poetics.info » Philosophy

On America’s Ruling Class

Allison Taylor — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:02:40 +0000

If you missed this powerful essay by Angelo Codevilla, “America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution,” I highly recommend it. I learned yesterday that Dr. Codevilla, a professor of international relations at Boston University and a senior editor of The American Spectator, has expanded his article into a book, The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It, which you can order at Amazon.com. (You can also pre-order it on Kindle.)

The title of Codevilla’s essay and book is derived from the growing anti-establishment sentiment among Americans, now furious at Washington politicians who continue to ignore their voices. Most people I know want to vote all the bums out in November. I think this helps explain the recent primary victories of Rick Scott in Florida (over establishment favorite Bill McCollum in the gubernatorial race) and Joe Miller’s victory over incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska.

Other Evidence that Americans are turning on the establishment is found in the waning audiences of the progressive media outlets, which are losing viewers, money, and credibility faster than the bedbugs are reproducing in NYC. Unfortunately, CBS’ ratings are not dropping as fast as Americans are losing their rights, but the backlash has begun. Nov. 2 is coming.

The first wave of this anti-establishment sentiment came in response to the $700 billion “Troubled Asset Relief Program” (TARP) legislation, which passed in 2008 despite a huge public outcry against the bill. Codevilla notes that that public objected to TARP “by margins of three or four to one.” Discussing the public’s epiphany, Codevilla writes:

When this majority discovered that virtually no one in a position of power in either party or with a national voice would take their objections seriously, that decisions about their money were being made in bipartisan backroom deals with interested parties, and that the laws on these matters were being voted by people who had not read them, the term ‘political class’ came into use. Then, after those in power changed their plans from buying toxic assets to buying up equity in banks and major industries but refused to explain why, when they reasserted their right to decide ad hoc on these and so many other matters, supposing them to be beyond the general public’s understanding, the American people started referring to those in and around government as the ‘ruling class.’

Codevilla’s work is important because it helps identify and expose the fraud being committed against the American people. Most Americans now realize the government is acting as the destroyer of our economy. They realize government is a non-productive (and often incredibly inefficient) entity whose only means of getting money is through taxation, printing fiat money, or selling government securities to be paid back with future taxes.

I personally believe that Ayn Rand has a lot to do with this awakening. The intellectual elite will never admit this–they will even condemn her as they did in a recent NRO article, “The Greatly Ghastly Rand”–and maybe not all the Tea Partiers even know about her explicitly. (Some do, because I saw “Who is John Galt?” signs at the Tea Party rally I went to in Orlando.) Still, her influence here and abroad is undeniable. Her literary classic, Atlas Shrugged, first published in 1957, remains a top-seller.

Seeing the events in the economy unfold today, I am reminded of a passage she wrote in her 1974 essay “Egalitarianism and Inflation,” (from Philosophy: Who Needs It):

While the government struggles to save one crumbling enterprise at the expense of the crumbling of another, it accelerates the process of juggling debts, switching losses, piling loans on loans, mortgaging the future and the future’s future. As things grow worse, the government protects itself not by contracting this process, but by expanding it. The process becomes global: it involves foreign aid, and unpaid loans to foreign governments, and subsidies to other welfare states, and subsidies to the United Nations, and subsidies to the World Bank, and subsidies to foreign producers, and credits to foreign consumers to enable them to consume our goods–while, simultaneously, the American producers, who are paying for it all, are left without protection, and their properties are seized by any sheik in any pesthole of the globe, and the wealth they have created, as well as their energy, is turned against them, as, for example, in the case of Middle Eastern oil.

Needless to say, left unchecked, government’s economic meddling and expansion does not end well. But, as the ruling class are beginning to realize, you should never underestimate the American people.

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We are all Iranians

Allison Taylor — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 05:23:21 +0000

I’ve been watching this story on Iran’s “election” build for weeks now; and I, like everyone in the U.S. just assumed that Friday’s vote would come and go and that Ahmadinejad would be reinstated, as dictators always are, and that would be that.

