Christianity and the Left

This probably won't appeal to all readers, at least not in the same way, but for those whose religious faith is a big part of their life, I thought this was worth bringing up, since it appears anyway from time to time.

Especially in the past few years, under Obama, there has been a particular philosophical/theological debate, on and off that has accompanied his expansion of the welfare state with health care and so on. (It predates Obama by a long shot, of course, but it was all the rage a couple years ago.) Maybe his programs are socialist and maybe they aren't, but even if they are, many leftists have argued, what's so bad about that? America is still a Christian nation (sort of), and taking care of the poor is "the Christian thing to do," so why not embrace socialism or knock-off versions of it? Why should men of faith be fiscal conservatives?

I could flesh it out further, but no doubt everyone understand what I'm getting at. As one anecdote, back when ObamaCare passed, I was discussing the bill with a very liberal friend of mine who of course supported it. In the course of the conversation, she said something like the following: "I don't see how you can oppose this bill. You claim to be a Christian, right? Didn't Jesus say it was the duty of his followers to help the poor and needy? And isn't that what this bill is trying to do? You talk all the time about how much you hate socialism, but it's something you should be supporting."

An irksome statement, but not a very surprising one. The fact is, a lot of mainstream Christians have said the same thing. As a lifelong member of the Methodist Church, for example, I have heard many in that body call on Christians to support "social justice," whatever that means. One can also find such elements--often prominent ones--among the Catholics, the Lutherans, the Presbyterians, and so on.

At the time, I dismissed my friend's comment with a few derisive snorts and a mention of the difference between the spiritual and earthly realms, and the difficulty of applying the principles of the former to the politics of the latter. Upon later reflection, though, I don't think I gave a satisfactory answer. After all, citing the words of Jesus, "My Kingdom is not of this world," or Luther's "Doctrine of Two Swords," doesn't exactly explain why one should support or oppose a living wage or a single-payer health care system. And the original question is a powerful one. If I consider myself a Christian, which I do--a fairly crappy one, to be sure, but I make an effort to live up to the name--how can I stand against a philosophy such as socialism, which offers a program to improve the material conditions of the poor by giving them more care and socioeconomic equity? Aren't I called on to perform good works for those less fortunate? And doesn't socialism--or socialistic policies--offer a chance to do just that?

Yes, kind of, but. The problem, I think, when one talks about following a "Christian socialism," a socialistic policy that adheres to the Gospels, is believing that the end goal of performing such good works is to help the poor. Make no mistake: acts of charity and material aid for the benefit of those in need is, from the Christian perspective, an absolute good, and pleases God. The trouble, however, is that helping the poor is not the end goal of good works. Controversial, I know. But consider this: when St. James penned the famous line, "Faith without works is dead," whose faith was he talking about? Those for whom the works were being performed? No. He was referring to the faith of those performing the works. For service and charity to others is how Christians express their faith here on earth. Neglect it, and faith becomes stagnant, a mere internal acknowledgement of the Good News and making no tangible difference in the believer's life and character. Moreover, these works are not intended merely to provide comfort and security for individuals the rest of their days. They are intended to provide a conduit for the transmission of the message of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, and the salvation of all those who believe in Him, without which no one can enter heaven.

And this is what I think those who talk about social justice or some similar term forget. Christianity is not Christianity without the transcendental message of salvation and eternal life. Nor is it Christianity without that personal expression of faith. The emphasis is on the inward, individual soul, and its transformation through faith and the works that faith results in. What happens to that emphasis, that relationship between the divine and the individual, with the implementation of a so-called "Christian socialism"? Simply put, it is destroyed. Because while a state might, theoretically, achieve the goal--of providing for the less fortunate--that Christians often strive for, it cannot--especially when the state is as populous and far-flung as ours--provide that same faith, that same connection with the heavenly realm that the traditional faith-based religion can. By having an impersonal, bureaucratic structure performing the function of material support, it not only prevents individual Christians from taking part in the relief of the poor, more importantly, it destroys their initiative to do so. In a world in which everyone's needs are supposedly taken care of, what reason is there for a believer to interact with the downtrodden when the state will do it for them? And what does that do to the development of one's own faith? If it cannot go forward, it stagnates. Thus, by seeking to fill the spiritual void in men with material satisfaction, "Christian socialism" guts the transcendency of the religion, inevitably coming to mean nothing different from regular socialism.

This process is clearly on display when one considers the developments in once-Christian nations. It is surely no coincidence, I think, that Europe, where the idea of a far-reaching welfare state has long been accepted, has rates of church attendance that are in many cases abysmal. America is guilty of similar trends, true enough, but this interventionist ideology is less well established, and its citizens also happen to attend church more frequently. Is it too much of a stretch to say that the two are connected? Can one, for God's sake (so to speak), pick out a country or region where a strong tradition of left-wing government goes hand-in-hand with widespread, evangelical Christianity? (And no, Latin America doesn't count.)

