Paul Ryan

[Peter]

The antidote to the Progressive / Socialist political poison may be right in front of us: Paul Ryan. Robert Trancinski has been following his thoughts as shown below. Ryan is almost too good to be true, because he has a better grasp of the philosophical arguments for liberty than Ronald Reagan.

If he could be elected President, he would need to do what Reagan began but could not accomplish.

He could be discussing Randian Politics on Objectivist Living under a pseudonym and no one would catch on.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

TIA Daily • April 5, 2010

COMMENTARY

Radicalized, Part 2

How big of a rising political star is Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan?

Here's how big: when he gives a speech to the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, it's news.

The text of that speech was carried as one of the top links a few days ago at RealClearPolitics, and with good reason. It is an excellent example of the radicalization of the right that I've been talking about. It is a speech that employs some rhetoric and some ideas that did not used to be so prominent in speeches by Republican politicians.

Ryan begins by describing the health care bill as a new Intolerable Act and proceeds to an extraordinary interpretation of this November's election.

Paul Ryan said:

Last week, on March 21st, Congress enacted a new Intolerable Act. Congress passed the Health Care bill—or I should say, one political party passed it—over a swelling revolt by the American people…. Americans are preparing to fight another American Revolution, this time, a peaceful one with election ballots, but the "causes" of both are the same:

Should unchecked centralized government be allowed to grow and grow in power, or should its powers be limited and returned to the people?

Should irresponsible leaders in a distant capital be encouraged to run up scandalous debts without limit that crush jobs and stall prosperity, or should the reckless be turned out of office and a new government elected to live within its means?

Should America bid farewell to exceptional freedom and follow the retreat to European social welfare paternalism, or should we make a new start, in the faith that boundless opportunities belong to the workers, the builders, the industrious, and the free?

We are at the beginning of an election campaign like you've never seen before!

We are challenged to answer again the momentous questions our Founders raised when they launched mankind's noblest experiment in human freedom. They made a fundamental choice and changed history for the better. Now it's our high calling to make that choice: between managed scarcity or solid growth, between living in dependency on government handouts or taking responsibility for our lives, between confiscating the earnings of some and spreading them around or securing everyone's right to the rewards of their work, between bureaucratic central government or self-government, between the European social welfare state or the American idea of free market democracy.

End quote

Ryan's argument—which I think is absolutely correct—is that we are being called upon to re-decide America's Founding. We have reached a "tipping point" at which the American Revolution is either overthrown or begins to be restored. No wonder this has given rise to a new "tea party" movement.

Ryan acknowledges that "the United States has been moving slowly toward this path a long time. And Democrats and Republicans share the blame." That's a good admission—the first step for Republicans is realizing that they have a problem.

I also particularly liked another observation Ryan makes at the end of his speech: "Ronald Reagan used to say: 'Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.... It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for [our children] to do the same.' We are that generation." Representative Ryan and I are about the same age, and this made me realize that he is right: we are the next generation after the Reagan Revolution. And what I think we have seen in the past year and a half is that the momentum of the Reagan-era "turn to the right" had sputtered to a halt—and that we, the next generation, need to renew it.

In a fascinating observation, Ryan shows that he understands the relationship between America's economic system and its political system—and that when the government pays for everything, it dictates every aspect of our lives.

All told, 60 percent—three out of five households in America—were receiving more government benefits and services (in dollar value) than they were paying back in taxes. The Tax Foundation estimates that President Obama's budget last year will raise this "net government inflow" from 60 to 70 percent. Look at it this way: three out of ten American families are supporting themselves plus—through government—supplying or supplementing the incomes of seven other households. As a permanent arrangement, this is individually unfair, politically inequitable, and economically dangerous.

It raises a subtle but real threat to self-government when the few are paying more and more of the bill for government services and subsidies to the majority: "He who pays the piper calls the tune." The next chapter is the rule of "crony capitalism," where those who pay most taxes get the privileges, and government by and for the people is replaced by government by and for the few. The end of this story is soft despotism.

We already see enough of "crony capitalism." When government sends bailout money to Wall Street firms they label "too big to fail," that's "crony capitalism." When government buys shares in General Motors, names their management, and dictates their salaries, that's "crony capitalism." When big health insurance companies, instead of competing for market, team up with Congressional Health Care writers to order every individual to buy their products, that's "crony capitalism." When thousands of small businesses have to meet bottom lines with no government bailout, well, you're too small to succeed—good luck!