Then, when I started to see images on blogs of rallies starting at Tehran University, I thought it was just a few rebellious youth. But then I started to see streams of Twitters from people in Iran talking about the police coming for them, and in their communication there was a determination I did not expect. Then, to my horror, I started to see images of bullet-riddled dorm room doors, bloody fighting, fires, continuing police brutality–there were reports of police firing into crowds and at least one person confirmed dead.

I notice that many of the larger news outlets were not reporting the uprisings much until last night, but instead on Saturday many were leading with stories like crowds hold “celebrations for Ahmadinejad.”

But then social media outlets dominated and broke through. I think the government in Iran cracked down on the Internet, but people were still able to Twitter using mobile phones. It’s almost as if the youth (those under 25, who are reportedly 70% of Iran’s population) have seized on a rare opportunity to let the world know what is really happening in their country. I fear they only have a few days left before the remaining foreign reporters are expelled or quieted. The foreign reporters who were allowed in to cover the “election” will be sent home now. I fear the government will become more violent at that point, and I hope the international community will not forget what it happening there and what has happened to the people.

No matter the outcome, I think it is too late for the Iranian government to escape without injury. The current regime has lost any remaining respect they had, and I believe the days of dictatorship in Iran are numbered. The people want to be free, and this is clear.

I just read on Bloomberg.com that “[H]undreds of thousands of people demonstrated today in downtown Tehran at a rally led by Ahmadinejad’s defeated opponent, Mir Houssein Mousavi, who charges widespread fraud in the June 12 vote.”

This is a huge movement of brave dissenters! Now, I don’t know Mousavi, and I don’t know how he would rule under the clerics. But I still think the revolt itself is a hopeful sign in the right direction.

In honor of the protestors, and as we approach July 4th, here are the opening words of our own Declaration of Independence…

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world…

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Gary Kaltbaum Let’s Loose: Government Needs to Get Out of the Market’s Way

Allison Taylor — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 08:46:04 +0000

Part II: Why Obama Scares Me

I’ve been remiss in my blogging but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been following current events closely. I’m in shock. I can’t believe how fast the Obama Administration is moving toward a socialist economic system. I’m outraged that the Bush Administration set the stage. It seems like yesterday I wrote that Obama scares me, and while I was working to gather up evidence to show why he is a hardcore leftist, i.e. as hardcore as his cohorts, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, Bill Ayers, et al; he came into power and starting passing horrible, stupid laws.

I wanted to think that maybe he had risen to power pretending to be a liberal but that he might actually govern pragmatically. I was hoping for this because even though a pragmatist is dangerous, at least a pragmatist is not necessarily consciously evil. But the events of the past few weeks leave me no choice but to conclude that Obama is dangerous for this country. He is, as Robert Tracinski said, “[N]ow preparing to lead the left’s effort to reconstitute itself in the first serious way since the Fall of Communism.”

I am very concerned now. I am not afraid yet. Fear will come when as a writer I am silenced with threats. I do believe we are at a tipping point, though; and, we are perhaps nearing a state of censorship, if not now, then in the next three to five years for sure.

So, why am I so afraid of socialism as an economic policy? What, after all, is wrong with socialized medicine or free health care for all? Why not redistribute wealth to the less fortunate?

Because it is a bad idea and it never works. And, worse, wherever socialism is tried, it leads to total bankruptcy of body and mind. Socialism destroys life. It sucks the life out of people until they are rioting in the streets or standing in line for a loaf of very expensive bread. It expands insidiously, like inflation, until there is no entrepreneurship, innovation or passion left.

Socialism, like any truly bad idea, is anti-life because it goes against human nature. With socialism there is no justice. Socialism brings out the worst in people, not the best, as with capitalism. With capitalism, I work and I keep the fruits of my labor. If I want to give my money to you because you are struggling, nothing in a capitalist system stops this transaction. When government steps in and forces me to give up my money to countless, nameless, faceless others, it is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme intended to extract money from my bank account into the public coffers so that politicians can use that money however they want. Socialism is legalized theft; it is slavery. Slavery is bad.

