congress may not simply commandeer the legislative and regulatory processes of the states; and
Whereas, A number of proposals from previous administrations and some now pending from the present administration and from Congress may further violate the Constitution of the United States; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That we hereby affirm Michigan’s sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States. We also urge the federal government to halt its practice of imposing mandates upon the states for purposes not enumerated by the Constitution of the United States; and be it further
Resolved, That copies of this resolution be transmitted to the Office of the President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, and the members of the Michigan congressional delegation.
The concurrent resolution was referred to the Committee on Government Operations.

"[These States] have seen fit to reaffirm their sovereignty and make various demands to the Federal government in recent months. At the same time, the Federal government saw fit to recall soldiers from Iraq to post them on American soil waiting to be deployed to quell disorder, and are now coming out about their labor camps and forced civilian labor programs.

"Coincidence?

"Seems to me that in tough economic times you can expect to see civil unrest, rioting and even armed resistance. Especially when fascism increases right along side the economic collapse. Perhaps it would be best to draw out the "homegrown terrorists" before the general population is upset enough to be willing to listen to them and even stand beside them. Perhaps the government figures you'd be willing to actively rebel prematurely if you think your state government will support your efforts. Perhaps the government wants to appear weak and unable to cope with you so that they can take you out've the game before they really can't handle you." Circle of 13

It seems to this blogger that States rights as they were designed are finally being recognized once again, in light of the fact that for over a century "the states are demonstrably treated as agents of the federal government," and that "the total scope of federal power [is] that specifically granted by the Constitution of the United States and [was] created by the states specifically to be an agent of the states."

It seems that Originalism in the reading of the Constitution is once again in vogue. Let us hope that, one by one, the States retreat from the fascism of the rule of Washington.

But let us also hope they do not retreat into their own State regimes of collectivism and ignore that the "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

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Looters, Strikers, and Economic Systems

The strikers will be only those with ethics because they are the ones with the most to lose. They are at the top of the economic food chain.

In an op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Robert P. Murphy, Ph.D., PRI senior fellow in Business and Economic Studies, argues [in a report] that vast government spending is not a cure for the U.S. recession. Dr. Murphy explains that the true purpose of an economic system isn’t to “create jobs” or channel a particular number of green pieces of paper into everyone’s wallet on payday, but that workers are employed productively, so that they take scarce resources and transform them into goods and services that consumers value.

“The price of limiting economic freedom is real, but not always apparent or easily understood by [ ] by lawmakers,” said Lawrence J. McQuillan, Ph.D., co-author of the report and director of Business and Economic Studies at PRI." PRI

It is not easily understood by business itself, apparently. After taking government money that essentially made government an invested stockholder, the bonus-paying, romper-room, jet-buying antics of those businesses have forced government to cap the pay of future recipients.

"Many of us who know [Ayn] Rand's work," wrote Stephen Moore in an op-ed, "have noticed that with each passing week, and with each successive bailout plan and economic-stimulus scheme out of Washington, our current politicians are committing the very acts of economic lunacy that Atlas Shrugged parodied in 1957, when this 1,000+ page novel was first published and became an instant hit." [emphasis added]

"For the uninitiated," Moore continues, "the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism."

Not only did the politicians, using the code phrases "for the public good," "the redistribution of wealth," and others, create a downward spiral, the very spiral we are on now, but they created two new classes of Americans: the looters and the strikers.

The looters were those who, like the corporations who are now taking government money, took government money. Looters were also people as individuals who fed off this constant stream of government handouts to the needy. The government itself was the prime looter, because it took from those who produced the wealth in order to give to those who sucked the life out the productive workers.

The strikers were those who refused to play the game any longer. At first they were only the top executives of major companies, and only those who had ethics. Those who had no ethics, like the bank execs we have now who take multi-million dollar bonuses after wrecking their companys, had no reason to go on strike. If they played the game right, they would still eventually get their money.

In Atlas Shrugged, the main visable protaganist is a woman who runs the nation's major railroad, at a time in our history when railroads played a much larger role in the economy. The train could be said to be a metaphor for what happens in the plot, because the looters' train is out of control running downhill with no breaks.

The strikers are only those with ethics because they are the ones with the most to lose. The are at the top of the economic food chain. Everyone below them feeds off them. When they begin to strike, disappearing apparently from the face of the earth, untraceable, unreachable, then the execs without ethics are stuck at the top of the economic food chain.