There is no coincidence. And this is the virus within liberal Christianity. If it sets as its goal a world of "social justice," well, that can in theory be realized, but once it is, then what? When the socialism in Christian socialism has been put into practice, what's the use of hanging on to the Christianity, when the religion has been subordinated to worldly aims? For that matter, is there any religion left at all? The fact is, Christianity and socialism/socialistic ideas are incompatible. They not only pursue different aims; those aims bring them into conflict with one another.

So, there. Obviously this won't be of much interest to those who aren't Christians. And it's not intended as an analysis of the economic ideas behind liberalism or socialism, or to suggest that one cannot be both a sincere Christian and committed to a communitarian ideology. I would hate to live under a government run by the likes of Jim Wallis, for example, yet I have no doubt of the man's personal faith in God. What I wish to do here is to refute the argument often presented to Christians, and to propose that not only is it possible to be a Christian and a small-government conservative, but also that if Christianity can be said to favor any political system (a very big if), it not only is but must be closer to capitalism than to socialism. As philosophical systems, Christianity and socialism don't have room for each other.

(Note: I'm gone all this week on a family trip, and will not be back until Sunday evening. I won't be looking at my computer, so make whatever critical comments you want, just know that I won't be around to read them, so nyah nyah nyah.)

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Unruly Britannia?

Ever since 1945, we have been told and told about how superior a system our cousins across the pond have where state welfare and such are concerned. A caring government, dependable services, blah blah blah. So of course, Britons themselves are fond of and loyal to their welfare system, right? Well....

2013, like the past few years before it, has been unsettling in many ways for the British establishment. The spring's regional and local elections saw a massive jump in popularity for the anti-EU, anti-technocrat, pro-national sovereignty U.K. Independence Party, which voters, after being warned by politicians and the media about how fringe and racist it was, turned out for in droves. Then the brutal murder of a British soldier by a Muslim radical caused major upheaval and a lot of pushback against multiculturalist policy. Now it appears that the country's up-and-coming generation may be abandoning both the official Left and its radicalism.

Not that you would know it from how the British state is often portrayed in the news. Supposedly, its people love their universal health care and all the endless regulations, and the only complaint to be made is that it's not free-spirited and benevolent enough. And at one time, that might have been the attitude. But it appears that the abuses of the welfare state have finally worn on Brits' patience. A poll this spring found that 74% of U.K. citizens believe the government ought to cut benefits; even more surprisingly, there seems to be a majority in favor regardless of generation or political affiliation. Among youths, though, this sentiment appears to be strongest. When surveyed, only 20% of 18- to 34-year-olds would agree that the creation of the welfare state was among Britain's "greatest achievements."

Probably there are multiple factors at work here. True enough, immigrants, especially those from the Third World countries of the former Empire, make up a sizable proportion of the welfare recipients, so there's that. Plus, there are some regional divisions, with prosperous Londoners and others in southern England upset at subsidizing the less productive "Celtic fringe," especially the basketcase that is Northern Ireland. But it would also seem that people are getting tired of the stories of abuse. Most recently, there was the story of the Heaton family in Lancashire, which despite not having a single employed member gets 30,000 pounds in benefits per year, enough for them to afford a house with a flat-screen TV, computer, Wii, and some nice "vacations." With an average income among working Britons of only 26,000 pounds, even the most socialism-loving lad or lass has to see that there's a real problem here. And it does appear to be causing a large-scale disenchantment with the whole system.

This is no case of Conservatives whistling in the dark, either: Some of the strongest evidence comes from observations by leftist papers such as The Guardian, one of whose reporters recently lamented that his country's "twentysomethings sound like devout Thatcherites." He blames hostility to immigrants, because why not, but also admitted that these Britons are blaming themselves for their difficulties, saying "Lads especially need to be pushed into jobs more," and "I should have picked myself up in the morning, got out...tried more."

This is good because it means that not only are youths tired of the failures of Britain's nanny state--in itself not all that remarkable--but they are reacting in the opposite direction, wanting more freedom and responsibility instead of demanding more and better free stuff, as often happens in these cases.

Bottom line: Things are getting shaken up in Britain. This may be one of the few cases today where young people are making a genuine turn to the Right--not because of contingent events, but because they seem to have figured out that socialism, even the watered-down version, is ultimately unworkable, and that personal responsibility and unshackling the private sphere are better options over the long run. And that is certainly good news. So when you celebrate our independence and the things that make America great this week, remember for a moment the mother country, and those who seem to be finally getting the message.

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The Recovery That Wasn’t

There is something wrong with the stock market. The housing market too. I see no evidence that the economy is picking up. To the contrary, all the numbers are horrible. Yet, the stock market and the housing market seem to disagree. Why? Well, there are reasons.