Tonight, I happened to be listening to one of my favorite radio personalities, Gary Kaltbaum of Investor’s Edge. A great show if you are into economics and markets at all. Gary went into a rant during part of the show, and his words summed up my thoughts on these recent events and Obama pretty well. The only thing he left out was Greenspan’s treason in all this.

Here is an excerpt from his February 19th show: (His full webcast is here.)

So, I will ask the same question that I asked when George Bush and Hank Paulson came out with the TARP — otherwise known as ‘Taxpayers Again being Raped by Politicians’ — Hey, Barack, why do I, Gary Kaultbaum, handsome and buffed…have to pay for somebody else’s mortgage? Why? Why do I have to pay?

Hey, George Bush, why do I have to pay for GM, and Chrysler, and Citi-puke and Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers? Why?

Somewhere along the line, ladies and gentlemen, there has got to be enough of us, because I got news for you, 95% of us pay our mortgages! And we vote! Do any of you know they have taken $1.5 trillion bucks out of this economy to pay off crooks? And now a scamulous-stimulous plan that does nothing for nobody except a bunch spending pork bills that should be in separate bills to be voted on, shoved down your throats with scare tactics by Obama and his people just like the Bush people did his scare tactics with that stupid TARP plan.

Have any of you gotten it yet? That since their proposal of the TARP we’ve gone from 11,388 on the Dow to 7,465? So forget my opinion, forget everybody’s opinion. How about the market? This thing is screaming! This market is screaming at the Bush Administration and now the Obama Administration. It’s screaming, ‘Get the heck out of the way! Leave us alone! Stop creating money out of thin air and destroying what is left of what we have!’

And I heard Obama today with this Canadian Prime Minister, the next move is they’re going to fight ‘global warming.’ What global warming? The last decade was the coldest in god knows how long. What are these people reading? They’re insane! All of them! And we all sit there, and I’m so worried now that they’re going to tip us over! Obama said this is just the beginning, not the end! So you know what’s next: 50% tax rates! You know, we used to have 80% tax rates! They’re going to destroy us! All in the name of sacrifice. I’ll tell them to take sacrifice and stick it!

I work my butt off to earn the money that I make, and I pay a ton in taxes! And they want more, to give to GM, who has mismanaged their company for god knows how long! To give to Citigroup! Criminals! These are criminals! They committed crimes! Out in plain sight! And nothing!

Blah, blah, blah, blah, Barack Obama…65% approval….Not in my household! Yeah, I’m the guy that has lost no money in this bear market, but I want bull markets! I want to meet people throughout my day that are happy and are loving life and are creating jobs and are working hard and realizing that when they make a dollar they’re going to keep a lot of it!

And I watch this Barack Obama, ‘change and hope’, this guy’s talking about the end of the world every minute of every day! And don’t get me started on George Bush again — he’s gone — the numskull that he was!

Y’all out there better start listening and get off this politics thing, Democrat/Republican — put them all on the bottom of the ocean and that will be the good start! I am going to get louder and louder about this! Hopefully, somebody’s listening! Before the Dow goes to a 1,000!

Thank you, Gary, for saying this. (Read more by Gary at http://www.garyk.com.)

Make no mistake — a socialist agenda like the one Barack is leading is nothing more than a power grab over everyone’s freedom. If you do not have economic freedom, i.e., the ability to choose how you make and how you spend your own money, you have no freedom at all.

And, when a society loses freedom, especially freedom of speech, it gets ugly. By ugly I mean you see more and more violence. In a full socialist system, we all work for the State, and the State controls us. During the transition from freedom to statism, people get angrier and angrier because they sense the injustice of it all. They start to resent that they have less money, but they don’t understand why they make less, why there are fewer jobs, or why things cost more. They start lashing out. And then government uses that violence as an excuse to grab more power.

Is this what we want? Because we have to decide that answer now. Time is running out. We are at a tipping point. We have two years to vote back in supporters of a free market and to vote out the Democrats, who are obviously more interested in saving crooks and supporting their own elitist agendas than worrying about the average person working for a living. When inflation hits because they are printing money, it is going to be ugly.

Margaret Thatcher once said, “Socialism works until you run out of the other guy’s money.”

