What Would American Socialism Look Like?

What Would American Socialism Look Like?

The Socialist Utopia

What would life look like if America turned socialist? In a socialist economy, you don’t peruse a coffee isle with many brands to choose from; you get a paper sack of dirt and beans with COFFEE written on the side, if at all; and all other products are of the same stale, no-brand quality. Everything is rationed, proportionate to party status. Instead of vast supermarkets and countless choices, there is coffee day, bread day, fish day, lard day, and each time you stand in line for hours—rain, sleet, or snow. Every few weeks the quality drops—the meat more rancid, the lard more spoiled, the bread more stale—and your family’s health is deteriorating along with it.

Everything you own is now the property of the State. Soon there is a family living in your basement; then another taking half your home. Then you will be permitted one room, then one corner of the room. Can you complain? Don’t dare: they own thought, too. Independent judgment and freedom were American attributes and free trade capitalism was its outgrowth, all thrown away with the bathwater. Now, such an approach to life is banned. As the Bush family motto implies, “Support us or you are the enemy.” Do you imagine your head still held high in sacrifice for the great communal ideal?

We hear about the drunken parties of those in good standing; we see their red cheeks and healthy skin, while we’re all bones and dark circles. We watch our energy being recklessly consumed, whose replenishing consists of a whip on our backs. Express a complaint, let anything slip, and you’re dead.

Imagine walking down the street with no right to the contents of your pockets, with even your smallest day-to-day preparations and simplest conveniences thwarted. Hoarding they call it. Imagine restraining yourself from showing any sign of ability or even giving an opinion for fear of being enslaved or martyred. This is an example of where all the tenets of Spirit Murder—emergency ethics, sacrifice, selfless servitude, and infirmity worship—align under one institutional structure. It has engulfed half the world’s governments, and such premises are responsible for the moral and economic trauma in America as well. All the world’s see and seize policies from military conquest to welfare, alimony, and unfair taxation are the mongrel cancer of altruist fantasy; the desire of the inept to be powerful, of the ugly to be beautiful, of the sick to be healthy, and to gain it all by devouring those who are.

As ninety-nine percent or more of our lives is not spent in foxholes or running from tornadoes, it should be clear that sound moral guidance concentrates on long-range human progress under the conditions that make settled life possible. Morality is concerned with the proper method of producing and accumulating values—not with their relinquishment, and mankind’s institutions must reflect that. The next time you hear a call for sacrifice, make sure they jump first. It is senseless to claim that men must enter into predicaments where they have no choice but to come out with less; that wars are necessary for technological advances; that people must die for life to go on—this is all the cannibal insanity of an abandoned mind.

 

Censorship

If socialist dictatorships are so interested in peace, why do they require a purge of every idea which is not theirs? It is the theory that any distrust is disunity—a sickness that must be eradicated in order for the system to survive. Any public interest outside their control is a pressure point to be eliminated. Any other form of power is a threat. Censorship fulfills the promise to destroy families, infusing youth with a drunken sense of power over their own parents. A word whispered against the State—true or contrived—will get them hauled away. Parents and contrarian thinkers live in fear, as all loyalties and rational hierarchies are erased in obedience to the State.

 

Defection

Soviet citizens know that an American living in a slum is wealthier than any inhabitant of a country disallowing free expression. They know—likely by first-hand experience—that poverty is infinitely preferable to the physical and spiritual straight-jacket of Communism, where human beings are reduced to the living-code of ants, unable to use their cognitive tools, tormented by life itself, with no chance to rise.

We have witnessed the horrific defections attempted at any cost from all socialist countries, most clearly from East to West Berlin as children were shot in the back while trying to flee. Can any socialist premise be supported when you see its citizens running for their lives? Another way to comprehend the truth and intention of socialist governments is to compare the results by war percentages: the number killed, the number wounded, and the number missing. Socialism shows percentages such as: 20 percent, 50 percent, 10 percent. Capitalism shows percentages such as: .001, .01, and .001, which are a direct result of the American Bill of Rights. So which style of government establishes true peace on Earth? Socialism/Communism is efficient only in horror, perhaps destroying five thousand lives to feed five hundred. It is another name for declaring war on one’s own people.

 

Invasion and Immigration

Ask anyone living under a socialist system how many times their family’s savings has been wiped out by currency inflation, how often their homes have been ransacked and how many loved ones have been carted away, never to be seen again. In America, we have no emergencies to recover from day after day, and the more sane and less restrictive our social system, the rarer they are to occur. In fact, in civil times, the number of proper sacrificial scenarios is exactly…none. The only screaming heard on U.S. soil, is at our amusement parks.

Free countries hold the moral right to invade and emancipate slave countries when the risks are reasonable. Doing so, their people would no longer need to seek asylum, eliminating immigration problems in the United States. No one wants to leave their homes anyway; some rulers just make it impossible to stay.