● The Stock Market: Ug. The stock market. The stock market is my nemesis in rational times, but forget times like this. Since 2009, the stock market has been on one long, uninterrupted ride straight up. We’re up 117% from the lows of 2009 with no signs of stopping. Does that make sense? Well, consider this:

● Unemployment grew from 6% to 10% during that period and still remains around 7.5%. Is that good news?

● Corporate profits are weak. 80% of S&P 500 companies have issued negative guidance on corporate earnings growth, and 56% missed their revenue targets. As the market increased 5% in the first two months of this quarter, earnings actually dropped 3.4%. Should stocks really go up?

● Economic growth in the US has been anemic.

● The US government is paralyzed by debt and infighting.

● There have been repeated near-collapses of the Eurozone, which still has virtually no growth and no jobs.

● China’s economy has slowed to a crawl and is well below the level where the Chinese government fears a revolution.

So if things are this bad, then what justifies this long, steady rise? One thing: the Fed. The Fed is pumping money into the market each month. Right now it’s buying $85 billion in bonds each month to prop up the world’s biggest companies. Even a hint that the Fed might cut the heroin is enough to make the market lose 2% until someone at the Fed says, “Just kidding!”

In fact, we’ve reached a point where market watchers say that the worst thing that could happen to the market would be good economic news because it would mean the Fed might end its buying. Think about how sick that is that our stock market, which supposedly represents the value of American companies, wants bad news to maintain its drug habit. This is basically subsidy behavior. Buyer and sellers and profits no longer matter... government money matters.

● Jobs: And what has that government money gotten us? No jobs, that’s for sure. May’s jobs report showed that 175,000 jobs were added as compared to 149,000 in April. Sounds good, right? After all, it is higher than in April. Well, no. For one thing, this number of jobs is the average for the last 12 months. So this isn’t exactly a break out... it’s just more of the same. Moreover, 26,000 of those were temp jobs, meaning they aren’t real. Some number will also be summer jobs, which will end in August. So we’re looking at something less than 149,000 real jobs were created. Unfortunately, the economy needs to create around 180,000 jobs a month just to keep up with population growth. So all we did last month was increase the number of unemployed people.

Moreover, while the official unemployment rate fell to 7.6% the real number remains double that. And this is after five years of the Fed pumping 2-3 trillion dollars “into the economy.” So why didn’t this stimulus work? Well, the problem is that they didn’t put it “into the economy.” They gave it to rich banks, who sat on it. And as I point out in my book, just giving money to someone does nothing to make working more profitable nor does it make the cost of labor cheaper. In other words, it will never spur hiring.

● Housing: So what about housing? Strangely, over the past couple years, the housing market has started rising again. This makes little sense unless the economy is doing better and people have more confidence, right? Well, no, because it turns out that “people” aren’t buying the houses. According to a company that tracks mortgage financing, “first-time home buyers” are buying only 16% of homes at the moment. That is a surprisingly low number. So who is buying the rest? Well, it turns out that 69% of purchases are being made by “investors,” and these aren’t people who flip homes.

According to Fitch, “The housing price growth is being propelled by institutional money.” Companies like Blackstone are buying homes. (There are other companies too.) In the past couple years, Blackstone has spent nearly $4 billion to buy 24,000 homes with plans to rent them out. And they’re doing it in pockets, which is why the housing market has taken off in some cities but not others. For example, according to Bloomberg, Blackstone bought 1,400 properties in Atlanta in 2012 for a total value of $100 million. The result was that home prices increased 12.4% in Atlanta compared to 10% nationally.

But who cares, right? A buyer is a buyer, right? Well, no. For one thing, these companies are jacking up the price of homes in markets where the natural economy can’t support the price. That always happens when you get an influx of outside money. Basically, you get a price spike that is unrelated to the natural market value of a thing which distorts the market and makes it harder for the locals to buy homes. Moreover, when the outside money stops, the prices will crash. In fact, warned Fitch: “The question is how much the change in prices really reflects the market demand, rather than one-off market shifts that may not be around in a couple of years.”

Do I ultimately care that investors are doing this? No. But what bothers me about all of this, is that our economy is off-kilter because it no longer seems to be focused on helping average people. To the contrary, our government has decided that “the economy” means “Big Business” and it has set out to take care of them on the theory that this will make everyone’s lives better. This is called “socialism” and it doesn’t work any better when it’s done using a handful of big companies as agents than it does when it’s done directly by bureaucrats. We genuinely need to rethink our economy and open it up to the free market. The government needs to stop trying to prop up big companies and their stocks, it needs to stop giving tax breaks to investors to buy homes rather than home owners, and it needs to focus on eliminating the barriers to the creation of jobs. America is a country of people and their government should recognize that... it is time to think about the people and not the balance sheets of the incorporated. We are the United States of America, not America, Inc.