We’ve run out of money. We are broke. To start down the path to total socialism (and nationalism) now is really to destroy America and to begin down the path to totalitarian dictatorship with all the bloody implications of that prospect.

Does that sound like hyperbole? Ask yourself why they (Bush and Obama) use scare tactics to move their policy changes along so swiftly. Have you ever seen such speed in Congress? No, they are seizing on the moment, i.e., the housing bubble burst that they created with their crookedness and lies; and they are making a good old-fashioned power grab. A power grab just like Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, has opined he doesn’t want to miss: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is that it is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”

The Democrats never thought they could get socialized medicine or nationalized banks in this country. Now, with majorities in both the House and the Senate and control of the executive branch; they are like kids in a candy store, frothing at the mouth over our money. And they just got $1.6 trillion or $1.7 trillion of it, give or take a few billion.

The actions of the current administration are clear: They do not have your best interest at heart. And I mean any American, regardless of ethnicity or religion. People who want power over people don’t care what color you are. They just want to take your money and give it to other people while they surreptitiously scrape a few million or billion off the top for themselves. They want to create a massive, helpless social welfare class so that they can create an even more extravagant ruling political class system for themselves.

I agree with Gary Kaltbaum — throw them all into the ocean. Vote out anyone and everyone who does not fight against these so-called “bailouts” and “stimulus packages.” Vote out anyone who talks doom and gloom. Vote in anyone who supports more freedom, freer markets/less regulation, capitalism, and more self-responsibility.

Don’t let it go.

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Lewis: Wall Street’s Era Ends

Allison Taylor — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 19:40:21 +0000

Michael Lewis, author of Liar’s Poker, a semi-autobiographical account of working on Wall Street in the 1980s, has a great article in the December 2008 issue of Conde Nast’s Portfolio.com that dissects the current economic meltdown. [hat tip: Christian Tedrow]

Lewis has a unique perspective on the psychologies of the players, their self-delusion, hubris, utter incompetence and/or their lack of conscience that led to what he calls “The End” of Wall Street.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around the full implications of the piece. What is clear is that capitalism is not the culprit in this crisis. This crisis, which to date has wiped out an estimated $23 trillion (or 38 percent) of the value of the world’s companies, was made possible by years of evasion by the players — select CEOs and hedge fund managers and anyone who placed their bets on the stock market’s “fantasy football” league of CDO’s and sub-prime mortgage lending. The cause of the collapse was closer to usury than free trade, and its excesses depended upon manipulation of the facts, deception and fraud that fed itself on willful ignorance. The players gambled recklessly and irrationally with other people’s money and lost big.

The sad fact is that many of the most egregious culprits (the leadership at the rating agencies and the CEOs of the biggest Wall Street firms) will not be held accountable for their evasion or incompetence. Society will languish for a decade to pay back their gambling losses and capitalism in the U.S. will unjustly receive another black eye because few will care to understand the nature and level of fraud that brought the system down.

The disconnect from reality exposed by Lewis that was the downfall of Wall Street is a symptom of a greater philosophical disconnect that permeates our culture. We live in a culture that is quickly losing its greatest attribute — indeed the fundamental building block of Western culture — which is respect for reality and the desire to truly comprehend it.

We have built an entire educational system like Wall Street — a system no longer grounded in reality but one that relies on rote memorization of random facts which may or may not be true. We have created a generation who can define global warming but who cannot name a branch of government, and we have allowed this corrupt pedagogy to continue for decades. We have bought wholesale the subjectivism of the modern era — the idea that history is just “his story,” that you can’t be certain of anything, that all cultures are morally equivalent, that there is no such thing as truth because what may be true for you may not be true for me.

Reality, despite our best efforts to deny it, has a way of leveling the playing field and of eventually revealing a fraud. No one can predict the future, but unless we learn from our mistakes and change our course back toward a reality-based philosophy where we are honest with ourselves and with others, where we seek to truly understand nature and its laws, then sooner rather than later, we will hand over the keys of civilization to the the barbarians.