Man’s greatest weapon against men has always been altruism; or the sacrifice of self to others. I say to mankind, “I’ll carry you to safety on my back, but don’t expect to stay there.” We have many challenges in America, but demolishing our system and abandoning our fundamentals in preference to socialism is not the answer. Personal sovereignty is the hallmark of civilization, not voluntary enslavement. We must demolish the organizations that have chosen this fate for us.

Responsible Politicians: Is there such a thing?

Responsible Politicians: Is there such a thing?

The affairs of a country are not unlike the affairs of a major corporation, and of course the most important issue of peacetime prosperity is solvency and sound financial management. We need politicians who can comprehend that the essentials of one life apply to one thousand, and to one billion. Those we select win our confidence by showing they understand and can work with an integrated view of existence—how social interaction can only follow free individual action, and that our institutions must respect the sound fundamentals of both. A friend of the people does not provide men with freebies at any level. He frees them from the slavery of providing those freebies to other men.

Many Presidents have become historic names, while others are all but forgotten. George Washington was historic even while he lived; there has never been another President like him. Lincoln’s calm honor and intelligence shined through the catastrophic realities of the Civil War, while Franklin D. Roosevelt’s memory survives mainly due to the trauma surrounding his period—the Great Depression and World War II. John F. Kennedy stood for all that a sound, loyal American should stand for—he was another Lincoln, while Johnson fed our people into the furnace, starting with his own predecessor. Then there is Andrew Jackson—my favorite President—the man who killed the private banking monopoly and paid off the national debt, both which must be done again. He flaunted the power of the Presidency as a true grass roots American, supporting tariffs and dodging bullets; my kind of guy. He knew exactly what he was doing as chief executive, exactly who the greatest threat to our freedom was, and he wasn’t afraid to face it, and that is just the kind of leader we need today.

A man fit for office has seen enough of the world to encompass an experienced view, so he is at least in his thirties. He has a solid legal, business, and military background so that he is wise, realistic, profit and freedom oriented, and is conservatively attuned not to risk it. He is fully accountable, honestly using State funds for State obligations. He is passionate about America, respects the Republic, respects American sovereignty, our moral standing, and our leadership example among nations. He understands the truth of banking history and sound economics and watches the country’s checkbook closely. He has seen it all, and he is no patsy. He knows when he is being lied to. He knows who is pulling whose strings, and he is not about to spend his life as a puppet or a fool for evil. He is not a master liar, but a master of reason. His job is to uphold the Constitution—an obligation by moral choice—and regardless of his party affiliation, his protection of the strong, independent, stable, and healthy living flow of the people is his highest awareness and responsibility.

Regardless of whether he ever attains the presidency, a responsible politician shows his respect for the Republic by never undermining due process. He knows his role as Congressman or Senator is critical to the Republic; that there is a balance of power to guarantee public representation, and his fully coherent dedication is necessary to assure that the conscious deliberation of issues and others are checked. He knows how cowards use power, and he isn’t one of them.

Political priorities in brief are first and foremost, order—to secure the internal and external safety of the citizens. Second is the financial health and credit of the government, which assures the longevity and independent grasp of its power structure. Third is political sovereignty, or purity from foreign or corrupt influences detrimental to national security, prosperity, and political integrity. Since the Federal Reserve Act was passed in 1913, we have had only one stable leg on the floor.

No private interest should be granted a power which threatens the prevailing order. The conviction of our Forefathers should never be lost, and should remain at the base of any legislation proposed. “Man’s motive power is his moral code.” –Atlas Shrugged. It was our Founding Father’s dedication to moral values that made our society possible—a system designed to protect the human spirit, which has manifested itself as skyscrapers, spacecraft and long, peaceful, happy lives. I have never encountered a more honorable group of leaders, nor a better fundamental system of economics; certainly no politician today attempting to alter the system can compete. It is crucial that the founding principles of our country be preserved in their morally sound, original form.

 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

 

Franklin was a man who respected existence and consciousness, verbatim. He knew that existence itself required him to practice specific processes in order to advance, and he held it in his best interest to support a country that respected this requirement. In many other countries at the time and even today, rational cognition was considered treason, but his thoughtful innocence as a holder of public trust stuns me even now. He made every piece of reasoning complete in itself, bringing deliberation to an art form, and showed how any man, no matter how modest of intellect, can grasp and follow the moral path when those of strength have the honor to present it. With so straight-forward, calm, and thoughtful an approach, he stands as a monument to what is meant when we think of an American.