What is most interesting about this speech is Representative Ryan's presentation of contemporary politics in philosophical terms. This comes after a somewhat muddled presentation of the history of "Progressivism." The Progressives were a political movement in the late 19th and early 20th century that laid the groundwork for the modern left. This focus on the Progressives instead of "liberals" as the enemies of capitalism and the American system seems to be the influence of Glenn Beck, who has made this a major theme of his radio and television shows. I view this as a sort of progress, because "Progressive" is a less vague, more overtly ideological term than "liberal." It is a step toward understanding the opposition to capitalism on a deeper, more philosophical level.

Indeed, Ryan traces the Progressive back to the influence of European universities and the German philosopher Hegel. He then proceeds into this philosophical section:

Ryan said:

Last January President Obama said: "There are simply philosophical differences that will always cause us to part ways. These disagreements, about the role of government in our lives, about our national priorities and our national security, have been taking place for over two hundred years."

He was right. So let's examine these "philosophical differences" of government….

The Progressivist ideology embraced by today's leaders is very different from everything rank-and-file Democrats, independents, and Republicans stand for. America stands for nothing if not for the fixed truth that unalienable rights were granted to every human being not by government but by "nature and nature's God." The truths of the American founding can't become obsolete because they are not timebound. They are eternal. The practical consequence of these truths is free market democracy, the American idea of free labor and free enterprise under government by popular consent. The deepest case for free market democracy is moral, rooted in human equality and the natural right to be free.

A government that expands beyond its high but limited mission of securing our natural rights is not progressive, it's regressive. It privileges the powerful at the expense of the people. It establishes the rule of class over class. The American Revolution and the Constitution replaced class rule with a better idea: equal opportunity for all. The promise of keeping the earnings of your work is central to justice, freedom, and the hope to improve your life.

End quote

We need to debate on philosophical ideas, and his idea is that government's "high but limited mission" is to "secure our natural rights"? It has been said that Ryan is influenced by Ayn Rand, and there you can see the influence.

A lot of people compared Sarah Palin's speech at the Republican convention in 2008 to the famous 1964 speech that launched Ronald Reagan onto the political scene. As I pointed out at the time, while Palin captured some of Reagan's sense of life, there was nothing in her speech remotely as ideologically substantive as there was in Reagan's. By contrast, this speech by Paul Ryan is almost the equal of Reagan's.

But of course Reagan's 1964 speech was, on the whole, better and more bracing than the actual practice of Reagan's administration, which merely slowed rather than stopping the growth of the welfare and regulatory state. So in specific terms, how does Representative Ryan propose to implement his ideas? Here, in part, is what he has to say.

Ryan said:

A new Congress will then turn to the great problem of our stagnant economy and the debt tsunami bearing down on us. The days of pretending not to notice are over. The next Congress will understand this threat and act after transparent deliberation and real debate.

I have put forward my specific solution, called "A Roadmap for America's Future," to meet this challenge. The CBO confirms that this plan achieves the goal of paying off government debt in the long run—while securing the social safety net and starting up future economic growth.

The problem in a nutshell is this: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, three giant entitlements, are out of control. Exploding costs will drive our federal government and national economy to collapse. And the recession plus this Congress' spending spree have accelerated the day of reckoning….

Everyone 55 and over will remain in the current Medicare program. For those now under 55, Medicare will be like the health-care program we in Congress enjoy.

Future seniors will receive a payment and pick an insurance plan from a diverse list of Medicare-certified plans—with more support for those with low incomes and higher health costs. To reform Medicaid, low income people will receive the means to buy private health insurance like everyone else.

Under the Roadmap's Social Security proposal, everyone 55 and older will remain in the existing program with no change. Those under 55 will choose either to stay with traditional Social Security, or to join a retirement system like Congress's own plan. They will be able to invest more than a third of their payroll taxes in their own savings account, guaranteed and managed by the federal government. For both Social Security and Medicare, eligibility ages will gradually increase, and the wealthy will receive smaller benefit increases.

End quote

All of this would be progress, which is to say that it would be better than the current system. (The only part that is totally unacceptable is the idea of personal savings accounts "guaranteed and managed by the federal government." Do you want the same people who run Fannie and Freddie and GM to be managing trillions of dollars of our retirement savings? I didn't think so.)

But notice what kind of progress it is. It is progress from a bad form of government intervention, to a somewhat less bad form of it. We go from government paying directly for all health care for the poor and elderly, to government offering subsidies for private health insurance. We go from fully government-guaranteed retirement income to partially government-guaranteed retirement income, mixed with government-designed individual savings accounts.