Free the free market!

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Mayday Mayday!

Comrades! As you read this, no doubt the dirty capitalist pigs have their backs against the wall and our glorious OWS shock troops are shooting them with non-polluting goodwill projectiles. The world is ours. Now we need a list of demands. Oops, sorry, wrong speech.

For those who haven’t heard, OWS is making a desperate attempt today to seem relevant. Specifically, they’re leaving the safety of their college dorms and their rich parents’ basements, and putting aside their raping and their racism and their whining, so they can march out (probably by cab) to block bridges and banks and other instruments of capitalism.

And nobody’s going to care.

It’s amazing how badly OWS has exposed the left. Despite controlling liberal arts colleges all over the country. . . despite being backed by the money of billionaires like George Soros. . . despite being backed by the “labor” of unions. . . despite being fellated by the MSM and Hollywood. . . OWS has been a complete and utter failure. Indeed, in the end, all they’ve done is annoy liberals in big liberal cities as they drained the budgets of those cities: “Sorry, no homeless shelter for you, we spent the money cleaning up the poop the OWSers left in the park.”

In any event, here’s why they failed. The left has become an intellectual basket case. In the days of Lenin and Marx, the left stood for the idea of restructuring the relationship between labor and those with capital. It wanted to remake the world. But socialism failed miserably everywhere it was tried. It bankrupted country after country, it broke the work ethics of the people it ensnared, and it murdered hundreds of millions of people. Only kooks still believe in it.

But the hardcore left won’t quit because it was never about economic for them, it was about control. So they regrouped and sought new allies: man-hating feminists, white-hating blacks, religion-hating atheists, gays, eco-nuts, animal worshippers, anti-Semites, and militants of every stripe. Then they enlisted welfare lifestylists, perpetual college attendees, and the spiteful as ground troops. And the result is a hodgepodge of hatreds, spite and envy, without intellectual rigor or even a common platform. Indeed, they ceased to be an ideology and instead became a (bowel) movement of hate.

OWS encapsulated this perfectly. Not only could they not come up with a coherent list of demands, the demands they did make were nonsense. They were a list of tantrums seeking the impossible, and even if we wanted to meet their demands, we couldn’t. . . not that any sane person would want to try.

Nevertheless, it shocked them that they were ignored. Here’s why. The OWSers are the result of two fascinating trends coming together. The first trend is liberalism’s inability to grasp that others do not share their views. Liberals truly believe that everyone thinks like they do. We’ve seen this time and again, and I think it’s getting worse because of the groupthink out of Hollywood and the MSM. And in this case, that resulted in the OWSers truly believing that the moment they stormed the parks, millions or ordinary Americans would rush to join them. It never occurred to them that might not happen.

The second trend is more subtle by much more damaging. Liberals have been dumbing down achievement for a long time now. This is what is behind the self-esteem movement: to teach morons that feeling good about themselves is as good as actually doing something. Ironically, the result of this has been to cause the utter collapse of liberalism as a functioning force. By teaching liberals for generations now that trying is as good as doing, they’ve bred a generation incapable of setting goals and worked hard to achieve them. Instead, they only aim to “raise awareness” now as if that would magically get someone in charge to implement their desires. This is exactly what OWS did: they sought to raise awareness, as they’ve been taught, and then they waited for the magical whatever to change the world. . . it’s Underwear-Gnome-grade stupidity.

Compare them to the Tea Party, who never bought into the self-esteem crap. They didn’t set out to raise awareness, they set up a network of people who have been slowly taking over the Republican Party with the intent of changing the party and then the government, i.e. they set goals and worked to implement them. OWS just walked into a park and declared, “you are all aware now, so somebody do whatever is supposed to happen next.”

OWS failed because they lacked an agenda, they didn’t understand that the rest of the country wasn’t going to rush to join them, and they lacked an understanding that just whining about something doesn’t lead to change. And causing problems today will not change any of that. Indeed, even if they are somehow wildly successful today, the problem remains -- all they will have achieved is whining again that “somebody should do something.” Good luck with that, fools.


Don't forget, today is Trek Tuesday at the film site! Today I'm criticizing Jim Kirk of all people!
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Michael Moore, Slavery Advocate

Believe it or not, Michael Moore is not a communist. Oh, he says communist sounding things and he likes to think of himself as a progressive in the communist mold. But he’s not. What he really is, is an advocate for slavery, as his latest quote about rich people’s money belonging to the public demonstrates. Here’s why.

To understand the implications of what Michael Moore has said, let’s start with something basic. What money is? Money is a tool we use to store the value of our labor. Think of it this way, when you are asked to provide a service to another person, such as working eight hours in the burger mines, you normally demand compensation for your efforts. Money is what is used to compensate you.