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Ronald Reagan’s Republicanism

Allison Taylor — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 21:50:49 +0000

There’s an interesting piece at Reason magazine online — an interview conducted in July 1975 with Ronald Reagan. In it, Reagan described his brand of conservatism as libertarianism while correctly identifying the problem with the Libertarian Party — that it engenders anarchy, which ultimately leads to totalitarianism:

REAGAN: If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.

Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to insure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are travelling the same path.

While the Libertarian Party is not the answer to the Republican’s current lowered status, the Republicans would do well to study Reagan’s words and create a banner platform they can wave that appeals to self-proclaimed libertarians.

The problem with conservatism today (and the reason the Republicans were defeated in ‘08) is that instead of being champions of less government interference and more individual freedom, they betrayed these basic principles and led the charge for increased government spending. They also alienated secularists by paying homage to the zealots of the Religious Right who do not respect the wall between church and state that is necessary for a free society. The conservatives of today have accepted the same socialist-collectivist premises of the Left. They’ve conceded Obama’s battle cry that each of us should be our “brother’s keeper.”

But you can’t argue for more individual freedom and less government intervention and at the same time support more government control and handouts. At some point, you will lose your argument because you compromised on principles, thereby ensuring victory to the more consistent side — in this case, the Democrats.

The libertarian (or fiscal) Republicans should not lose heart, though. They still have the better ideology. Obama’s administration will be forced to use conservative economic principles if they are to lead us through this current economic crisis. While the ideas of the Left – that capitalism is the root of all evil and that it thrives on what Herbert Marcuse called a “voluntary servitude,” that globalization equals slavery, that capitalism leads to violence, etc. – will have to be abandoned (at least temporarily) if we are to regain our economic footing.

And the lies of the Left that denigrate capitalism and deify government are ultimately inimical to life and liberty. As such, the Left must rely on the good to survive; and it will do so off the backs of the entrepreneurs and hardworking taxpayers who practice self-responsibility and do not clamor for or rely on government handouts and entitlements.

Today’s conservatives must reinvent themselves, and in doing so they must free themselves from the stranglehold of the “brother’s keeper” premise of the Religious Right and the Left. They must denounce government’s attempts to legislate away poverty – a practice we know does not work. The philosophical subjectivism inherent in the ideas of the Left and the Right — moral relativism and allegiance to the Greater Good on the one hand and allegiance to God’s will on the other — must be rejected or both camps threaten to lead America down a dangerous path of economic ruin and decline.

The new Republican movement must preach, as Reagan did, less government and more individual freedom and mean it; and they must also uphold the separation of church and state. To compromise on any one principle is to risk losing the republic. As Jefferson once said, “I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.” Any argument for religion will end up being an argument over whose religion. Americans cannot afford to engage in religious debate or sully the separation of church and state when we are currently fighting religious fanatics.

As current events unfold, I am horrified at the lack of intellectual leadership. Only when we have more intellectuals who can defend man’s right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness without reference to a Creator or the Greater Good will we be able to move again toward true prosperity and individual freedom. Until then, don’t let it go.

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Obama’s Artifice

Allison Taylor — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 03:06:54 +0000

I didn’t watch all of the Democratic National Convention — yawn — but I saw enough to know I didn’t miss anything. I heard Ted Kennedy’s speech, as well as Michelle Obama’s and Barack’s, and my initial response to all of it is this: What a sham. These clever Dems know exactly what and what not to say, and they executed their parts perfectly. Their progressive, i.e. socialist ideology, was presented with such grace and artistry (not to mention a newfound optimism almost unheard of from the Dems) that I almost forgot I was watching the DNC. But this statement by Obama brought me back to reality:

Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves – protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology.

Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who’s willing to work.

That’s the promise of America – the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper.

The last time I checked, our government had a virtual monopoly on education from kindergarten to the universities, so I’m not sure how the promise of government providing every child a “decent education” is change. Furthermore, if the state of education is any indication how government would handle investing in science and technology, then please let’s leave technology to the Bill Gates of the world.