Many politicians were shocked that Benjamin Franklin did not tuck public money away from the war effort into his own private accounts as so many other generals did. It wasn’t that Franklin put the country’s interest ahead of his own; Franklin knew that an act of cowardice was not in his own best interest. He knew that the fate of a Republic that secured his freedom was his highest self-interest, and that becoming a petty thief was not. Having brought so many ideas in politics, science, and societal flow that are still in use, his use of moral energy was phenomenal—and timeless. In salute to him, his soldiers often drew their swords; a display that enraged inferior generals. That so purely moral a man has ever walked the Earth surely means a trail exists for the rest to pick up on.

Clean Government: Does Capitalism Qualify?

Clean Government: Does Capitalism Qualify?

“It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government.” —Thomas Paine

What do we want from our government? First of all, a safe, secure environment; a sound base from which we can build and grow. We imagine an army that runs to our defense and noble individuals dealing with foreign officials to protect us and guarantee fairness between nations. But often, we straddle the dilemma of assuring government effectiveness versus suffering government interference. The expected result is peace and stability; our pleasant contemplation of never-ending tomorrows, enjoying today and looking forward to every step we take along the path of our lives. What do our freedom and stability depend on?

The birth of our country was the birth of an idea of how men were to engage each other—for once having the courage not to cannibalize. No two philosophies are more desperately needed or are more intentionally subverted than morality and economics (and the subversion of the first makes the subversion of the second possible). A proper code of ethics focuses on the entity it protects: the individual. Sound economics focuses on the proper interrelation of individuals (not sociology, democracy, Communism, or any governmental body, as is often taught). Capitalism simply stands for the right of an individual citizen to make his own economic decisions—to use his own judgment in deciding what to offer, what to buy, and who to trade with. Any other system denies him these rights (and the use of cognition), tells him what he needs, and forces him to accept it.

Why Socialism could gain acceptance by totally violating the natural requirements of the entity it governed isn’t unfathomable anymore, but it is certainly unforgivable. Self-made man would say, “Under capitalism, I can work as hard as I want and keep the results? Awesome!” While Fear-driven man would say, “Under socialism, whether I work or not, I get a cut of what others make? Awesome!” Capitalism rewards the best foot anyone puts forward. Socialism declares that society as a whole should own everything to assure equalitarian distribution, without addressing the equality of effort. They attempt to sustain the unproductive by harnessing the productive, but the good of others, or the “public good,” can never violate the good of an individual. The individual is the measure. Look at Marxist dogma and you won’t see any complex or carefully deliberated laws, but only threats and reproaches—the result of an uneducated and undisciplined consciousness looking to defy itself. At this time in history, you will see socialists decrying the failure of capitalism as a confirmation of their own agenda, but it is not capitalism that has failed. Capitalism in its purest form is called laissez-faire, meaning unregulated free-enterprise. But morally speaking, “without government regulation” does not mean without standards. Industries are expected to self-regulate and guarantee quality in graduated levels. High standards were thought to be the natural result of competition, but with a heavily-indebted populace, the cheapest product that promises more than it can deliver wins, bringing us right back to “slick-salesman and sucker” cannibalism. Capitalism is a sound institutional structure and has not failed us. Fraud on an enormous scale is what failed us; fraud in the financial markets and a mutated business culture of executive embezzlement—men who strip the lifeblood out of companies in defiance of their proper operation. These men are NOT the Self-made, and deserve no moral protection in his name. They are world-robbing pirates deserving time and restitution.

That you can find a job that matches your own interests, that both you and your employer have a choice in the matter of arrangements and that you work steadily to receive a regular paycheck, the world has a political label for you: Capitalist, and a corresponding hate group. But in fact, capitalism is the only socioeconomic system that completes the pattern of life, respecting Man’s nature and securing the land for his potential stature. It leaves him free to choose his own loyalties, free to test his adult capacities, and to do it all alone, without the fear of being devoured. To answer the age-old question fought over since the Cold War, “Who is going to build a better world?” That’s right, the builders.

Classified Woman-The Sibel Edmonds Story: A Memoir

Sibel Edmonds exposes the callous incompetence of our government’s efforts to stem terrorism through the age old government curmudgeon mentality pervading the intelligence organizations set up after 9/11.

The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

How do you think America deals with other countries? Is it all about the spread of freedom and moral ideals; free elections, free people, and sound civil structures for the benefit of all? Think again.

Population Control: How Corporate Owners Are Killing Us

Study long enough and a clear pattern emerges of the corrupt elite’s intent to murder everyone who is not in their club. They own the two biggest killers of Man, and are busy accelerating their depopulation agenda. Ignorance is not bliss.

Socialism for America: Why Not?

Socialism for America: Why Not?

There has been a resurgence of this governing concept since the economic collapse; it has grown in popularity with the young as they run from one evil they’ve seen in practice towards another they haven’t, so we need to understand its true nature and result.