No one has yet become a striker that I know of. But its going to happen. It happened in the great "Brain Drain"* from England in the 1960's, when the brains moved to freer nations. "The term was coined by the Royal Society to describe the emigration of "scientists and technologists" to North America from post-war Europe." [* see [1] [2] [3]]

But in Atlas Shrugged, some of the "brains" the keep the economy afloat are literally invited to strike, and are given a safe haven. Some, who don't know of this safe haven, strike on their own by retiring without explanation.

The moral of this blog is to point out that what is about to happen to this country and to the world, as long and as far as this bail-out is continued, will cause everything in the novel to come to fruition.

The only means of rescuing the world from the abomination of spending-stimulus packages, especially those filled with "social" programs, is to take the advice of the 200+ economists who disagree with President Obama and with the force behind the strike in the novel: "Get Out Of Our Way!"

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Socialist Browner; A Stimulus by Any Other Name

The Socialist International denounces America’s “neo-liberal market ideology,”and would prefer “global governance.”

President Obama wants to emphasize science so he chose Carol Browner for his “Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change.” Browner’s career is not as a climate scientist but an attorney who ran the EPA during the Clinton Administration, so she does not represent “change.”

She also put in a stint with the Socialist International. The 170 members include parties like the Democratic Socialists of America, Canada’s New Democratic Party (NDP), Nicaragua’s Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP), the Radical Social Democratic Party (PRSD) of Chile, and many others.

The Socialist International denounces America’s “neo-liberal market ideology,” and would prefer “global governance,” ostensibly by wise international socialists such as themselves, as a way to address both economic inequities and the issue of climate change: the Socialist International deploys a commission for climate change calling for so-called rich countries to reduce consumption. [emphasis added]

Carol Browner was one of 14 leaders of this commission. The Obama transition team knew about Browner’s stint with the Socialist International, but recommended her anyway. Conveniently, Browner’s post does not require confirmation. One can only conclude that the Obama administration agrees with Browner’s Socialist International approach, at some odds with the facts.

In December, when much of the country was experiencing extreme cold, the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee released a minority staff report with statements from many scientists skeptical of climate-change orthodoxy. Environmental physical chemist Dr. Kiminori Itoh says that warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal.” The report also cites Ivar Giaver, a Nobel laureate in physics, who says “I am a skeptic . . . Global warming has become a new religion.” Dr. Joanne Simpson, PhD in meteorology and formerly of NASA, says that “As a scientist I remain skeptical. The main basis of the claim that man’s release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models. We all know the frailty of models concerting the air-surface system.”

“I am convinced that the current alarm over carbon dioxide is mistaken,” explains Dr. Will Happer, professor of physics at Princeton and former director of energy research at the Department of Energy. “Fears about man-made global warming are unwarranted and are not based on good science,” Dr. Happer says in the report.
Those fears demonstrate fear for the regulatory, anti-enterprise, and anti-U.S. approach championed by the Socialist International and Carol Browner.

Condensed from "Welcome to Watermelon Season" by K. Lloyd Billingsley, Editorial Director, Pacific Research Institute Vol. 14 No. 5: February 4, 2009 media@pacificresearch.org

Don’t Call It “Stimulus”

David Friedman raises a very good point:
A well chosen name wins an argument by assuming its conclusion. Label cash subsidies to foreign government as “foreign aid” and who can be so hard hearted as to oppose them? Call subsidies to the public schools “aid to education” and you neatly skip over the question of whether additional spending in the public school system results in more education.

And “economic stimulus” is a classic example.

Everyone—including Obama, back when he was running for President—is against deficit spending. Relabel it “stimulus” and everyone is for it. The label neatly evades the question of whether having the government borrow money and spend it is actually a way of getting out of a recession—a claim for which evidence is distinctly thin. It is stimulus, so obviously it must stimulate.

So what should we call it? President Obama’s spending proposal? The deficit-spending package? I think we’d have trouble getting the media to call it the Big Boondoggle. Maybe the government bailout, following the Wall Street bailout and the auto bailout?

Alas, we’re probably stuck debating the “stimulus.” But that means the battle was half lost before it began. Cato at Liberty

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The Inescapable Necessity of Choice

The inescapable necessity of choice is the hand that nature dealt to mankind.

"Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice." *

That sounds like determinism. Is it?