If there was no such thing as money, this process of providing services would be much more complex. What you would be facing would be a barter system where you would need to find someone who (1) wants your services, (2) is willing to meet your price, AND (3) has something you are willing to accept in trade. Thus, a bicycle shop owner may want you to work as his doctor, but if you don’t want a bicycle, then you can’t reach a deal, unless the shop owner happens to find a third party who has what you want and who happens to be willing to trade that for a bicycle. You see the problem?

Money eliminates this third requirement. It is a convenience, that lets you trade your labor without having to engage in a wasteful and difficult barter system of matching wants. Thus, the bicycle shop owner can give you money rather than giving you bicycles or needing to find something else you are willing to accept.

Moreover, money lets you store the value of your labor for the future. In the barter world, you either need to trade immediately for goods and services, or you run the risk that the bike shop owner might not pay his debt to you when you finally ask for it -- a serious risk which grows worse the longer you wait. But money has value separate and apart from the promises of any one person with whom you’ve bartered. Therefore, the risk of waiting to spend it are much reduced and you can safely collect money by expending labor in the present for use in the future. Hence, money lets us go from being a consuming species that needs to work constantly for its day-to-day needs, to being a species that can plan for the long term and save for the future.

Indeed, without money, there would be no retirement and the old and the infirm would be extremely poor as their labor has little value compared to the young -- unless you believe in communism, which says that all labor belongs to the state and the state has the right to take it from everyone and dole it out as the state sees fit.

This is why money is a means for storing the value of our labor. We expend labor to earn it, and as long as we hold it, we have a claim to the value of that labor which can be “cashed in” for goods or services at any point.

So what happens when you take someone’s money? You turn them into slaves because you deprive them of the value of their labor, just as if you watched someone work for the bicycle and then took the bicycle away. Thus, when Michael Moore talks about rich people’s money being a “national resource” which belongs to us, what he’s suggesting is that we have a right to deprive rich people of the value of their labor, i.e. to make them our slaves.

And lest you think I’ve exaggerating what idiot Moore has said, check out this quote from an interview with GRITtv:

"[The rich are] sitting on the money, they're using it for their own -- they're putting it someplace else with no interest in helping you with your life, with that money. We've allowed them to take that. That's not theirs, that's a national resource, that's ours. We all have this -- we all benefit from this or we all suffer as a result of not having it."

Some would call this communism, but it’s not. Moore isn’t advocating that everyone be deprived of their labor and the benefits of that theft be passed out to everyone according to their needs, which would be communism or collectivism. Instead, he’s advocating taking money just from a certain class of people, i.e., the rich. That’s called slavery. Indeed, that’s the same thing as if he had said: “look at all those day laborers who have all that labor to give, but they greedily only give it for money. That’s our labor, we should force them to work for us.”

If Moore believed in taking everyone’s property and passing it out, then I would call him a communist. But as long as he advocates doing this only to certain people, then I say he wants to be a slave owner.

That’s why he’s despicable. . . well, it’s one of many reasons.

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Cubezuela

I know most of you don’t care about foreign affairs, but this one is kind of interesting. Ever since Castro came to power, he’s been trying to spread his revolution around the world. They’ve funded and supplied leftist rebels throughout South and Central America. They sent troops to Angola. And now, it looks like they’ve conquered Venezuela. Seriously.

When Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela, he did so democratically and with the backing of the vast number of peasants in Venezuela. Since that time, he’s signed all kinds of bilateral agreements with Cuba where Cuba provided technical know-how and advisors in exchange for oil, oil which bankrupt Cuba desperately needs since it lost its Soviet backers.

So how many Cubans are we talking about? At last count, Cuba has about 40,000 “advisors” in Venezuela. What’s more, they seem to be running the place. Here are some of things the Cubans control:

• Cubans control the training of the national police, an organization created last year and modeled on the Cuban secret police.

• Cuban agents occupy key posts in Venezuela’s military intelligence agency.

• Cubans built the digital radio communications system used by the security forces, which gives them access to antenna locations and radio frequencies.

• Cubans run the electrical system.

• Cubans control the ports.

• Cubans designed and control the computerized identification card system, which includes personal information on all residents.

• Cubans designed and control the passport control and immigration systems.

• Cubans designed and control the health care system.

• Cubans designed and control the public registries, the business registries, and the notary system.

In fact, Cuban control is so thorough that Cuban advisors are known to wield more power than the Venezuelan officials whom they supposedly advise. Coffee growers, for example, say they answer directly to Cuba’s former trade minister Barbara Castillo, rather than the Venezuelans who supposedly run the trade ministry.

In another example, the former Venezuelan ambassador to the U.N. protested the seizure of his farm by turning over his ownership documents to the Cuban embassy rather than the Venezuelan authorities.