Politically, moral subversion takes the form of social systems set up in countries that claim will provide the people with much more wealth than is possible in America, and ends up doing just that—for the politically connected one percent—and slaughters the rest. Whether we are sacrificed to a god or to a State, the result is the same. No matter the benefactor, it is the sacrifice of life as a means of survival. Spirit Murderers consider voluntary sacrifice the highest moral gift. Then they omit appreciation and make gift-giving involuntary. The hidden intent is to take the moral dilemma out of stealing, but take a look at the nature of a gift. A gift can be given only after our sustenance is secured, but they expand the concept to demand everything we have, claiming an even greater joy will be had—not the panic that actually ensues. Having no personal boundaries or rights to anything we create, ultimately pits us all against each other. History records another name for this affront to civility: Socialism, which is just a confused moral cover for slavery. The honorable American system of “payment for services rendered” is evil to the Fear-driven as they do not intend to pay. Likewise, they don’t ask for payment, because they don’t intend to produce anything of value.

Socialism sees a man, whether he is doctor or a janitor, as a human body. The same body gets the same payment, regardless of its contribution. Socialism is a subversive exaltation of the working class, which dissolves all other classes and places the majority of living action under centralized control. Only the top level makes decisions. To them, disagreement is a sickness, ability is a sickness, and punishment is the cure. Their foggy ideals are based on nothing but clever ways to expropriate, as robbers sympathetic to all incapacities split up the production generated by those abler. Its inevitable result is degeneration: a cognitive step four loss to the producer resulting in a change of his pattern, which will no longer produce the bounty expected.

Most imagine a dictatorship as a super state of arms with rigid rules, but it isn’t. The rules flow with expediency. They do whatever they want, whenever they want—the simple pattern of roving criminality, sanctioned by law. Hedonism never sells, but disguise the slaughter of others through self-slaughter and ahhh, now you’ve got something.

 

Marxism and The Communist Manifesto

No book has had a greater impact on the Spirit Murderers than the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx. It permits a zealot to justify every evil he practices but on a world scale, so it deserves a short refutation here.

Marx acknowledges human coexistence by the Submission/ Domination Axis alone, splitting mankind into enemy camps—the bourgeois (pronounced boorzh-wah) and the proletariat—the fascist ruler and the trampled slave. But Americans have no right to use force against each other. No worker is chained to his position or to his class; he is free to seek employment elsewhere and free to climb as high as his ambition allows. Marx’s whole argument against the West is based on a coercion that doesn’t exist.

He condemns free trade, which he considers an affront to “the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms” given by a tyrannical power that claims to handle everything by dictating every aspect of life. His whole argument for Communism is based as well, on human rights that don’t exist.

Struggling with civilization, Marx admits that “narrow-mindedness becomes more and more impossible.” He condemns productive men for civilizing societies, causing “the barbarian’s intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate.” He goes on to say “The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is.” A Spirit Murderer couldn’t have said it more clearly than that. Despotism is rule by force, which of course free trade isn’t. The motive of profit is the motive of life, which his isn’t. He is right: there is nothing more embittering than serving life if death is what you want. Marx incites workers to destroy imported goods, smash their own machinery, and set factories ablaze—to restore the conditions of the Middle Ages. He outlines the creation of trade unions to organize rioting—not for calm deliberations. He asserts that their mission is to destroy all individual property and any means to acquire or maintain it. A key target of Communism is private property—as for a robber—but don’t think it is just the rich they are after; their definition of bourgeois is “…the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible.” That’s you and I.

Communism intends to destroy families, as he claims all the callous bourgeois parents do is teach children how to survive. Marx sums up by saying they must seize all capital and equipment, then increase rapidly the productive forces he claimed there was too much of. Cleverly, he counsels against small experiments in Socialism as they indicate failure on any greater scale and counsels as well against any peaceful means of change. Reflecting the Koran, nothing less than a total, savage commitment is worthy of the red cause. He exclaims that “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains”, poetic chains that don’t actually exist.

If ever there was an economic treatise built purely on a savage tantrum, this is it. His State provides no foundation other than pouncing on what other men have made. There is no economic ideology and no constitution, just a delusional dream of taking control of the world. Sadly enough, by this supposed idealism, they have taken half of it, and with every engineered financial panic, they take more. Any hegemonic interest will pursue socialism, as it is simply the consolidation of power. Imagine turning over the nation to the inmates of an asylum, convicted felons, and welfare leaches. What would they declare as legal? Confiscation, rape, racial genocide, random murder, pure loyalty or else, and censorship, so that no one could speak against them. The result would be organized looting and wholesale slaughter, benefiting only the most ruthless. They say “Socialism is the sacrifice of the individual for the benefit of the whole.” If a cannibal could speak, this would be his argument.