But even more disturbing is how Obama masterfully evokes the idea of self-responsibility in one breath (while not actually endorsing it) and then in the same sentence proposes responsibility to others as the core belief for America. (Objectivists will recognize this fundamental premise of the Left: Living for the sake of others or the state or the common good.)

No, socialism is not defeated yet. And I fear it is about to rear its ugly head in a man Robert Tracinski observes is one of the most “intelligent, charismatic and appealing” advocates of the left in half a century. That there were 84,000 people packed into Invesco field, some of them weeping, to hear this speaker accept the nomination for the presidency of the United States should give anyone pause.

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Why the World Will Not End: A Great Letter from John Mauldin

Allison Taylor — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:25:37 +0000

I love John Mauldin’s newsletters. I am not his typical fan, I’m sure, as I am not a venture capitalist and my investing doesn’t go much beyond an IRA. But I learned of him one day while reading Thrutch by Amit Ghate and have been enjoying Mr. Mauldin’s newsletters ever since.

This past week he had a great one entitled, “The World Will Not End” — an intriguing headline for a typcially bearish analyst. His letter made me really grateful to be alive right now, at this point in history, and very optimistic about what the next 20 years will bring.

Yes, there are economic events occurring that are not good. A mixed economy is never a pretty sight: The value of money slowly trickles away and it gets harder and harder for hardworking people to get rich. I know inflation is real, and I know a huge hunk of my paycheck goes to Uncle Sam.

Mauldin acknowledges these facts too. He writes:

It is easy to find bad news these days, and the torrent that seems to keep coming can ruin a person’s summer (or winter, for my southern hemisphere readers). The credit crisis, as noted last week, is nowhere near an end. Housing, as we will see, is actually getting worse. Foreclosures, auctions, government bailouts, higher taxes, inflation, the price of energy and food — the list goes on and on.

The list, of course, does go on. But I believe in the power of psychology and philosophy to shape human history just as our own personal psychologies and philosophies — (the good, the bad, and the ugly) — shape our own lives.

And I believe that any individual (and, therefore, any culture) has the ability to turn on a dime. In other words, you can be a train wreck and you can stop the train. You can then get off the train and move on to your next destination. You can decide where you want to go.

Of course, the pessimists will point out that sometimes there really are train wrecks. True. They happen, and they can be fatal for some people, perhaps through no fault of their own. Still, you pick up the pieces and go home. The pessimists point to an endless list of statistics that “prove” a train wreck is coming. (Think Al Gore.) They either want to scare you into action or inaction depending on their own philosophies.

Mauldin’s July 18th letter wisely reminds us to “take a deep breath” and “remember that things will work out.”

He writes:

Markets will adjust, and the world will be a better place. Things will work out better for you as an individual if you anticipate the problems and make the proper adjustments, as much as possible, in advance.

The next 20 years are going to be the most exciting time that the human race has experienced. Yes, there will be issues, but we will adjust. That is what we do.

And, he has this really inspiring line:

We are on the verge of a revolution in biotechnology that is going to truly revolutionize medicine. No one in 20 years will look back on today as the good old days.

I am very grateful that I live right now and in such a historically optimistic country. If we don’t get an optimist as Commander-in-Chief in November (and I’m not sure one is even running), we can still be optimists.

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Update on Part II: Why Obama Scares Me

Allison Taylor — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:10:52 +0000

Ok, as one of my friends recently pointed out, a serious time lapse has occurred on my blog. I feel bad about that, but it is what it is. I could rattle off a whole litany of excuses. I actually think I have some pretty good ones like I started a new relationship, I had a serious medical condition, I just couldn’t bring myself to blog about Hillary…

In truth, the Obama-Marcuse essay turned out to be much harder than I thought it would be. It’s only about 80% done at this point, and I still have a lot of research and thinking left to do on it. But I have not forgotten it, and I chip away at it each week a little more. I expect to post the final essay by the end of next week.