That's fine. I understand how difficult it would be, politically speaking, to go directly from the current system to something that is fully privatized. So if someone proposes a step in that direction, even a relatively modest step, I'll support it. And remember that Ryan is the ranking member (i.e., the top Republican) on the House Budget Committee, so his main priority is not to totally privatize Social Security but simply to ensure the solvency of the federal government—which the Democrats have put into danger.

But notice what creates the limitations in Ryan's proposal: his assumption that we have to "secure the social safety net." What happened to government being limited to securing our rights? There's where Ryan's little exploration of philosophy runs aground. What he actually wants is a middle ground or compromise between "self-reliant" individualism and the altruist/collectivist philosophy of "society's" obligation to care for anyone who might have any kind of need. You can see that compromise in one brief paragraph toward the end of the speech.

Ryan said:

The Roadmap plan shifts power to individuals at the expense of government control. It rejects cradle-to-grave welfare state ideas because they drain individuals of their self-reliance. And it still honors our historic commitment to strengthening the social safety net for those who need it most.

End quote

I was wondering why I had never really heard of Representative Ryan before—even though he's been in Congress for more than a decade—yet he is suddenly the man of the hour. He has risen to prominence because he, too, has been "radicalized" by the events of the past eighteen months, and so he is now beginning to reach for radical ideas about limited government. He is reaching for them, because they are the ideas that are required by the times. But as is common with such sudden "radical" conversions, he is not willing to give up the conventional altruist commitment to the "social safety net."

Ryan concludes that "I would welcome honest debate in the next Congress on how to tackle our fiscal crisis—and the larger debate on the proper role of government." So do I, because even the "radicalized" Republicans need to start taking that subject more seriously.—RWT

The Intolerable Acts

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Intolerable Acts or the Coercive Acts are names used to describe a series of five laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 relating to Britain's colonies in North America. The acts triggered outrage and resistance in the Thirteen Colonies that later became the United States, and were important developments in the growth of the American Revolution.

Four of the acts were issued in direct response to the Boston Tea Party of December 1773; the British Parliament hoped these punitive measures would, by making an example of Massachusetts, reverse the trend of colonial resistance to parliamentary authority that had begun with the 1765 Stamp Act.

The other act enlarged the boundaries of what was then the colony of "Canada" (roughly consisting of today's Province of Quebec and Province of Ontario) removed references to the Protestant faith in the oath of allegiance, and guaranteed free practice of the Roman Catholic faith.

Many colonists viewed the acts as an arbitrary violation of their rights, and in 1774 they organized the First Continental Congress to coordinate a protest. As tensions escalated, the American Revolutionary War broke out the following year, eventually leading to the creation of an independent United States of America.

[Robert Campbell]

Peter,

The only fault in that speech was giving "Fightin' Bob" LaFollette (a famous Wisconsin politican) and some other early Progressives a more positive review than they deserved.

But anyone who calls ObamaReidPelosiCare one of the Intolerable Acts of our time is a good deal more radical than Ronald Reagan ever got.

Robert Campbell

[Peter]

Robert Campbell wrote:

The only fault in that speech was giving "Fightin' Bob" LaFollette (a famous Wisconsin politician) and some other early Progressives a more positive review than they deserved.

But anyone who calls ObamaReidPelosiCare one of the Intolerable Acts of our time is a good deal more radical than Ronald Reagan every got.

end quote

Hear, Hear! Last week’s Limbaugh Letter has an interview with Paul Ryan. Right now he is not announcing. The site he directs us to is:

americanroadmap.org

I just went there and emailed him about no longer contributing to the RNC but that I would contribute to him if he announces. I told him he should seek the Candidacy of the Tea Party Movement and the GOP.

History can be changed today.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Chris Grieb]

Paul Ryan spoke at TAS event commemorating of Ayn Rand's 100th birthday. He also has his interns read Atlas Shrugged. Also on the plus side he know how to pronounce Ayn Rand's first name unlike Ron Paul. On the minus side he describes himself as a Roman Catholic.

Edited April 9, 2010 by Chris Grieb

[Peter]

The Saintly Chris Grieb wrote:

Paul Ryan spoke at TAS commemoration of Ayn Rand's 100th birthday. He also has his interns read Atlas Shrugged. Also on the plus side he knows how to pronounce Ayn Rand's first name unlike Ron Paul. On the minus side he describes himself as Roman Catholic.

End quote

Wow. I did not know that. Do you know what he said at the 100th birthday commemoration?