Determinism is a form of reductionism, "a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents.[1] This can be said of objects, phenomena, explanations, theories, and meanings." [see [1]]

"Reductionists are those who take one theory or phenomenon to be reducible to some other theory or phenomenon. [ ] The type of reductionism that is currently of most interest in metaphysics and philosophy of mind involves the claim that all sciences are reducible to physics. This is usually taken to entail that all phenomena (including mental phenomena like consciousness) are identical to physical phenomena." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

"Our bodies and minds are shaped in their entirety by conditions that precede us and surround us," writes Tom Clark, using those reductionist metaphysics.

While I would say that "conditions that preced us and surround us" do indeed eliminate our "power to escape the necessity of choice," I would disagree with Clark's following conclusion that because of that necessity of having to choose, "we can no longer take or assign ultimate credit or blame for what we do."

Men and women used to take that credit or blame, in other times, when the morals of humans seemed to be greater in personal importance. People were never heard to whine, "It wasn't my fault," except for those who were subsequently sneered at or even ostracized by society for such remarks.

The idea that man has no power to escape the necessity of choice creates the responsibility for any decisions he then chooses to make, and there is nowhere for them to be placed except squarely on the moral shoulders of the decision-maker. Certainly the blame cannot be placed on the inescapable necessity of choice.

It is the inescapable necessity of choice that gives meaning to life. Without choice, life--if it could exist--would exist as a stagnant, unthinking, unknowing blob of protoplasm that could not even act with biological necessity; after all, even biological necessity is created by inescapable evolutionary ends. Evolutionary ends are the "choices" nature makes in the life-and-death attempt to keep a species adaptably alive.

The inescapable necessity of choice is the hand that nature dealt to mankind. That makes the inescapability of moral choice metaphysically natural. It also draws the line between being human animals and a non-human animals. The inescapablility of moral choice is a metaphorical shining crown on man's head when he chooses to take "ultimate responsibility and blame" for his actions.

It defines the desire to mitigate blame and to diminish credit for proper choices as the epistemology of whining.

* from John Galt's Speech; Atlas Shrugged; Ayn Rand

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Obama's Policies: America's New Risk from Terrorists

In issuing these executive orders, Mr. Obama is returning America to the failed law enforcement approach to fighting terrorism that prevailed before Sept. 11, 2001.

The column below by John Yoo, which appeared last Thursday in the Wall Street Journal, analyzes some of the decisions President Obama made in his first week as commander-in-chief. Taken together, these decisions, as Yoo notes, “will seriously handicap our intelligence agencies from preventing future terrorist attacks.”

Obama Made a Rash Decision on Gitmo;

By John Yoo [condensed]

During his first week as commander in chief, President Barack Obama ordered the closure of Guantanamo Bay and terminated the CIA's special authority to interrogate terrorists.

While these actions will certainly please his base -- gone are the cries of an "imperial presidency" -- they will also seriously handicap our intelligence agencies from preventing future terrorist attacks. In issuing these executive orders, Mr. Obama is returning America to the failed law enforcement approach to fighting terrorism that prevailed before Sept. 11, 2001.

He's also drying up the most valuable sources of intelligence on al Qaeda, which, according to CIA Director Michael Hayden, has come largely out of the tough interrogation of high-level operatives during the early years of the war. The question Mr. Obama should have asked right after the inaugural parade was: What will happen after we capture the next Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or Abu Zubaydah? Instead, he took action without a meeting of his full national security staff, and without a legal review of all the policy options available to meet the threats facing our country.

It's also likely Mr. Obama will declare terrorists to be prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. The Bush administration classified terrorists -- well supported by legal and historical precedent -- like pirates, illegal combatants who do not fight on behalf of a nation and refuse to obey the laws of war.

The CIA must now conduct interrogations according to the rules of the Army Field Manual, which prohibits coercive techniques, threats and promises, and the good-cop bad-cop routines used in police stations throughout America. Mr. Obama has also ordered that al Qaeda leaders are to be protected from "outrages on personal dignity" and "humiliating and degrading treatment" in accord with the Geneva Conventions.

His new order amounts to requiring -- on penalty of prosecution -- that CIA interrogators be polite. Coercive measures are unwisely banned with no exceptions, regardless of the danger confronting the country. Eliminating the Bush system will mean that we will get no more information from captured al Qaeda terrorists.

Every prisoner will have the right to a lawyer (which they will surely demand), the right to remain silent, and the right to a speedy trial. The first thing any lawyer will do is tell his clients to shut up.