 

Anti-Biological Pretense

Socialism intends to hold all values static for all men, which is in total contradiction with the flow of life itself, with the biological workings of living organisms, with the weather, you name it. Nothing conforms to a fixed sustenance or a fixed pride for Man except the standards—the axioms they evade. It implies that Man’s answer to life and every move must be perfect off the bat, with no variation. But achievement and happiness are had by conscious effort alone, attained individually to the extent of one’s ability and application. They are never achieved by random means and can never be granted to all men by law. All the law can do is grant the protection necessary to pursue them.

A dictatorship could never keep up in time or depth with the intricate advancements found in every microcosm of free human endeavor, making an attempt at centralized control even more ludicrous. Yet they sell the illusion that they will provide everything for the populace, and are supported by the mass that fears to face life alone.

Spirit Murderers promote the confusion of free meaning uncoerced, with free meaning something for nothing. In America the people are free, the products aren’t, and hence, a massive abundance of products to make life easier. In communist countries, the products are free, the people aren’t, and hence, no products and no life. They seize the results and wipe out the causes, and any future bounty as a consequence. Completion of the 1-4 level pattern of survival is made impossible by Communism. Look at the United Nation’s Bill of Rights. It has thirty articles, where 22, 23, 25 and 29 nullify the rest. The joke is, socialists give men the right to each other, which negates all rights.

Once at a car company, I was ushered into a mass gathering about future products along with hundreds of other employees. Walking into the auditorium, I noticed the social contrast: no huge locks on the doors, as in the Dachau concentration camp showers. Listening, I felt no fear; they didn’t ask for unquestioning trust, but appealed to our rational minds. We were not segregated by our faith, but brought together for our competence. We were not deceived into our deaths, but voluntarily assembled to earn our livings. This is the essence of American Capitalism in action.

Antitrust and Centralized Control

Antitrust and Centralized Control

Antitrust legislation permits the government to bring charges against any business pricing higher, lower, or equal to their competition. Are eyebrows appropriately raised? Pricing higher is considered gouging. Pricing lower is considered dumping. Pricing the same is considered collusion. As all business activity falls into one of these categories, there is no innocence to declare other than sanity, and the surest protection for a business is simply never to be successful. The most recent case that hit home for me was the antitrust suit against Microsoft. It is embarrassing that a man as capable as Bill Gates has to sit there and listen to “Experts” (men with dismal track records by comparison) theorize about how his business could be run—and they expect him to risk his own money on their viewpoint? It was pointless anyway: with the speed of technology, Washington didn’t prove as effective a monopolistic deterrent as the open source programming of Linux.

How many class action suits resulting in fifty-seven cents per customer across the nation (if they care to fill out the paperwork and waste a stamp) are going to be fought before officials realize antitrust has mutated into a parasitical business tax benefiting only law firms? They restrain trade themselves and at their worst, commit the moral horror of jailing executives for nothing more than providing the public with products they want in a voluntary market. I bought a pair of shoes once and started receiving legal documents stating the progress and terms of an antitrust suit against their maker. The law firm made millions off the case, making it well worth their while, but I don’t think my human rights were violated in paying slightly more for a pair of shoes.

Morally, this legislation has strayed. Rather than protecting consumers from different forms of hegemony, it offers the legal profession a steady means of graft and fails to address the true social impacts of corporate malfeasance upon the nation. As executives of large companies move easily between private and public positions, perhaps a more direct link should be established between antitrust legislation and the American Bill of Rights, to specifically monitor any organization’s encroachment upon our civil liberties. No fields suffer such glaring encroachments today as banking, healthcare, farming, and media. Our fundamental rights have been stripped by the weight of new laws driven by fear, indicating the need for a “Citizens First” legal guideline to counter this threat.

“Economies of scale” lower costs and make more and better products available for all, but this concept deserves great and careful scrutiny when brought into the realm of government and monopolies. Cultivation and refinement are often the moral inverse of consolidation and control. Governments are instituted among men to avoid consolidated power, which always turns corrupt by the Fear-driven in pursuit of irrational self-preservation and a false image.

Endless Internal Revenue

Endless Internal Revenue

today’s world, you would be hard pressed to find anyone expecting to see the day when income taxes are abolished. Barely anyone would entertain the serious possibility of ridding ourselves of it, even though our government already collects enough income from other sources to fund its justifiable expenses without income tax.

If you hand over five hundred dollars per week through taxes, do you think you are getting five hundred dollars’ worth of assistance in living your life? Do you think you could do better with the money than they have? Out of a year, we pay almost six months of taxes; six months of working with no right to keep the results of our effort; and for what end?

A society is greatly weakened by over-taxation. History shows that a nation’s overrun and collapse is often due to corruptly incurred debt via the pawned-off responsibility for its recompense—pushed on those who have no say. The tax base is just the checkbook of the country, and what it pays for is to be decided by us. We need a “line item veto” for the people of the United States to exercise on April 15th. This should be accounting day for the government, listing expenses so that the people can cross out what they no longer wish to fund. Whatever lacks mass support or cannot be defended with clear reasoning should be dropped, and the savings returned to the people.