It is amazing when you start researching a modern philosopher like Marcuse (whose dates are 1878 to 1979); you realize just how much one person’s ideas can and do permeate and shape a subculture or a movement. Marcuse really is the father of the New Left, and his ideas, which are anti-capitalist, anti-affluence and pro-socialism, form the basis of the hardcore Leftist movement in the U.S. and around the world. This 1970 Playboy article by Michael Horowitz entitled “Portrait of the Marxist as an Old Trouper” is a good introduction for anyone not familiar with his ideas. My essay will try to show how the New Left today, as exemplified by Obama, is still holding onto Marcuse’s tired, old ideas.

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Part I: Why Obama Scares Me

Allison Taylor — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 04:05:33 +0000

Mark Steyn wrote one of the best articles I’ve read on Barack Obama and his former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. [Hat tip: Scott Shepherd]

Incidentally, if you missed hearing one of Wright’s fiery sermons, just search “Reverend Wright” at www.youtube.com and take your pick.

Steyn’s article, dated March 15th, opens with his observations on Rev. Wright’s views:

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright thinks that, given their treatment by white America, black Americans have no reason to sing ‘God Bless America.’ ‘The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America,’ he told his congregation. ‘God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human.’

Steyn goes on to discuss Obama’s relationship with Rev. Wright, which he sarcastically describes as “not exactly peripheral.” No, their relationship isn’t at all peripheral. Obama’s life is intricately tied to Wright’s and has been for 20 years. And this is why, when the media started playing the sermon tapes, Obama, as a candidate for U.S. President, had no choice but to respond.

Obama’s response speech, delivered on March 18th, is worth reading (or watching) in its entirety. The speech is classic Obama: It’s eloquently written and, of course, it’s eloquently delivered. Obama is a masterful orator. So much so that he scares me.

To be fair, in the speech, he “unequivocally” denounces Wright’s most offensive statements, which were played out ad nauseam in the media. Then, in typical Obama magic-speak, he somehow defends the same man he denounces.

He goes on to say he does not deny being cognizant of Wright’s hateful and anti-American diatribes; but, then he defends this anger as part of the American black experience, which he cannot separate himself from.

Then he says, in essence, that white people often feel the same way Wright feels, just for different reasons. Somehow he manages to come all the way back from praising the Founding Fathers and almost issuing an apology for Wright’s hate and anger toward America to unite his audience under the spell of a typical Leftist viewpoint: We all suffer. And, in our bonds of suffering, there is hope—”the audacity of hope,” as he and Wright like to call it.

The real problem, according to Obama, is that Wright is actually right to be so angry. Oh, maybe he’s wrong about some things, like damning America and all that because we did fight the Civil War and abolish slavery, but ultimately his anger at America and the American system is justified. He states:

This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

The true enemy, according to Obama, is the “corporation.”

This is hardcore Leftist/Marxian ideology. And this is what scares me about Obama. Not only does he fundamentally believe that corporate America is somehow the enemy of the people, he also happens to be one highly intelligent, Harvard-educated, hypnotic speaker.

The root of this belief—that corporations are evil—probably began with the “father of the New Left”, Herbert Marcuse. You may or may not know Marcuse was a German social philosopher who studied under Martin Heidegger but who preferred the philosophy of Hegel. Marcuse emigrated to the U.S. after WWII and ended up at none other than Berkeley in the 1960s, where he sparked the “counterculture” movement.

[More on the Obama-Marcuse connection and the philosophical subjectivism of the liberals will follow in Part II.]

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Update on Atlas Shrugged, the Movie

Allison Taylor — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 00:51:18 +0000

I was excited to see this article by Robert Bidnatto posted at Atlas Sphere, which discusses the latest developments for the film adaptation of Ayn Rand’s magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged.

Vadim Perelman is the director, and, like Rand, he is from Russia. I haven’t seen his film, House of Sand and Fog, but I’ve heard good things about it.

The screenwriter is Randall Wallace, who wrote Braveheart, and Angelina Jolie is still listed as the lead. All very good news.

I’m also excited to hear that it will be set in the 40s and may even have hint of a film noir feel.

As this is the 50th anniversary week of the publication of Atlas Shrugged, I think Ayn Rand would be happy with the latest news.

Also at theatlasphere.com, I found another good article by Yaron Brook on the influence of Atlas Shrugged.

Cheers!

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