The KSMs or Abu Zubaydahs of the future will respond to no verbal questioning or trickery -- which is precisely why the Bush administration felt compelled to use more coercive measures in the first place. Our soldiers and agents in the field will have to run more risks as they must secure physical evidence at the point of capture and maintain a chain of custody that will stand up to the standards of a civilian court.

Relying on the civilian justice system not only robs us of the most effective intelligence tool to avert future attacks, it provides an opportunity for our enemies to obtain intelligence on us.

If terrorists are now to be treated as ordinary criminals, their defense lawyers will insist that the government produce in open court all U.S. intelligence on their client along with the methods used by the CIA and NSA to get it. A defendant's constitutional right to demand the government's files often forces prosecutors to offer plea bargains to spies rather than risk disclosure of intelligence secrets.

Reprinted with permission from

ACT for America

P.O. Box 12765

Pensacola, FL 32591

http://www.actforamerica.org/

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Naturalist Economics: Bernanke vs. Ayn Rand

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]

That is "naturalist economics."

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Determinism, Metaphysics, and Me, Myself, and I

I wonder if it is precisely this "internal experience," this "consciousness [of] certain existing relationships," that most naturalists fear?

Daniel Dennett is a leading author and teacher of scientific naturalism, a form that denies the existence of the soul and of free will. "He argues that the brain’s computational circuitry fools us into thinking we know more than we do, and that what we call consciousness — isn’t." TED.com

Mr. Dennett is an interesting figure because he does not argue that man is not by nature deterministic, but he certainly gives it new meaning, and his ideas appear alongside the names of others who may--or may not, there are so many of them--see the nature of man as more fatalistic (see below.) Some may even see us as less deterministic than Dennett; I couldn't begin to list the view of all the other people he appears beside if I had a year to do it. Which books, which lectures, which interviews did those others write or give in which their idea of man's determinism is defined?

These naturalists allow their names to appear together specifically because they deny anything supernatural. In one place alone appear the names of Susan Blackmore, Paul Bloom, Paul Broks, Daniel Dennett, Sheldon Drobny, Owen Flanagan, Ursula Goodenough, Joseph Hilbe, Nicholas Humphrey, Brian Leiter, Thomas Metzinger, Tamler Sommers, John Symons, and on another page of that site another list of other names. Surely, there is disagreement among them, somewhere, as described below in a website co-founded by Dennett.

The field of scientific naturalism leaves the door open to so many who "do not think alike on many action issues, and beyond the other principles [listed] below, it is not the movement’s desire to press for conformity." [emphasis added] The Brights

This lack of conformity is the reason that this Academy Blogger holds as a principle that free will and the soul exist, not as supernatural entities, but as a collection of Man's physiological actions which he then identifies as having a common "thread." This thread is a "unit" which is a "bridge between metaphysics and epistemology [and are] viewed by a consciousness in certain existing relationships." [emphasis in the original] Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology; Ayn Rand

Thus, man is able to naturalistically use his conscious powers to identify common elements between certain relationships of emotion and intellect, relationships which theists attribute to the supernatural, but which a metaphysical naturalist identifies as merely part of the process of the life of a man. He groups together these things into a relationship which he gives the name "soul."

Scientific naturalists refuse to identify these relationships as having the name "soul" because it is so tied through history with the theist notion of supernaturalism. But that is the theist's mistake; the scientific naturalist's mistake is in not recognizing the correct title of the relationship while denying the origins given to it by theists.

Properly identifying those relationships as "internal experience," someone mockingly wrote: "Pity us poor rational dualists. We have internal experience and yet no beliefs about God or Afterlife. We have more to lose. What I wonder: Are you absolutist non-dualists pretending not to have experience in order to soften the terror of your own deaths?"

I wonder if it is precisely this "internal experience," this "consciousness [of] certain existing relationships," that most naturalists fear?