Politics and Internal Corruption

Politics and Internal Corruption

In a perfect world, we can trust our leaders. Those running the government should be as fully accountable as the citizens they serve; they shouldn’t also be tied to huge corporations privately benefiting from every policy decision. We haven’t reached a perfect world because many of those now in power don’t want it. Our laws and foreign policies should be geared to protect our country and honor personal freedoms everywhere; not to confiscate or pillage America or foreign lands.

Politicians can get so corrupt that all of their decisions begin to affect us directly. When those with ties to military or infrastructure contractors get into office, questionable events often occur that raise tensions in the world, resulting in misery for the citizens and massive profits for the companies they represent (for example, Johnson/Bell Helicopter and more recently, Bush/Carlyle Group/Bin-Laden Group). Our richest citizens and political families aren’t supposed to get rich by systematically ripping off the rest. Mass deception is not forgivable. Life-taking actions are not forgivable. Incivility is not forgivable. By morally empowering all men, we will take from them this power.

Sidestepping your consciousness allows immoral people endless opportunities to hide their motivations. Clean motives have nothing to worry about; they enjoy an audience. Deadly motives loath awareness, and in self-defense, therefore demand it. We must require full disclosure to follow and record everything politicians do. This includes full financial disclosure keeping all accounts public, including a regular means test for personal acquisitions.

This isn’t a land we are going to surrender to corrupt politicians or filthy artists or welfare frauds. This is American soil. If you love it, you’ve got to fight for it. We must dissolve political corruption and moral disunity inside America before we can be truly effective solving problems outside. We must know for certain what the politicians are doing in our name, and bring to this world the honor that every child expects to encounter in adulthood.

Lice and Lobbies

Lice and Lobbies

The Fear-driven wish to force their betters to provide what nature cannot give them: guarantees. Irrational lobbies are the con man’s equivalent of the Self-made’s patent, copyright, and trademark. In such forms as subsidies and charters, they attempt to survive by transferring the burden of their instabilities to the rest of us. The State is just a group of men with one critical difference—the capacity to legislate—which means the right to initiate the use of force against others. When violence is allowed in industry, pull becomes the currency—the hottest commodity—and the easiest to lose control of.

The power to grant monopolies, bar competition, and dictate regulations—rational or not—forces businessmen into a struggle for legal advantages. Laws go to protect the highest bidder and leave our society’s moral efficiency for dead until enough of a public uproar is made. It is not the fault of businessmen per se; while some use political subversion to gain advantages, the rest must pay representatives to protect themselves from it, minimizing where they would prefer to invest—in scientific and commercial advancements. Such a power drives the good men out, then drives the very good out of those who remain.

If you wonder why nothing changes, it is because like-minded politicians make a business of it. Just as you choose raw materials for the composition of your products, your life and production is the value behind any deal they make. If a new check were added to the process, giving the people a direct vote on issues critical to them through the internet, the number of people corrupt men would have to bribe would be unlimited, and therefore impossible. Technology makes this system reform possible, and outrageous conduct in Washington makes it essential. Such a website network would limit the power of our representatives to take advantage as well. It should disclose all lobbies involved and have each senator provide details and their own viewpoints so their constituents can make well-informed decisions.

Term Limits

Term Limits

We have all heard of catastrophic government waste, but often it isn’t premeditated; many politicians have no inkling of sound living patterns. They believe government is all powerful and can provide anything they ask, like a rich kid who has everything done for him. Those entering politics straight out of college don’t even know how to live and aren’t going to make sensible decisions.

For the reason of core competence, we need to add career politicians to the endangered species list. With term limits for all elected posts—none being longer than the chief executive—we can better guarantee that politicians will have spent at least a part of their lives earning a living; and then efficient, responsible action will be second nature to them.

Free Elections

Free Elections

“The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” —Joseph Stalin

Voting shenanigans have been a part of the political process since voting was invented. After LBJ won his Senate race in 1948, it was found that Box 13, the deciding ballot box, was stuffed with votes from the local cemetery. This was discovered because the deceased voters seemed to have staggered in in alphabetical order.

History records an impressive stream of deceitful techniques to discourage, repress, and bar individuals from voting, from intimidation and harassment, to the destruction of genuine ballots and creation of fakes, to confusing and delaying voters. The more blatant, violent, and easily traced tactics could be retired however, with the invention of the voting machine.

Electronic voting machines have been shown on live television to be easily hacked, and over the years the makers have been sued for fraud, bribery, and improper political affiliations. It should be obvious that once an electronic vote is cast with no paper trail, all objectivity is lost.