Chavez himself accidentally acknowledged this reality last year when he announced that a large number of medical clinics would be closing. His slip up was admitting that he had heard about this from Castro, rather than any Venezuelan officials, because data from the medical system goes to Cuba before it gets released to the Venezuelan government.

Chavez tries to downplay this, saying that: “Cuba helps us modestly with some things that I’m not going to detail. Everything Cuba does for Venezuela is to strengthen the homeland.”

But others aren’t buying it. Froilan Barrios of the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers says that the “oil and petrochemicals [industries] are completely penetrated by Cuban G2,” which is Castro’s intelligence service. He also says that when they threatened a strike in the oil industry, Cuban officials threatened them. Coincidentally, Venezuela sends 100,000 barrels of oil a day to Cuba. Moreover, the government will not allow the unionization of worksites run by the Cubans.

The military isn’t happy about this either. Former Brigadier General Antonio Rivero resigned in protest because of the control Cuba exerts over their military. Says Rivero, “They’ve crossed a line. They’ve gone beyond what should be permitted and what an alliance should be.” He specifically complains about Cuban officials running high level meetings, training snipers, and establishing a system of bunkers around the country where weapons are being concealed. He speculates that if Chavez loses in the next election, the Cubans could “become part of a guerrilla force.”

Interestingly, when Chavez flies to Cuba, he does so on board Cuban military jets. He also uses Cuban intelligence to spy on dissidents.

Castro and Chavez even got a time share on Sean Penn’s affections.

Sounds like a puppet state to me.


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Conservatopia?

A couple weeks ago, I was asked what a socialist society would look like, and that got me thinking. What would a conservative society look like?

History has given us a plethora of examples of different types of societies. If you want to see communism and its rigid outlawing of private property, look to Russia 1920s, Vietnam 1980s or China’s Great Leap Forward. Pay special attention to the vast armies, secret police, slave labor camps and mass murders.

If you want to see the impoverished, stagnant societies that are created by hard core socialism, look no further than Cuba today or East Germany 1988. Just don’t try to buy bread, use the decaying infrastructure, or speak out against the secret police.

If you want to see social democracy in action, just look at bankrupt England circa 1970s, with its militant labor strife, high unemployment, deflating currency, nationalized industries, decaying infrastructure and a sad, defeated people. Of course, you could look to modern England, Japan or Sweden for the softer version, where nationalization is foresworn (except in critical industries like health care) in favor of heavy, heavy regulation and the acceptance of high unemployment and a burgeoning underclass. Slow but sure collapse is still collapse, but at least you have longer to kid yourself that it ain’t coming.

We’ve seen cleptocracies (Russia, Kenya), theocracies (Iran, Afghanistan), cultocracies (North Korea), and failed states (Somalia).

If you want to see modern liberalism implemented look to modern England, where criminals are treated as victims, minorities are guaranteed equal results, regional hatreds are stoked, religion has been neutered (except for militant Islam), taxes are heavy but spending is heavier, competition nearly forbidden, and a privileged few make sure that no one in the middle class can excel very far beyond the burgeoning underclass of binge drinking, drug addicted, knife wielding thieves. Oh baby sign me up!

But where in the world has conservatism every been tried? Indeed, what time period could we point to as our conservatopia?

Many people cite the 1950s, but that really doesn’t work. The 1950s was a time of heavy taxation, increased regulation, large scale social engineering by the government, and a destruction of individual rights to fight the red menace.

We could argue for the second term of Ronald Reagan. He gave us a strong defense, strong foreign policy, lower taxes, and decreased regulation. Yet, he made only a dent in decades of socialist creep, and despite his best efforts to adjust the Supreme Court, it remained firmly liberal in all of its rulings.

Perhaps the time that was most like our conservatopia occurred between the Republican revolution of 1994 and the election of George W. Bush. That was a time marked by lowered taxes, lowered regulation, fiscal responsibility, increased government accountability, expanded free trade, a reduction in the welfare roles, and a series of reforms to privatize or eliminate government functions. But it was also a time of lowered morality and weak foreign policy.

So what about this. . . the American West of the 1880s. The American West seems to be the one time period when each of the competing conservative groups co-existed. You had libertarians, mixing with capitalists, mixing with religious settlers, all co-existing in a time period of limited government interference with people's lives. The one thing missing was rule of law, but you had a sort of "social sanction" working as a substitute. Not to mention that rule of law was slowly being established by the law and order crowd.

Moreover, unlike the periods mentioned above, this group was free to live according to their own beliefs without having to combat an entrenched modern liberalism. There was no IRS, there were no limits on freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of religion. Thus, the religious settlers were not told they had to avoid the public square. The capitalists were not regulated and controlled and told who to hire. The libertarians were not told that the state could crawl up their backsides with a flashlight in the name of public safety.