Ay layk Ayn: I like Ayn. BaAuH2O: Barry M. Goldwater. Let's see, Paul Ryan . . . ? Paul Bunyon, Troy Palamalu, Jack Ryan. How about a Ryan girl dancing on the internet like the Obama Girl. We can call it White on Rye. I will need to think about some slogans too.

I went to his web site and it says Representative Paul Ryan belongs to a “parish” but we find out nothing further about his Catholicism. And I hope we never do. He could govern as well as fellow Catholic, JFK. Nowadays, who considers Prince John as acting as a catholic, Eh? (Poor Jackie O) He certainly was small cee catholic in his taste for women.

Religion is one of those personal things best left separated from political life. Religion is one of the reasons I was first attracted to Mitt Romney as a candidate. There is less chance he would use his JCC of LDS religion as justification for a political decision. And I place Catholics in the same boat, while I view Evangelical Christians as definitely not Presidential material.

I probably shouldn’t say this, but imagine a President Mike Huckabee (or Sarah Palin) reading to first graders in Florida in 2001. Suddenly, an aide comes forward about an airliner deliberately crashing into one of the twin towers. And then, another crashes. I can imagine The Huckster going to pieces, calling for a group prayer, wailing and gnashing his teeth, “Oh, Lord! Smite the heathen!” more prayer to find out what to do, scaring the shit out of the kids, and then he rushes off to DC.

Whew. Glad I got that out of my system.

Why root for any candidate? Why be hurt and disillusioned one more time as the elected reformer reverts to politics as usual? I support political candidates because I find it personally stimulating to get involved. The speed at which a President can change things is so much quicker than slowly changing the philosophical foundations of a society as Ayn Rand does. I remember that when Reagan and Dubya Bush came to power, they immediately slashed and repealed a host of prior presidential orders.

What has amazed me about another Philosophical Movement, The Tea Parties, is how quickly it could change our nation’s direction. We can wait a century, for more generations of teenagers to absorb and be inspired by “Atlas Shrugged,” or we can wait for two years to elect a knight on a white horse. I choose the shorter time frame, as the rational if expedient course, even if I am later disappointed.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Chris Grieb]

Peter; Perhaps in discussing politicians we should remember the last line of one of the greatest comedies ever made. "Nobody's perfect!"

Edited April 9, 2010 by Chris Grieb

[Peter]

Chris Grieb wrote:

Peter; Perhaps we should in discussing politicians we should remember the last line of one of the greatest comedies ever made. "Nobody's perfect!"

End quote

That was very naughty, in “Some like it hot,” for its time and way too tolerant of the gay life style for a lot of the WWII generation. I was eleven when I saw it with a buddy, and we knew enough to speculate would they really do that? In their behinds and mouths? Ugh! Not me. I’m a manly man. Yeah, me too!

My daughter coaxed me to see “V for Vendetta.” I thought I would hate it, but I loved it: “Ideas are bullet proof.”

“Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more,”

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn"

The Godfather, "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse,"

Casablanca, "Here's looking at you, kid.”

"Why don't you come up sometime and see me?" (She Done Him Wrong), I got this from AFI. I thought it was, “Why don’t you come up and see me sometime?”

"May the Force be with you" (STAR WARS),

"Houston, we have a problem" (APOLLO 13),

"You can't handle the truth!" (A FEW GOOD MEN),

"I'll be back" (THE TERMINATOR)

"Show me the money!" (JERRY MAGUIRE).

Back to politicians. I watched Krauthammer on Fox, and he discounted Mitt and Sarah, and hinted that the nominee will probably be one of three guys from the Midwest, including Ryan, or someone we are not considering now.

Is it too early, if you have not previously run, like Mitt and Sarah? Could you peak too soon? Come under scrutiny too soon? Not have enough money or stamina to sustain two full years or more of running for the Presidency?

Perhaps I will back off my boosterism for Paul Ryan for now.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Peter]

My memory is really going. I remember supplying or getting a link to Paul Ryan's Ayn Rand speech. If anyone knows the link let me know. I am also emailing Trancinski to see if he has it. I guess when I first saw it, I did not think of him as Presidential material and his name just did not stick in my memory.

I just got mail from Newt, who wants to end the Secular Socialist march to totalitarianism. I told him I was a secularist and wanted to keep the Tea Party a secular movement, and no I will not give him any money.

Peter

[Peter]

Philosophy does matter. The last paragraphs show totalitarians once again using Altruism to justify attrocities.