We should not be pursuing maximum efficiency in our most basic democratic processes when the result could so easily undermine the will of the people. Paper records are not prone to malfunction or manipulation, and are easily recounted. As a country, we should return to paper ballots marked in permanent ink, counted publically by local representatives with a video record. If issues arise, they should be locally litigated with no federal interference of any kind. Pressing the voter’s thumb on an inkpad whose stain won’t fade for at least 24 hours will assure an individual only votes once. We must restore confidence in this process for our union to remain strong.

Campaign Finance Reform

Campaign Finance Reform

A grotesque distortion of justice was perpetrated in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, equating a corporation with an individual. It claimed that any limits on political advertising were unconstitutional as this would bar free speech. The problem is that rarely are corporations—those able to invest large sums for political aims—made up of 100% Americans. Most large companies have parent companies, subsidiaries, plants, sales offices, and storefronts all over the world, and a mix of employees and executives who come from vastly different backgrounds. The First Amendment is an American statute that applies solely to American individuals and groups, voting for American political offices.

We would not let Russians come here and take to the streets with communist propaganda. We would not invoke the First Amendment in defense of a foreign nation taking control of our media. The Constitution is for American citizens and their voluntary associations only, and the smallest common denominator is the individual. “One man, one vote” implies a fair balance: that one man’s influence over the outcome is the same as any other man’s. The corrupt influence of concentrated wealth is something Democracy thrives without.

If a company is making $50 billion a year and a political race—federal, state, or local—that effects their interests typically costs $5 million, why wouldn’t they try to buy a positive result? For this reason, elections should be publically funded as an essential attribute of the democratic machinery, removing the advantage of those seeking to buy the political process.

What Does Honest Capitalism Really Look Like?

What Does Honest Capitalism Really Look Like?

Not all enterprises are evil: in fact, most are not, as Self-made Man forms organizations, too. Many moral lessons can be learned by studying America’s finest corporations. They are the perfect example of men uniting in order to produce bounty—a fair, deserved, profitable result. Profit means that after a day’s effort, you have something to show for it. Profitability is a sign of living competence, not of greed. A business has an abstract life like a person, and profit is its lifeblood. Even in the process of learning, to end up with a greater sum is to profit intellectually. We see that plants and animals run a process like our own, accumulating, processing, and storing food for the sustenance of their lives. As wealth and profit are fundamental patterns of life for all organisms, those critical of it are simply damning us for our ability to live.

We hear that money is the root of all evil, but money is simply a tool that allows products to pass easily between producers and consumers. It is easier to trade with a standard medium than having to hope a vacuum cleaner salesman has use for your stair-master. No, there is nothing wrong with the medium of money; nothing wrong with the honest, peaceful accumulation of capital, and nothing wrong with producing more than you consume, as profit permits innovation. These are essential life-serving, forward-thinking, sound, civil, and moral principles. With full understanding and respect for the effort we all put forth to create products that make life easier for everyone, I for one, salute you.

 

Sound Hierarchy

The man of greatest capacity at every level within the organization should lead. He should be chosen by his people, and replaced when he is no longer effective (if the life of the organization is to come first). A business has a dynamic just like a human body, which gets sick if its focus strays or if it comes to require a specialty which is different from that of its head. As a part of the company’s body, each employee contributes to or detracts from its health with every action they take in its name.

The products of men will have the integrity of those who built them. Those who earn a fortune by moral means in a free system of exchange have accumulated a wealth of trust, and it is a rational measure of pride, but be careful not to go overboard. I have often witnessed a company executive looking for a way to persuade his people to stand behind the company’s proud, long-range goals as if they were their own; to display pure loyalty to his dream as if it was their own. If your campaign doesn’t come with stock options, forget it. Such a mindset only comes with ownership. Mass support for another individual or his corporation above and beyond their own lives isn’t sound—it isn’t moral and it isn’t ideal. All individuals work for their own health and objectives within the corporation—job satisfaction, advancement and financial reward—and they should. The company’s health is a result of managing these forces wisely—having all of the independent entities flying in formation while they are on your time.

 

The Pride of Competition

When businesses try to steal customers from each other, it isn’t actually stealing; there is no moral violation. No one has a right to patronage; all market activity is voluntary. If men dislike a product or if it is too complex they won’t buy it and will find another way to satisfy their needs. Our most complex products, such as computers, will never extend beyond the range of an individual’s comprehension for effective use; the free market will never allow such a breach. It is in every businessman’s best interest that his products stay within the conceptual range and efficiency of the user and that he continually seeks to improve their attractiveness to that end.