Perhaps the "absolutist non-dualist" ideas he was considering were these:

• "More and more, biology and neuroscience show that the brain and body do everything that the soul was supposed to do."[1]
• "If you don’t believe in anything supernatural – gods, ghosts, immaterial souls and spirits – then you subscribe to naturalism, the idea that nature is all there is."[2]
• "...there’s no evidence for immaterial souls..."[3]
• "This means to see ourselves as completely physical, embodied, caused creatures, linked to the world in each and every respect, without souls..."
• And: " The death of God up there is now followed by death of the “little god” in here: the soul..."
• And: "...in dropping the soul and free will we get rid of the fictional supernatural agency that blocks true explanations of phenomena. This gives us power."[4]

The last bullet quote in [4] demonstrates how getting rid of the word "soul" itself somehow gives scientific naturalists their "power" to explain everything by physiology. But notice that while the author of all those quotations refuses to admit to a "non-material" soul, he is referring to something about "internal experience," identified as metaphysical. Metaphysics by definition is not material, so the author is denying the soul as "internal experiences" to which we give the metaphysical name "soul," even while metaphysical naturalism keeps supernaturalism out of it. To say something is "metaphysical" is not to say it is supernatural.

The author of those quotes, Tom Clark, runs a pair of websites devoted to debunking the metaphysics of the soul and of free will. Daniel Dennett's name appears on Clark's sites, alongside those many other names who may or may not agree with either Clark or Dennett, who here appear to be disagreeing each with the other.

Last week, I wrote, "...because the brain is specifically an animal organ, a determinist would think that his thoughts are actions caused by specific psychical or physical conditions." This is what Clark would have us believe.

And, in fact, this view is true, if you do not figure fatalism into the mix. "Fatalism is the view that we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Clark would have us believe in this powerlessness. The argument runs that if you could go back in time and all other things remained the same, would a man have the free (libertarian) will to do differently than he did the first time? To answer no is fatalism, because it denies the ability to do something other than what one did do. To say "given that all other things remain the same," is to say "of course he could do nothing differently; nothing has changed." That is a not a fair test of free will, to change nothing, yet expect that free will would do something different anyway. Change one thing, then ask if free will would act differently, or if it would choose the same.

The difference between the determinism of scientific naturalism and the non-determinism of metaphysical naturalism is in this case metaphysics. The determinist has us believing that the brain is nothing but "conditioning," nothing but physiological actions of the "sensory cortex [ ] activated [ ] using corticocortical and corticothalamic fibers." Bernard J. Baars and Katherine McGovern

Such determinists do not deny that we have choices. In an interview in Reason magazine online, Daniel Dennett, appearing to contradict much of what his fellow authors say, said this:

"Determinism is the idea that what you do depends. What happens depends on what you do, what you do depends on what you know, what you know depends on what you're caused to know, and so forth -- but still, what you do matters. There's a big difference between that and fatalism. Fatalism is determinism with you left out."

Thank goodness someone sees the metaphysical relationships that determine the existence of "me, myself, and I." The way scientific naturalism is headed, someone, someday, is going to declare that those entities are also supernatural, and therefore do not exist.

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Obama's Economics in Wide Public Dispute

"Capitalism is based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights..."

"There is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jumpstart the economy," said President (Elect) Barack Obama on January 9, 2009.

With no respect on my part for the ignorance of a President who embraces Marxism and ignores the Austrian economic school of free enterprise, I can tell you that 200 of our leading economists who are not Keynesians say the President is wrong. This includes William Poole, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

They said so in full-page newpaper ads in The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal [see below] against the trillion dollar spending binge proposed by democrats.

"The ad, sponsored by the Cato Institute, blasts the massive boondoggle that funds liberal projects under the guise of "stimulating" the economy."

"Keynes distilled a fantastically wrong theory of capitalism and of a socialist paradise erected out of paper money. Moreover, Keynes offered no theory of stagnation at all." Ludwig von Mises Institute

"Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned...

"The moral justification of capitalism does not lie in the altruist claim that it represents the best way to achieve the common good. It is true that capitalism does—if that catch-phrase has any meaning—but this is merely a secondary consequence." Ayn Rand

Keynesian politics embraced by President Obama and the Democrats deny the justice attendant with capitalism, of allowing the people to prevent, let alone clean up, the mess made by the government. Instead, Keynesianism adds layers of government on the layers of the mess.

Republicans also believe in Keynesian economics, to the extent that at present they are decrying those parts of the "stimulus plan" which are not "stimulating." They like certain parts of the plan. They don't want the parts that appear to be only pork.

However, if some of those pork projects were proposed outside of the stimulus plan, they would vote for it. So would I. Example: no one disagrees that the National Mall is falling apart and needs repair. But resodding it should not be called "stimulus" and be expected to help the economy, nor should any "stimulus" be called "government partnership" with capitalism. Government interference in the economy should always be voted down.