Peter

A Swarm of Officers

Part 1: America's Real Class War

by Robert Tracinski

Editor's Note: On Thursday, I posted the prepared text of a relatively short speech I gave at the Tax Day Tea Party in Charlottesville, Virginia. The text of that speech also went up at RealClearPolitics on Friday. Below is the text of a longer speech that I gave to a slightly smaller but very dedicated audience of tea partiers at a later part of the same event. Readers may recognize this as a greatly expanded version of an article published in TIA Daily on February 9.—RWT

For those who caught my remarks at the beginning of today's rally, I mentioned the left's attempt to reverse the ideas at the base of America, and their contemptuous indifference to this country's real history. I mentioned an article that was published on Monday in the Boston Globe that argued for the "patriotism" of paying the outrageous tax rates that we now have to pay. I'll have a little bit more to say about that article in a moment, but one of the astounding claims it makes is that it is a "myth…that America was born in rebellion against taxes." Oh, really?

Let's take a look at the Declaration of Independence. I was at the July 4 Tea Party in Charlottesville last year, and one of the things that I really liked is that Joe Thomas began the event simply by reading the Declaration of Independence, and when you read through it like that, you notice a lot of things that people don't tend to pay enough attention to. People tend to remember the philosophical part at the beginning, about individual rights and the consent of the governed, which was the theory behind the American Revolution. And I wish a lot more people would read that part and take it seriously. But we tend to skip the middle section, which is the list of grievances that the American colonists had against King George III and the British Parliament.

Unfor

Unfotunately, that list is still relevant and timely today. For example, take this issue of taxes. One of our Founding Fathers' chief complaints against King George was that "He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." Sound familiar?

As the old saying goes, taxation without representation is slavery—but taxation with representation isn't that great, either. And so we find that we don't need a swarm of officer to come all the way across the Atlantic to eat out our substance. We can summon our own army of domestic parasites.

That is the unique achievement of the current administration. Barack Obama has presided over an economic boom and a rising tide of prosperity—if you work for the government.

Recently the news came out that, for the first time in America's history, the number of government employees exceeded the number of employees in "goods producing industries." Now I want to point out that "goods producing industries" is a very broad category. It includes things like logging and mining and agriculture, and not just manufacturing. The number of government employees has already exceeded the number of employees in manufacturing, long ago. Does anyone know when that happened? According to my research, it happened back in 1990.

So the number of people who make things are now exceeded by the number of government bureaucrats whose job is to prevent things from being made. And some of these government jobs are pretty plush: another report revealed recently that while the rest of us were in a recession, the number of government jobs paying more than $100,000 per year increased by almost 50%. Government jobs paying more than $150,000 more than doubled.

It used to be that if you worked for the government, there was a tradeoff: you got better benefits, but the pay was lower. Not any more. Another recent study concluded that government jobs pay much more on average than the private sector. And you also get job security. The federal government is hiring, but what about the state governments? They can't take on trillion dollar deficits because they can't print money like the federal government can. Yet on the state level, there has been no decrease in government jobs during downturn, while overall unemployment is 10%. So if you're in the private sector, there's a significant chance you lost your job in the last year. If you're in the government, you're safe. Oh yes, and when they shoved through the health care bill, the Democrats also sneaked in a federal takeover of student loans, which includes a provision that makes your student loans go away after ten years—again, if you work for the government.

This will give you an idea of some of the outrage that's fueling the tea party movement. When I asked a local tea party organizer what got her started, one of the first things she mentioned was the contrast between what ordinary people were doing with their own budgets—cutting back, giving up on luxuries, trying to dig themselves out of debt—and what the federal government was doing: a spending binge financed by vast new quantities of debt that we will have to pay. People are outraged, and they are terrified of a future in which America's only growth industry is government.

But of course, it's not an industry, not really, because it doesn't actually produce anything. At best, this swarm of officers manages wasteful public works boondoggles and outrageously subsidized "green jobs" projects. At worst, their job is to impose stultifying new regulations and collect taxes that drain more wealth from the private economy. The IRS has been hiring like mad, and Obamacare gives them new enforcement responsibilities that will require them to hire thousands more agents. President Obama's latest budget provided an extra $400 million to increase the agency's tax enforcement—that is, to "harass our people and eat out their substance."

The most ominous part of this trend is the runaway growth of public employees' unions, which are now bigger than private-sector unions. Thanks to their ability to shake down the taxpayers, these unions can offer what has been described as "lifetime job security and benefits."

The whole concept of a public employees' union—an organization dedicated to draining the wealth of the American taxpayer—is repugnant. It should probably be illegal. But such unions are now a major pillar of political support for the Democratic Party and for the current administration. And they are the symbol of its policies. This is the Obama administration's economic "stimulus" in action—a stimulus for the parasites at the expense of the producers. It's a stimulus of non-productive, non-profit-making activity. It is an attempt to transform our country into a society in which a growing class of government-connected insiders enjoys the privilege of living off of everyone else's efforts.