Perhaps that is the period we should point to when people ask, what would a conservative society look like? Perhaps that was our conservatopia? Maybe that’s why westerns remain so fixed in our imaginations today?

What do you think?

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Van Obama? Tells Us It Ain't So Mr. President

By now you’ve all heard of Van Jones, either from Glenn Beck or a conservative blog (or in Lawhawk’s excellent article of a week ago), but not on the networks. When I wrote this article yesterday, Van Jones was still Obama's green czar. At the end of the article, I said that it was likely Jones would resign quietly on Monday. I was wrong. He resigned this morning. . . hence, a re-write.

For those of you who don’t know Van Jones, he is a former criminal, a former community organizer, and a self-avowed Communist. He is also a racist or race hustler, a 9/11 Truther and either a fool or a liar. . . and Obama appointed him as a green Czar (should have been a red czar).

And that's the real story here, not who Jones is -- because the world is full of crackpots, but that Obama would appoint this man. As you read Jones' own words below, ask yourself, does Obama share any of these beliefs?:


On Polluters and Environmentalists of the Honkus Maximus Persuasion

Van Jones: “We're really entering a third wave of environmentalism in the United States. The white polluters and the white environmentalists are essentially steering poison into the people of color communities.”

Jones also describes the current regulatory system as “echo apartheid,” and states that “we gonna change the whole system” because just replacing bad energy with good (specifically solar energy) means we’ll have “biodiesel powered bombers” and “we’ll be going to war over lithium” for the batteries.

Summing up, Jones believes that white environmentalists are murderous racists who want to poison minorities and go to war over lithium batteries. Ed Begley Jr., you dirty thug!

Oh, and in case you’re thinking of supporting McCain friend and California something-or-other candidate Meg Whitman (R, e-Bay), she described Jones in May as doing “a marvelous job… I’m a huge fan of his. He is very bright, very articulate, very passionate. I think he is exactly right.”


On Race And School Shootings

Van Jones: “You've never seen a Columbine done by a black child. Never. They always say, 'We can't believe it happened here. We can't believe it's these suburban white kids.' It's only them. Now, a black kid might shoot another black kid. He's not going to shoot up the whole school.”

So white kids are killers? Then why have there only been seven such multiple-victim shooting sprees in the past ten years (most by college students)? And how does that compare to the number of black kids gunned down by other black kids every day? And if blacks don’t kill each other in large numbers explain gang wars in our major cities, not to mention Rwanda, Liberia, and Congo (among many others).

Finally, why does Jones seem to think its ok or not a big deal that black kids are killing each other?


On Republicans

Van Jones: “They’re assholes.”

He then continues: “Barack Obama is not an asshole. Now, I will say this, I can be an asshole. And some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama are gonna have to start getting a little bit uppity.”

Forgive me if I am a bit naive, but isn’t the use of the term “uppity” considered “racist”? I seem to recall that somewhere. Indeed, now that I mention it, the use of the word “uppity” by Republican Representative Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia is being called racist by the left:

“I bring up the N-word because that is the debased level of rhetoric that the word ‘uppity’ belongs to, especially when a white Southerner is directing it at Blacks. This is overt racist thuggery. . .

Lynn Westmoreland’s slur was a conscious evocation of the racist sentiment that Blacks who refuse to be subservient to whites should be put in their place through violence—beatings, bombings, murder. Westmoreland’s slur is also a call to arms to extremists who would still carry out Klan-style violence. Westmoreland is not fit to govern. I hope his colleagues in Congress are fervently asking for his resignation.”

On Bush, Iraq and Race

Van Jones: “When somebody had taken the American flag and turned it into a war flag and used it to beat and whip and lynch anybody who didn't agree that we should be bombing people and torturing people . . .”

Note first the ridiculousness of the statement: the only person “lynched” during the Bush years was Bush, and no one was beaten or whipped because of their opposition to Iraq. Moreover, note that once again, Jones employs a word that is considered racist: lynch.


On Bush, Environmental Policy and Ebonics

Van Jones on Bush’s proposal to open more land for drilling: “I hope I don’t offend anybody, but the President of the United States sounded like a crackhead.”

He then pretended to take a hit from a crack pipe, and kept saying: “Jus’ a lill’ bit mo’.” Finally, he concluded, “[Bush is] like a crackhead trying to lick the pipe for a fix.”

Not only did the entire presentation take place in Ebonics, but he even used the word “Ebonics” to describe it himself. Try doing that Representative Westmoreland and see what the whinies say then!


On the San Francisco Police

Van Jones: “Willie Brown's Police Commission is killing black people.”

I guess the SF PD must be a bunch of white environmentalists.