The battles between real Self-made Men are civil, honest, and fair. The spoils go to whoever does it best, and whoever doesn’t, often ends up working for whoever does. To lose a corporate battle is not a life or death issue, it is a spiritual issue, and a challenge to come back better, stronger, and prouder than before, often catching the leader off-guard. It is a genuine pursuit, and it’s fun! With a free economy, there is room for many levels of talent and of product quality—take cars for instance. We buy economy until we can afford luxury, with many different brands and styles to choose from. By competing in a vast marketplace, many entrepreneurs get to see how well they perform in the role of leader, and their ability determines their position among the great firms of the world.

Competition spurs discovery, and results in the more efficient use of human energy. An advance of technology is an advance in wealth for all—regardless of how jobs are restructured for the change. The freer a field is, the better it is for everyone. Fierce competition, as in the computer industry, just results in more stars, greater talent, more numerous fortunes, and a purer distribution of wealth than has ever existed. It is said that Microsoft has more millionaire secretaries than any other firm.

 

Healthy Morale

Morale is the most underrated, avoided, and seemingly incomprehensible issue in business. Bad morale has a silently devastating undercurrent; it is cancer to a business. Why is the subject avoided? Because it involves the mystical, uncertain realm of morality. Like it or not, managers are responsible for a happy staff. As a body is only as healthy as its cells, its cells must be healthy, and people are the cells of a business. Much more than protoplasm, people harness the capacity of volition, but as an analogy, people, like cells, have a specific nature which must be accounted for.

An employer/employee relationship is governed by and must contain all of the essential attributes of any human relationship: rationality, civility, honesty, mutual interest, and mutual benefit. Good managers don’t require submission in a world where force is banned; that is a psychological remnant of the past. If you deserve your position as a leader, you are beyond tantrums, beyond neurotic dominance, and you are able to treat everyone in your organization with deference. Likewise, responsible employees are objective, sincere and perform tasks as or better than expected. They are emotionally mature and apply themselves as their interview promised they would. Satisfied employees and employers get the job done together, and look to accommodate and foster the deepest goals of both. We all have dreams.

Morale is defined as the general mood of employees determined by the working conditions provided by management. Respect for one’s superiors does not come from enforcing inessential issues such as strict start and stop times. It cannot be had by steering people at every step. Instead, decent morale comes from communicating what is crucial to accomplish, providing the tools, and leaving employees free to achieve. All minds approach their work in patterns tailored to their own psychological makeup, and they must be free to function unimpeded. A good manager lets them address tasks by their unique means. With a successful performance, everyone deserves acknowledgement. To be valued is much more than spiritual gratification; it assures our living security. As most people live check to check, that comfort has very real psychological consequences. My own custom when reviewing a performance issue with an employee is to project why the improvements or new skills are needed for their role in future projects. Try this yourself and witness the sighs of relief you hear. You will likely see a renewed invigoration and increased sense of loyalty from them as well.

Sound Institutions

Sound Institutions

In a speech, Abraham Lincoln said “So far as possible, the people everywhere shall have that sense of perfect security, which is most favorable to calm thought and reflection.” This is the highest goal of Self-made Man; true peace on Earth. It has never been clear however, just what this goal rests upon.

Sound institutions are built upon sound relationships, which are built upon sound cognition. All Self-made organizations share the same value structure, as they are all designed by the same kind of mind. Productive groups who bring freedom, peace, and bounty to men are the foundation of a civilization. Self-made business and political leaders see the greatest power in truth; being open, honest, and fully accountable for their activities. They seek voluntary exchanges and enter negotiations with their own backbones, prepared to satisfy the terms agreed on. They put their best foot forward as goodwill requires, intending to leave a healthy impression as their only means to secure future association. Decency requires us all to accept the vulnerability of not controlling the others involved. The Self-made enjoy the opportunity of a free market environment, as fixed rewards draw only yawns from enterprising men.

Stand face to face with one other human being, and realize that trust—the integrity that you both respect and intend to live by a civil order—is all you have between you. In order to function socially, we must be completely free of concern for any threat to our lives or any forcible loss. Add another person, and trust is all you have. Add five hundred, and honesty, rationality, and integrity continues to be your guide. Add fifty million, and all that guarantees the character of men and keeps everyone from backing into corners, is trust. To trust is to feel comfortable about the actions and potential actions of others, and that only comes with a clear pattern of cognition acknowledged by all as moral, to which every aspect of human existence and our interrelation is gauged—be it law, business, education, or any other institution Man might form.

All the activities of Man are comprehendible by the rest. Even the running of a business empire or a country has base essentials that anyone can understand. The heights we can rise to are determined by a civilization’s respect for the rights of the individual. This is why America has done so well relative to the rest of the world—why it has brought more wealth into the hands of more people than any other system of government. Our prosperity stems from the philosophy we hold. With an even greater moral clarity in the hands of the masses, our future will contain more positive manifestations than I could possibly predict, and I look forward to witnessing them.