When the government becomes a "partner" with capitalism, capitalism no longer exists. Then, the system becomes what is called a "mixed economy." To the extent that the economy is "mixed" in this way is the extent to which that economy is socialist--or worst.

We are in a world of hurt right now, because of government actions in the wrong places, and government inaction in the wrong places.

The rallying cry of the laissez-faire capitalist is, "Get out of my way!" Our government is doing everything it can to stand in the way of economic recovery, which can only come from consumer interest in goods produces. When the government dictates where capital is to be spent, the consumer is likely to be uninterested in the product, because it is a politically-motivated product, like wind farms and goat milk instead of cow milk.

Let the market do its job. The job of the government is to keep a watchful eye on the ethics in the market place, so the Birney Madoff's of the world, and the Enrons, and the sub-prime markets don't ruin us in the future.

You can put my signature on that, too.

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Creeping Jihad at Harvard & VA; Your Town Next?

Lord Ahmed

is a repugnant individual in association, character and morality who has threatened jihad on the House of Lords

A Member of Congress announces she is inviting Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders to come to Washington to meet with members of Congress and discuss his documentary film “Fitna.”

When Congressman Abdullah hears about this, he threatens the Member and the entire Congress that, unless Mr. Wilders’ visit is cancelled, he will mobilize 10,000 Muslims to prevent the visit from taking place.

As a result, the visit is cancelled and Congressman Abdullah praises Allah for delivering a victory to the Muslim community. "The Pakistani Press is jubliant, and [ ] is praising Allah for delivering ‘a victory for the Muslim community’."

Of course, this couldn’t possibly happen in the United States, right?

Read the commentary, roll the clock back thirty years, and ask yourself how many Brits do you think would have believed it could happen in Great Britain today? What was unthinkable in Great Britain thirty years ago is reality today. This is “cultural jihad” at work.

"Lord Ahmed is a repugnant individual. Not only in appearance, but in association, character and morality. [H]e has threatened jihad on the House of Lords if their lordships should fail to meet his demands..." [emphasis added] Cranmer

Twenty years ago who would have believed that today Harvard would create “women only” gym hours to meet the demands of Muslims. Or a state legislature would allow an imam to open its session with a prayer that calls on “victory over those who disbelieve.” Or the Fairfax County (Virginia) police department dropping an anti-terrorism training program after complaints from Muslim police officers – one of whom was engaging in the various types of subversion the training program was intended to prevent.

For the British Parliament to abandon its right to free speech by knuckling under to the intimidation tactics by Lord Ahmed will only invite more – and bolder – tactics. To think that we in America can follow the path Great Britain has trod and not end up dealing with the same intimidation tactics is the worst form of wishful thinking.

Used with permission from
ACT for America
P.O. Box 6884 Virginia Beach, VA 23456
http://www.actforamerica.org/

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Penises, LIttle Boys, and Internet Responsibility

KY brand of sexual lubricant already has TV ads that tout a creme for him and a creme for her which, when used together, does something "special" for each of them.

What kind of messages are we sending to our children when online and TV ads bearing these types of headlines are available at all hours for the kids to see?

Online, the headline "Dreaming of a Bigger Penis?" comes with a good looking young man lying on his bed, looking up at you. It does not have the addition of "Little Boy."

But you and I know the elementary boys will be giggling about it and showing it to each other. Middle and junior high school girls will be giggling about "penises" at the their lockers, while looking at their favorite boys' crotches trying to figure out which one's have the biggest. Some of those girls will find out, if they have not already. The boys will be laughing about penis size in the locker rooms and pointing at each other's dicks in the shower to prove they themselves don't need any "pills," and inadvertently shaming the innocent, closeted gay boys who get a hard-on, while bravely encouraging the straight boys to jerk it and prove they are men before emerging from the showers.

Creation of a web "dotsex" just for sex ads and porn is not against the first amendment or free speech; it is against the mulitculturist left [see article below] who want freedom of the press, even when the press is read by minors. You cannot yell fire in a crowded theater? Certainly; and just as certainly this is not a case of that; but there is an audience for everything, and for everything there is a audience that should not be involved. It is why we make age-related laws about so many subjects, from movies to alcohol, from video games to driver's licenses, to which crimes can cause teens to be tried as adults.

We adults in civilization ought not be able to titillate the horny teens who already have their pants full of throbbing meat, wondering where to put it. They are not being taught not to put it anywhere, because statistics prove that abstinence programs alone are not as effective as mixed education where the proper use of condoms and safer sex are also taught.

