The Rise of the Sour Cream, Part 3

This is a continuation of the two previous posts here.

Passions.  Prejudices.  Loaded words. Meaningless words. Imprecise words. Implying that aberrations are the norm. Behind a smokescreen constructed of such deception lurks the demagogue. With appeal to emotion he obscures reason. With loaded, meaningless, or imprecise words he persuades the unthinking. With passion and prejudice he sets us against each other. Making isolated aberrations appear the norm, he divides and conquers. Power is his goal and he cares not for the trouble he causes. Adolf Hitler plunged the world into the most destructive war in history. Jim Jones led his followers into mass suicide. Pol Pot created a hell on earth for his people. Other demagogues have caused similar problems.

Nor is the U.S exempt. Campaign ads and slogans typically appeal to emotions but say little or nothing. “Hope and change?” Hope for what? Socialism? Freedom? Tax-funded gifts to everyone? That was left to the voters' imaginations. Change? That could mean anything from absolute dictatorship to anarchy. The slogan was meaningless.

Are Republicans exempt? Hardly. I remember a full-page ad with the republican candidate's name in large print, along with the office he was seeking. It showed him beside a tractor with a farm in the background. A nice, pretty picture – and nothing else. Not a word about his qualifications or what he expected to do if elected. What did that tell the voters? Nothing! All image, no substance.

Pick a politician at random; look at his campaign slogan and advertising. Chances are it will have no real meaning. If you want to know his qualifications and intent you have to look elsewhere – and really work to get the information.

Nor is this limited to politicians. We have race baiters and others who encourage us to jump to conclusions before the facts are in. By so doing, they distract us from the more important issues while gaining power or money for themselves.

In Chapter 5 [of Freedom or Serfdom?] we discuss the false rape accusations involving Tawana Brawley, the rape charges against the Duke Lacrosse Team, and the shooting of Trayvon Martin. Those cases became national scandals, to the detriment of the falsely accused and even of at least one witness who refused to toe the party line. The race-baiting demagogues picked those isolated cases and used them to present an overblown perception of racism – while lining their own pockets and enhancing their own celebrity.

Meanwhile, the greatest danger to Blacks is not white men or police, but other black men. Of every thousand Blacks murdered, some 930 are killed by other Blacks.[1] That fact holds the key to prevention of many murders, yet it is hardly ever publicized. That is not to say that prejudice does not exist, it does. It is only to say that the major cause of Blacks being murdered is not white on black prejudice, but the behavior of some Blacks. Failure to address that problem sentences many young Blacks to death.

Unless we ignore the demagoguery and demand real information, we will fall victim to misinformation and bigotry. It may or may not become as bad as what happened in Ceylon, but it will harm us.

Next time I'll discuss an example of demagoguery, what happened in Ceylon/Sri Lanka

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[1]      http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/bvvc.pdf

The Rise of the Sour Cream, Part 2

This is Part 2 of the series. In part 1 I promised to correct an erroneous belief about the dangerously powerful. Here it is, continuing to excerpt from my book, Freedom or Serfdom? The Case for Limited, Constitutional Government and Against Statism:

“We're for the people, they're for the powerful.” During the 2000 presidential election, that was Al Gore's campaign slogan. It was a lie. Gore wanted to increase the already stifling power of the most powerful organization in the country. He and other demagogues would have us ignore the real power, the danger that threatens our freedom. They distract us with attacks on lesser threats while they increase the most dangerous power of all.

Statists claim, without evidence, that corporations and the wealthy are dangerously powerful. They never mention the most powerful entity of all: the federal government. If we really want freedom we must limit that government power. Statists want to go the opposite direction. They propose a transfer of power from individuals and businesses to a monopolistic government. That is a change not just in location, but in the very nature of power. No corporation can force people to obey its edicts, but the humblest government bureau can do just that. And the bureaucracy has no competition.