The New York Times just put out an analysis of a survey on the tea party movement. I love it when the mainstream media does surveys like this, because the results are usually a mix of the totally obvious and the totally wrong.

For example, they found out that "while most Republicans say they are 'dissatisfied' with Washington, Tea Party supporters are more likely to classify themselves as 'angry.'" I hope they didn't pay too much money to find that out.

Now for the totally wrong part. When I got an e-mail alert about this article, the headline read, "Poll Finds Tea Party Anger Rooted in Issues of Class." Issues of class? What does that mean? The article says that we're motivated by "the conviction that the policies of the Obama administration are disproportionately directed at helping the poor rather than the middle class or the rich." Yeah, we're concerned that the government hasn't done enough to help out the rich, that's why we're marching. Not enough bailouts for Goldman Sachs.

These guys are incorrigible old Marxists, so they want to see everything as class warfare between the workers and the capitalists. So they miss the real class division that is driving the tea party movement: a division between the producer class versus the parasite class. It's a division between people who take on the responsibility of supporting themselves and who end up having to pay all of the bills for runaway government, too, versus the people who want to live off of our work. That includes the poor people who are, for example, getting checks from the government for "tax credits" on income taxes that they never paid. This is the new form of welfare, by the way, because it's a way that politicians can give handouts while calling it a "tax cut." So you give people a tax credit that they can claim as going toward an income tax "refund," even though they don't make enough money to pay income taxes in the first place. It's a handout disguised as a tax refund. But we're also angry about the guys making $150,000 a year as bureaucratic paper-shufflers in Washington, and the guys with politically connected businesses who are getting money from bailouts and the stimulus and the "green jobs" racket.

It's not about rich versus poor. It's about parasites versus producers. It's about takers versus makers.

And for those of us in the producer class, even when we actually do get some benefit from government, we're smart enough to know that we're going to pay for it all in the end. Milton Friedman once said that a nation's true effective tax rate is the rate of government spending—no matter what the official income tax rate is. When the government spends four trillion dollars every year, that money has to come from somewhere, and sooner or later it comes out of our pockets. It's going to come in the form of increased income taxes that we're going to have to pay when the bills start coming due for this spending spree. Or if it isn't income taxes, it's going to be newest brainwave out of Washington, the Value Added Tax, a kind of national sales tax that we pay on top of all our other taxes. It comes in payroll taxes and sales taxes and property taxes. It comes in inflation, when the government just prints the money it needs to pay its bills and wrecks the value of your wealth and your savings. It comes in the economic growth that doesn't occur, the wealth that is not created because more than one out of every four dollars we make is being diverted from producers to parasites.

If there's a war between these classes, between the government class and the producer class, then they started it. What is driving this war is that the government class has a contempt for producers and for wealth creation. You can see this expressed in thousands of little ways. Nancy Pelosi tried to sell the health care bill by saying how good it would be for unemployed artists: "Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance." So notice that these people are considered to be in nobler and more worthy professions, which should be supported by government, as opposed to those who hold productive jobs.

And then there is Michelle Obama's advice to college graduates encouraging them to "move out of the money-making industry" and "into the helping industry." So if you work for government, you're the good guys because you're "helping" people, which makes you better than those money-grubbing jerks in the private sector.

All of this goes against the grain of American history and American culture.

[Reidy]

Property rights matter, too. Unless you have Tracinski's permission, this is a theft of copyrighted material.

[Peter]

Greetings from Paradise, Mr. Reidy.

No theft was involved. His subscribers were given permission to use his words, and that means "moi." And I support him “well beyond” the monetary cost of a subscription because he is well worth it, just as I support Objectivist Living. Hmmm. I don’t think I am but if I am causing Michael and Kat any grief I will kick in another 25 bucks, just for the sensibilities of Good ole Mr. Wilson, uh, I mean Mr. Reidy, right after I send this.

That was a version of a speech Robert gave twice before, at least once on the radio if I remember correctly. As a bonus I usually include an advertisement for his site at the end of any quotes of his. And as a further consideration, the quotes are almost always a few days old. If you want fresh quotes, subscribe to The Intellectual Activist Daily. My goal is to spread Objectivist thought, not to cash in on my pal Robert Tracinski.

I appreciate your concern Peter. No need to sound so harsh. How they hangin’ brother?