Van Jones the Marxist Revolutionary:

Jones also claims to have become a Marxist revolutionary after spending some time in jail around the time of the Rodney King verdict:

“In jail I met all these young radical people of color -- I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And I was, like, ‘this is what I need to be a part of.’ I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary. . . I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28 and then the verdicts came down on April 29. By August, I was a Communist.”

Too bad he didn’t meet transsexual hookers. “On April 28, I had a pe. . .” (Oh, you get the picture.)

Having become a communist, Jones helped form a group called STORM, which put together a manifesto titled “Reclaiming Revolution: Standing Together to Form a Revolutionary Movement.” This manifesto states:

“We are a revolutionary cadre organization that understands that revolutionary Marxist politics would be central to the development of a successful liberation movement in this country. We are committed to Marxist-Leninist politics.”

and

“We upheld the Marxist critique of capitalist exploitation. We agree with Lenin’s analysis of the state and the party. And we found inspiration and guidance from the insurgent revolutionary strategies developed by third world revolutionaries like Mao Tse-Tung and Amilcar Cabral.”

He apparently named his child after Cabral (seen on the stamp to the right).

But his days of being an open revolutionary are over. He now claims that he will hide his roots to achieve his goals: “I’m willing to forgo the cheap satisfaction of the radical pose for the deep satisfaction of radial ends.”


Van Jones the 9/11 Truther

In 2004, Jones signed a petition for the 9/11 Truther movement. That petition called on the New York Attorney General to investigate: “evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur.” It also provided: “people within the current administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war.”

When this became public the other day, Jones tried to deny knowing what he signed. Said Jones, “the petition that was circulated today, I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever.”

Shortly thereafter two other signatories came forward to claim that they too were misled into signing that petition. Said Howard Zinn, “I did not sign a statement suggesting that 'Bush had prior knowledge.' I signed a statement calling for an investigation.” But Zinn also endorsed Trutherism on the 911truth.org website in May 2004, three months before signing the petition he now disavows.

So is Jones telling the truth? According to Mike Berge, a spokesman for 911Truth.org, board members “spoke with each person on the list by phone or through email to individually confirm they had added their name to that list. I think in most cases, they spoke to them personally. No one’s name was put on that list without them knowing it.” That would include Jones.

Moreover, bloggers (not MSM) have turned up evidence that Jones was listed as a member of the “organizing committee” for a Truther march.


Republicans On Van Jones

In response to all of this, the No. 3 Republican in the House has started calling for Van Jones to resign:

“Given recent revelations concerning the associations and statements of the president's green jobs czar, Van Jones should resign his position and if he is unwilling to do so, the president should demand his resignation. His extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this Administration or the public debate.”

He also criticized the Czar process (something that I and West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd have been saying for some time):

“The Constitution of the United States vests Congress with the responsibility to advise and consent in the appointment of high ranking officials by the president. To date, President Obama has appointed more than thirty individuals to ‘czar’ positions within his Administration without permitting the Congress or the American people to properly examine their backgrounds or public records.”

And how is Team Obama responding? Not with much.

If Obama didn't share these reprehensible views, shouldn't he have expressed shock or outrage -- or even feigned shock or outrage? Even now that Jones has joined the Assheap of History with the likes of Tom Daschle and other disgraced Obama appointees, shouldn't Obama comfort us that he doesn't think white environmentalists are trying to kill blacks, that white cops aren't trying to kill blacks, that white kids aren't killers, that he doesn't think it's ok for black kids to shoot each other, and that he doesn't believe all of his talk of alternative energies isn't just a pretext to go to war over lithium?

The resignation is fine. But I want more.

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Up Yours Pravda

Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve been served. That’s right, Pravda got all up in our faces and stuff and just slapped us around like some cheap Czechoslovakian-era whore. Surely we don’t deserve this, right? Pravda (not be confused with Prada) means “truth” in Russian. Could it be that they speaking truth to us for the first time their miserable history? Heck no! Let’s tear this sucker apart!

Thus spoke Pravda:

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

Bahhh! The friggin’ Ruskies are going to call us out for flirting with Marxism? That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever. . . well. . . ok, they might be right on that. In fact, I have to reluctantly concede that we probably went beyond flirting. We seem to have taken Marx to Vegas, gotten hitched and handed him the check book. But it wasn’t us, really. . . it was the Kool-Aid goggles.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. . . .

The population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.

How dare you! Nobody eats at Burger King. You got me on McD’s though, boy is my face red. . . and my butt enlarged. What? There’s more? You’re not done de-pantsing us yet?

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Weimar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

I’m not even sure where those places are, but I know when I’m being insulted. And let me tell you. . . oh, who am I kidding, it’s all true. Damn you bright light of truth. But please noble Pravda, aren’t we still better than you capitalist Russian pigs in anything?

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

I’ll take that as a “no.”

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