You don't like General Motors cars? Fine, buy a Ford, a Dodge or a Toyota. In fact, you need not buy a car at all. But what if you don't like the type of baby crib that the Consumer Product Safety Commission approves? Tough, nothing else is available. Or you don't like your local school system? At least you are allowed to send your children to private school – but in most cases you must still pay the government school, just as though you were sending your children there.

The power of government is inherently different from what any corporation or other private entity can have. It is a concentrated power, with no competition. Even if that government is not run by demagogues, it will have power over our lives that corporations can only dream of. The exception is the crony capitalists, those corporations in alliance with government and which get their power from government. For example, many insurance companies expect to gain more customers as Obamacare forces people to buy insurance. Such abuses will increase as government power increases. The potential damage is unlimited.

Our Defense Against the Nefarious

What can we do about it? There are two defenses. First, we must jealously defend constitutional, limited government. Limiting government power will limit the damage any demagogue can do. Second, we must carefully examine political candidates and reject the demagogues and the power hungry. That last may be difficult; often we face an unhappy choice between two statists. Sometimes we have to hold our noses and vote for the lesser of evils.

And we must stay in contact with our representatives. They want to get re-elected; they will pay attention if the voters demand it. One state senator gave some friends of mine a lesson on that fact. They had been in the state capital testifying against a bill. After hours of that, the senator finally took pity on them. She took them aside and said in effect, “You need to understand that we don't care about your charts and statistics. What we care about is getting re-elected.”

If we make it clear to politicians that their re-election depends on defending freedom, they will respond. As described in Chapter 10, we must maintain our Constitution by constant vigilance, and by keeping our representatives on a short leash.

The first line of defense is keeping demagogues out of office. The second is constant oversight of our hired help.

In the next part of this series, we'll look at how demagogues work and how we can keep them out of power.

The Rise of the Sour Cream, Part 1

(Note: this and some subsequent blogs are excerpts from Chapter 22 of my book, Freedom or Serfdom, The Case for Limited, Constitutional Government and Against Statism.)

People took the favorable developments [created by freedom] for granted. They forgot the danger to freedom from a strong government. Instead they were attracted by the good that a stronger government could achieve – if only government power were in the “right” hands. (Milton & Rose Friedman)

That's all we need, leaders wise enough to manage all the complicated details involved in big government, and moral enough to work for the benefit of the people rather than for their own selfish interests. Do you know of such people? If so, please tell the rest of us where to find them and how to put them in positions of power and keep them there. Meanwhile, government officials will come from the people actually available in this imperfect world. Some are well-intentioned and wise. Some are well intentioned but foolish. Some are tyrants. Perfection eludes them all.

In fact our leaders come from a self-selected group: from people who seek positions of power and who have the ability to obtain that power. Some honestly seek the welfare of the country; some seek their own selfish ends. Do they have greater wisdom and integrity than the rest of us? History regards that question as a bad joke. Rulers, especially statist rulers, are seldom paragons of wisdom and integrity. This is most obvious among the dictators of the world, but even free countries are often plagued by the perverse.

Types of Statists

Statist rulers vary in cussedness. There are the “soft dictator” or “overprotective parent” types who genuinely want what is best for the people. They impose their own ideas on the country, from controlling what is in school lunches to forcing citizens to save for retirement and to buy health insurance, even telling them what that insurance must cover and that they must put retirement savings in a government run system. To “help and protect” the people, the soft dictator will set up a nanny state, including systems that provide oversight of the population – you cannot protect the people from themselves without some means of controlling them. That fosters dependence and prepares a people to acquiesce to whatever the authorities decree.

At the other extreme is the slave master such as the Kim family in North Korea or the Duvaliers in Haiti. They treat their people as property, forcing them to support extravagant life styles for the elite. And should a slave master take over a soft dictatorship, he will inherit the existing nanny state mechanisms and turn them into tools of tyranny.  Overprotected citizens, like overprotected children, are easily misled.

So what kind of people rise to the top in a collectivist country? Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot, and others. Misery makers all, they ruled with iron fists and treated their people, not as citizens to be served, but as pawns to use as they saw fit. Why are so many collectivist rulers despots? Is that accidental, or do the tyrannical have some advantage in the quest for power? We shall see why the latter is true.

Sour Cream

“The cream rises until it sours.” The delightful book, The Peter Principle, uses that term to describe employees who get promoted into jobs they cannot do. There they stay, ineligible for further promotion. That is an interesting and useful concept, but not our concern here. We are concerned with the “cream” that is sour before it rises, the cream that rises because it is sour. Control freaks, tyrants, people who would force their ideas on others. Those people are the “sour cream,” who obtain power because they want to control the rest of us.

Honey attracts flies.

Money attracts the greedy.

Government attracts the power-hungry.

That is just the way things are. And the more powerful the government, the more it will attract those of tyrannical mindset.

There are two reasons despots rise to the top in statist systems. First, they want that power – badly. Second, they are willing to do what it takes to reach the top, ethics be damned. Their favorite tool is demagoguery, which we shall discuss shortly. However we should first correct a common misconception, an erroneous belief about the dangerously powerful.

(Continued next time)

Same-sex Weddings

Whether we agree or not, the courts have ruled that same-sex marriage is allowed. The next question is, “are citizens to be forced, as a condition of employment, to enable same-sex marriage?”

This battle started long before the latest Supreme Court decision. Photographers have been fined for refusing to photograph same-sex ceremonies, and in Oregon a bakery was ordered to pay $135,000 for refusing to make a cake for a same-sex wedding. In Indiana, a homosexual group searched for a business that would not cater same-sex weddings and finally found a small-town pizzeria that would refuse such business. After threatening phone calls, the establishment temporarily closed its doors.

Are such refusals illegal discrimination or are they protected by the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution? That amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...” And the 14^th amendment is understood to extend that prohibition to the states. Note that this is a “one-way” restriction, it prohibits government action but places no restrictions on citizens or churches. And it protects more than the right to worship; it protects the right to free exercise of religion. Exercise means action. Citizens may act according to their religious beliefs, unless such action harms others.

But what of the discrimination aspect? Does the Constitution protect discrimination? That is not as simple as it first appears, and there are two issues involved:

First, action vs. inaction. While the law can prohibit discriminatory action, refusal to act is another matter. Give race-based preference in hiring or promotion? That is not only illegal but unethical. Give directions to a white man but refuse the same help to a black man? You can do that, even though you are a jerk if you discriminate in that manner. The law does not mandate action, even helpful action.

Second, there is a difference between discrimination based on what people are vs that based on what they do. People are born black, white, brown etc. and may be born with same-sex attraction*. That is what they are, discriminatory action based on that can be outlawed. Those people have no control over what they are (though there is some question about that for those with same-sex attraction**). Discriminate on the basis of what people do? We do that all the time. Lock up the thief, refuse banking services to the meth dealer, even deny legal advice to the businessman who wants to do something legal but unethical? No problem, if we fail to discriminate on the basis of actions, we will not have an orderly society.

Both issues affect businesses that refuse to support same-sex marriage. First, they are not merely being asked to refrain from harmful actions, they are being asked to take a specific action. Second, such weddings are a celebration, not of what people are, but of actions that many regard as sinful. The same-sex wedding celebrates homosexual actions, something all three major religions in this country condemn.

Though we should not discriminate on the basis of what people are, we must discriminate on the basis of what they do. Indeed the Indiana pizzeria does that. Homosexuals are welcome to partake of their pizza in the course of normal business. However, the owners refuse to join in or support a same-sex wedding which is a celebration of homosexual actions. That kind of discrimination should be allowed.

*The question of what causes same-sex attraction remains unanswered. However, the one thing that cannot be the cause is pure genetics. There may be a genetic component, but if it were purely genetic that trait would be naturally selected out in a few generations.

**The question of if same-sex attraction is inherent or can be changed is likewise unanswered. For example, Glasser in his book, Reality Therapy, describes one homosexual who changed and became a normal heterosexual man. Nor is that the only example. The homosexual lobby would claim that people who change were never real homosexuals but there is no way to verify that.

Announcing My New Book

(I posted this before but Blogspot was running everything together. I'll post it again now that the problem is apparently fixed and readers will have an easier time with it.)

My new book, Freedom or Serfdom? The Case for Limited, Constitutional Government and Against Statism is now available. 396 pages plus an extensive index. Available at Amazon or at https://www.createspace.com/5514728.

 This book, is in my opinion, the most comprehensive book available in support of freedom (and of course I'm completely unbiased, right). It not only references many sources but includes many of my own contributions, including: Emphasis on statism vs freedom to get away from the unproductive use of terms such as liberal, conservative, socialist, etc. Ideas discussed include:

Freedom is an aberration, very unusual in our world. It is an unstable state and we will lose it unless we fight to keep it.

Government exists because we delegate to government some of our rights. We cannot delegate rights we do not have. We have no right to enslave others, to take from some and give to others etc. Therefore we cannot delegate those non-existent rights to government.

Too many people ignore information and go along with groupthink, to the detriment of freedom.

How tunnel vision allows statism to increase.

We must learn to ignore the mud-slinging and pay attention to the important, but at the same time recognize real lack of integrity and reject politicians who lack integrity.

The worst tend to rise to the top in any statist government. (Included in Hayek’s bookm The Road to Serfdom, but as far as I know, not in any current literature aimed at the citizens.) Political leaders are not special, they are selected from among the imperfect people actually available in this world. Worse, they are selected from the extroverts rather than the wise.

Statism and totalitarianism can happen here unless we fight it. (Included in Hayek’s book but, as far as I know, not in any current literature aimed at the citizens.)

The book discusses several other topics as well. It's objective is not only to convince people to support freedom but to arm them with facts and sound logic to help in that battle.

Test Post

OK, this is just a test.

I want to see if they have fixed the software so that line breaks etc. show up.

I hope they have done that.

Announcing My Book

This blog is intended to serve two purposes: 1. Test the Blogspot software to see if they have fixed the problem of running everything together, and 2. Announce the publication of my new book, Freedom or Serfdom? The Case for Limited, Constitutional Government and Against Statism. 396 pages plus an extensive index, available at Amazon or at https://www.createspace.com/5514728. This book, is in my opinion, the most comprehensive book available in support of freedom. It not only references many sources but includes many of my own contributions, including: Emphasis on statism vs freedom to get away from the unproductive use of terms such as liberal, conservative, socialist, etc. Freedom is an aberration, very unusual in our world. It is an unstable state and we will lose it unless we fight to keep it. Government exists because we delegate to government some of our rights. We cannot delegate rights we do not have. We have no right to enslave others, to take from some and give to others etc. Therefore we cannot delegate those non-existent rights to government. We have a right to an important nothing, negative vs positive rights. Too many people ignore information and go along with groupthink, to the detriment of freedom. How tunnel vision allows statism to increase. We must learn to ignore the mud-slinging and pay attention to the important, but at the same time recognize real lack of integrity and reject politicians who lack integrity. The worst tend to rise in any statist government. (Included in Hayek’s bookm The Road to Serfdom, but as far as I know, not in any current literature aimed at the citizens.) Political leaders are not special, they are selected from among the imperfect people actually available in this world. Worse, they are selected from the extroverts rather than the wise. Statism and totalitarianism can happen here unless we fight it. (Included in Hayek’s book but, as far as I know, not in any current literature aimed at the citizens.) Proposed constitutional amendment to require senators and representatives to work in jobs having nothing to do with government for three years to be able to serve. Constitutional amendment to rein in bureaucratic rule. Constitutional amendment forcing sunset of laws unless approved by a supermajority of Congress. Constitutional amendment giving courts the task of reviewing lawsuits for validity and allowing for countersuits when appropriate. World government will almost certainly be taken over by tyrants. If there are any readers still out there for this blog I think you will enjoy the book. And if this comes through in readable form, I'll start posting blogs again.