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Peter]

In the mail I received a plea for money from The Republican National Committee with a really cool bumper sticker included that says, “Fire Nancy Pelosi.” I may use the sticker, but sorry guys, except so that I may vote in the primaries, I am no longer a Republican. I am a proud member of The Tea Party.

Also in the mail, Atlas Society News’, Diana O’Marra is looking for resumes, and the newsletter continues:

Beginning in 2009, David Kelley agreed to serve as executive director and CEO of The Atlas Society. Kelley and the board intended this role to be temporary while we worked to clarify our mission, align our strategies, and make progress on some key initiatives. We’ve completed this work, so the board has authorized the search for a new CEO, the goal, says Jay Lapeyre (recently elected chairman of the board), is “to bring on an executive-level individual to run the business side of our operation so that David can focus on research and writing, and manage overall strategy as our Chief Intellectual Officer.”

Too bad I am retired 8-) and not competent for the job. I would work for a buck a year to have my name on the stationary.

David Kelley also, wrote in this month’s issue:

What explains this surge? (in Ayn Rand’s stock.) My best guess – and in the absence of any real empirical evidence it is only an educated guess – is that several forces in today’s political-cultural climate have come together in the positive equivalent of a perfect storm.

End quote

So, is 2010 the beginning of The Second Renaissance?

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Peter]

Robert Tracinski editor of The Intellectual Activist, gave subscribers permission to utilize his articles because he was simultaneously publishing them on RealClearPolitics and other sites. Of course he expects to be reimbursed for his time by subscriber’s support, which is $78 per year, and I personally do more than that.

What would a President Ryan be like? Unfortunately, a President Ryan (doesn’t that sound like a Tom Clancy novel?) would need to be more of an activist than silent Cal Coolidge; more active in repealing and slashing.

From the Intellectual Activist Daily, by Robert Tracinscki:

In 1925, Calvin Coolidge famously stated the distinctive outlook of American culture toward money-making, when he said that "the business of America is business."

Here is the full (Coolidge) quote:

"The chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing, and prospering in the world. I am strongly of the opinion that the great majority of people will always find these the moving impulses of our life."

I think Coolidge was probably the greatest 20th century president, mostly because he had the right attitude toward government. Walter Lippmann—a famous radio broadcaster and sort of the Matt Drudge of his day—had this to say about him:

"Mr. Coolidge's genius for inactivity is developed to a very high point. It is far from being an indolent activity. It is a grim, determined, alert inactivity which keeps Mr. Coolidge occupied constantly. Nobody has ever worked harder at inactivity, with such force of character, with such unremitting attention to detail, with such conscientious devotion to the task. Inactivity is a political philosophy and a party program with Mr. Coolidge, and nobody should mistake his unflinching adherence to it for a soft and easy desire to let things slide. Mr. Coolidge's inactivity is not merely the absence of activity. It is, on the contrary, a steady application to the task of neutralizing and thwarting political activity wherever there are signs of life.''

If only our leaders had had a similar attitude during the last year and half.

Business comes first in America because production always has to come first. It is the primary. Before wealth can be given away, whether through charity or in government welfare, somebody has to produce it. And I would go further: production is the basic activity of life.

Think about it. What does every other living being do, what is its basic activity? An animal hunts or forages for food, a plant digs its roots into the soil. For the same reason, we build, we start businesses, we have careers, we work to support our families. This is the main business of life. It's also what Jefferson meant when he wrote in the Declaration of Independence about our right to "the pursuit of happiness."

End quote

Thank you for the insights Robert. I am ready for “our side” to step up to the bat. I have no doubt Ryan’s supporters will expect a quick roll-back from Fascist-Socialism. And for once I am looking forward to a campaign without cringing at MY lesser of two evils.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Hmmm. I don't think I am but if I am causing Michael and Kat any grief I will kick in another 25 bucks, just for the sensibilities of Good ole Mr. Wilson, uh, I mean Mr. Reidy, right after I send this.

Dayaamm! He went ahead and did that, too.

Peter,

I just read this. So that's what you were talking about.

Let me thank you publicly.

Michael

[Peter]

Michael Stuart Kelly wrote:

I just read this. So that's what you were talking about . . . Let me thank you publicly.

End quote

You are most welcome Michael. Your receipt did suffice, though your public thanks is more than welcome 8-)

To all subscribers to Objectivist Living:

It is obvious that paying guests to OL get VIP treatment, even a boorish, ARI, spoofer like me. I was even thanked here by Ed Hudgins for supporting The Atlas Society. My name is gold.