Chastity rings are a cool thing, and I hope they work for those teens who want them to work. But 8 year olds who innocently surf the web and find these ads on their favorite general information pages don't need to be thinking about their penises--or anyone else's. If this continues, we will eventually see "clitoral stimulus pills" advertised. KY brand of sexual lubricant already has TV ads that tout a creme for him and a creme for her which, when used together, does something "special" for each of them.

Can you imagine what the boys in the locker rooms will do that with that information? A social society does not need to publicly discuss penises in general, not in front of our toddlers and teens.

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Determinism is a Python in the Jungle

...because the brain is specifically an animal organ, a determinist would think that his thoughts are actions caused by specific psychical or physical conditions.

Determinism is the doctrine that every fact in the universe is guided entirely by law. As doctrine, it allows only for mechanical causation of all things that have existence, once existed, or will exist. It was contained as a theory in the atomism of Democritus of Abdera, “who reflected upon the impenetrability, translation and impact of matter.” [Dict. Of Phil; Runes; 1942]

In human history it is the doctrine that “all the facts in the physical universe are absolutely dependent upon and conditioned by their causes.” [ibid]

In psychology it is the doctrine that the will is not free but is “determined by psychical or physical conditions.” [ibid]

I find it surprising that psychology, the science that combines epistemology with metaphysics as causes of human action, would conclude that free thought is not free, but rather is ruled by the same laws as those that rule gravity and vacuums and animal organs. Of course, it is only deterministic psychology that comes to this conclusion.

The field of psychology itself is so fragmented on the subject of free will vs. determinism that we rarely read about them.

“Incompatibilists maintain that our conceptions of free will and moral responsibility are at odds with determinism. Compatibilists deny this and insist that our notions of free will and moral responsibility are consistent with determinism. [ ] Libertarians maintain that we do have indeterminist free will (e.g. Kane 1996, O’Connor 1995, Campbell 1957). Eliminativists about free will maintain that free will doesn’t exist. [ ] However, many free will eliminativists maintain that even if determinism is false, we still lack the kind of indeterminist choice that is required by the folk notion (e.g. Pereboom 2001, Sommers 2005, Strawson 1986). On this view, our notion of free choice is incompatible with the facts, regardless of whether determinism is true or false.” Shaun Nichols; Department of Philosophy; University of Arizona How can psychology contribute to the free will debate?

But because the brain is specifically an animal organ, I suppose it not hard to see why a determinist would think that his thoughts are nothing but actions (or reactions) caused by specific elements of existence acting directly on his brain.
This would give him the concept that all the reactions of his brain of which his brain can be conscious are reactions fully caused by those specific elements. He might even be led to believe that he is fully caused by all the things of which he is not aware.

Perhaps the python that swallowed the man in Africa had an effect on the full causation of some other man's employer, since his employer was there at the time the python ate the man. But since the employee himself was not there, he is only indirectly caused by the knowledge that pythons do eat men, that his employer was witness to such an event, and that he himself could be eaten by a gator if he visits Florida and gets too close to a pond in which a gator is hiding.

The man who was eaten by the python, unbeknownst to the employee, was going to invest a large sum of money into the employer's company. Since he was, instead, eaten before he could invest, the employee remained working for a small company he wished was larger—which it would have become—so that he could get paid more, so that he could buy a new car, so that he could take a vacation across the country.
The employee is “fully caused” by the python's action, “caused” to work for a small company, “caused” into wishing for more pay, “caused” into desiring a car he does not have in order to see the Grand Canyon. The python caused all that by eating the man in the jungle of Africa before he could invest his money with the employee's employer.

No, it is not hard to see why a determinist would be “caused” to conclude these things.

But if free will begins with the freedom to think or not to think, to find a solution to something or to evade that solution, then free will exists. Call it by any name you wish, but a man who decides to evade reality “just because,” or “because he is tired of living,” or “because he is tired of being the one who must always find the solution,” or because, like John Galt, he has an ego which refuses to be destroyed by all the things that would otherwise “cause” him to be destroyed if he did not make the free choice to stop evading the truth and let the world go to hell—such actions by men prove that they can overcome all those things which determinsts say “full causes” them.

The truth is, men can choose. What they have before them to choose from may be fully determined by circumstances, but whenever there is more than the choice to “do or die,” so to speak, free will exists.

Even in a “do or die” situation, a man is free to die—if he so chooses.

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