Put your money where your heart and brains are. If you would put a buck into a Salvation Army bucket at Christmas for the least amongst us, then you should support the best amongst us monthly, a hundred fold. This aint public TV.

Michael and Kat are spending their personal and intellectual time upholding the law here on OL. We subscribers try to give our best when we write posts, out of self interest (for who wants to look like a fool?) Let’s also give our best to these folks who deserve the most - the people of the mind - the producers. . . the owners of Objectivist Living.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Chris Grieb]

I agree that Coolidge was the best President in the 20th Century but the most under-rated is Harding.

John Dean has written a short book about and spent some time when he was on In Depth on book TV saying many good things about Harding. When he took office the country was in a serious depression and Harding got the country without government inter fence.

[Peter]

Chris Grieb wrote:

I agree that Coolidge was the best President in the 20th Century but the most under-rated is Harding.

End quote

I don’t know much about Harding, but I will bow to your expertise. Coolidge was the best, not the usually supposed Ronald Reagan, though I think Reagan was the right man in the right place to see the dissolution of the Soviet Empire.

Draft Paul Ryan! Draft Paul Ryan! No politician is perfect, but Ryan is “best in litter,” at this point. Romney will not renounce his Massachusetts Socialized Medicine plan. Perhaps Mitt, the elder statesman, could be his VP candidate, or some other free market candidate.

Twice recently, President Obama has by official decree, changed everyone’s life. First it was to force all hospitals that receive Medicare money to allow whoever the patient wishes as the primary care person after an operation, even if that person is a “significant other” rather than the usual, mandatory family member. It is long overdue that this be the established practice. So what was done was good, but how it was done was not.

Then he had the FDA demand that all food processors begin to lower the salt in their products to meet Federal guidelines. High salt intake is one of the things most likely to contribute to high blood pressure and early death. It is good that people will have a better choice among products. Now, if the public would only throw away the salt shaker at home and in restaurants. Maybe the abolishment of the Morton’s Salt Company as a public menace is next, or they will only be allowed to produce diluted salt.

President Obama is establishing a series of relatively “benign” decrees setting the stage for *government by decree* for whatever will further his socialist agenda. The *decree* trend right now is popular but it will soon be loosed upon the fast food industry, sugary cereal products, gas guzzling SUV’s, and air conditioning. I could think of a lot more Socialist or Green decrees in the works.

The Constitution needs to have some loopholes plugged. Government by decree needs to be stopped. Checks and balances need to be restored.

Replying to my question, what would keep the Constitution going until the year 2500, George H. Smith wrote:

First, the 1936 Supreme Court decision "United States v. Butler" would need to be overturned. This is where Alexander Hamilton's broad interpretation of the "general welfare" clause was explicitly adopted, thereby gutting the enumerated powers doctrine advocated by Jefferson and other strict constructionists . . . The odds of this decision ever being overturned are virtually zilch.

end quote

And George wrote:

Second, the Supreme Court would need to wake up to the fact that we have a Ninth Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

end quote

It was very interesting, after saying all that, George The Rational Anarchist, at a later date, angrily (once more) demanded an end to all government.

Is it the Supreme Court’s *altering the meaning* of the words written there, or their *adverse interpretation* of the words written there, that is the cause of our loss of liberty, and not the Constitution itself?

And is it is the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear cases before it that would be based upon arguments utilizing the Ninth Amendment that have lessened our freedoms? Unfortunately President Obama is about to replace a bad Supreme Court judge with one worse.

So how do we change things? Twenty or thirty years of *good Presidents* could appoint enough judges who are receptive to a strict interpretation.

Or we could have a predominantly, future Tea Party elected Congress enact laws that require a strict interpretation.

Or get a further amendment passed. Any suggestions?

.

The last amendment is the 27th, ratified May 5, 1992:

No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

Now, if that inconsequential amendment, first proposed in 1889 (or was it 1789?) if I remember correctly, could be passed 100 years later, why not write and pass something historically important to keep us *freer* for the centuries to come?

Considering the current political climate, in spite of recent Tea Party gains, in the Welfare States like New York, New Jersey, and California, and the prevailing entitlement mentality of many Americans, I am fearful of a Constitutional Convention UNLESS it had a strictly defined *script* and our representatives at the convention were men of honor. Is that possible? Does the checkered history of the first Convention show us the way to safely proceed?

A quick and long term fix is needed. I would appreciate it, if anyone on Objectivist Living could write a letter about how to abolish Government by Decree, and a means for Government of, by, and for the people, to be reestablished.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor