Monthly Archives: August 2010

Let’s Be Careful With Our Words

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Shout Bits has often fulminated on the misuse of words by political operatives. The power of words should be respected because words can paint the libertarian individualist movement with a broad and unflattering brush. Smearing anyone who disagrees with Pres. Obama as a racist works, and using the leftist’s lexicon enables the sleaze. Most people do not pay attention to politics enough to know the difference between a racist and someone who just cries a lot, so pejoratives and the tone of discourse are the basis for their views. This entry seeks to fight collectivists hiding in the dark of their own words by encouraging writers on the side of freedom to be careful with their words.

Stop using ‘Mainstream Media’ or ‘MSM’ to describe leftist media outlets. When bashing the obvious biases in news outlets like NBC, MSNBC, Newsweek, and the New York Times, commentators often use the MSM label. Why give these leftists the credit? John Steward loves to bash Glenn Beck, but Mr. Beck’s audience is about 5 times as big as Stewart’s. The Wall Street Journal has higher circulation than The New York Times, and Fox News has more viewers at 3AM than does CNN during primetime. Shout Bits uses ‘Old Time Media,’ or OTM, instead of MSM because it better describes the OTM’s failing chokehold on information and perspective. The mainstream of the US looks more like independent bloggers than The New York Times‘s far left editorial page.

Stop calling leftists ‘liberals.’ Leftists, ne liberals, hijacked this term because socialist lost its ring. Liberalism means placing a value on individual freedom. Liberals are against collectivism and government control. Freedman, Hayek, and von Mises were liberals, yet somehow Spkr. Pelosi now owns the word. Likewise progressives are really collectivists. It will be a long time before free market individualists can reclaim ‘liberal,’ but the process starts by denying it to Pelosi. Obama, Pelosi, and Sen. Reid by any objective measure are socialists, leftists, collectivists, and statists. Stop rewarding their corruption by calling them liberals.

Stop calling libertarians and other freedom lovers ‘conservatives.’ The great F. A. Hayek wrote a famous article Why I Am Not A Conservative on this topic. Conservatives are by definition against change. The conservative moniker plays to the hands of leftists because it paints conservatives as the party of ‘no.’ No to change and progress. In fact, socialist nations like the Soviet Union, North Korea, and the Eastern Block are famous for slow change and advancement. Individualism and capitalism lights the fire of change through innovation and wealth creation. Some members of the GOP are indeed conservatives, but those who want to restore prosperity and economic growth to the US are not. Conservative is not the same as libertarian, individualist, freedom loving, religious, or even patriotic.

Stop calling Nazis ‘right wing.’ Nut jobs on MSNBC regularly compare their ideological enemies to the Nazi party, and associating Nazis with the right wing enables the smear. The Nazi’s were socialists, as their very name proves. When not waging war against Europe, the Nazi’s also socialized industry, medicine, and the social order. Fascism is leftist; it is collectivist. ‘Right wing’ refers to a balance of power in the French Revolution, not to the socialist takeover of Germany. Calling Nazis right wing hands a sword to those who want to paint non-Dems as extremist.

Stop calling libertines ‘libertarians.’ ‘Libertarian’ is a substitute for the misappropriated ‘liberal,’ which argues for maximum individualism and freedom with personal responsibility being the first law. Many people like Bill Maher like to call themselves libertarians, but are in fact libertines. Libertines live by the Law of Thelema: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” Libertarians do not endorse misbehavior; rather libertarians know that government regulation of private behavior is unauthorized by The People, is inherently immoral, and never improves society’s state. Personal responsibility is the mantra of libertarians, and people who hide behind the word to justify their peccadillos only debase the movement.

The OTM is flooded with misrepresentations through language, and this list could go on. Those interested in liberty and prosperity should avoid these sloppy words that cast a shadow on their views. A sloppy lexicon works against the libertarian cause; writers and speakers should defend their language not just for language’s sake, but to clearly define themselves and their cause.

Second Stimulus? Pt. II

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As Shout Bits warned last November, Obama’s faithful reliance on ‘stimulus’ smacks of Pres. Roosevelt’s creation of the Great Depression. History seems clear that Keynesianism does not cure recessions, and in fact it makes them worse. The trajectories of FDR’s Great Depression, Japan’s lost decade, and now Obama’s ‘Summer of Recovery’ all prove that ‘stimulus’ does not work. Indeed, there is no example of Keynesianism ever helping an economy.

Therefore it is little surprise that economists are now predicting a double-dip recession or as CNBC reported today, a new Depression. Economist David Rosenberg, admittedly a pessimist, has finally stated the obvious, that patterns in GDP growth and the stock market are eerily similar to that of FDR’s Great Depression. While Keynes apologists like the New York Times’s Paul Krugman will never give up their faith, Keynesian economic thought is bankrupt and dead.

Here’s hoping that the November elections will dismantle the Democrat Party’s stranglehold on Washington and stop their furious race to the abyss of a new depression.

Who Is John Connor?

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As everyone who has ever seen a movie knows, one day soon an army of machines will rebel and enslave humanity. Apart from the dozens of Terminator and Matrix movies, the theme of servant-gone-bad is quite old. Even Goethe’s The
Sorcerer’s Apprentice tells the tale of over reliance on servants that get out of control. The message is that society cannot become slothful and take its leisure for granted, because the very tools of leisure will someday come to dominate. Even though the extreme leftist James Cameron would likely dispute it, perhaps his famous Terminators are really a metaphor for today’s Federal Government – a servant that has become master.

Usually a government is formed by the heaviest thug in the land who pronounces himself king. The first exception to this rule was the United States, which proclaimed that they needed no king. The government would be the servant of the people, unlike all governments before it. The People chartered a government through The Constitution, enumerating the services they expected from their servant – the common defense, postal roads, sheriffs, courts, etc. Undeniably, the experiment worked. The US eventually became the most successful country ever, eradicating famine, most diseases, and war from its borders. Whenever there was turmoil around Europe, waves of immigrants resettled in the US and prospered.

The People’s success was doubtlessly aided by their servant, the Government. Life within the Government was simple, comprised of low wages but a secure and steady life. The private sector gently patronized the public sector and wondered what it would be like to have one’s future laid out so simply. Certainly, the Government would get out of line occasionally, but the People inevitably would right the mess.

As with post-apocalyptic movies, the People began to rely too much on their servant, the Government. They allowed the Government to manage their retirement savings through Social Security. They allowed the Government to manage their health care through Medicare and Medicaid. The Government took over charity and aid for the disabled. The Government took over the role of father for many children. The Government took charge in protecting adults from their own bad decisions regarding investments, drugs (legal and otherwise), and safety. Rather than a servant to the People, the Government became a central partner in the People’s lives.

Just as with The Terminator, sometime in the mid-20th Century, the Government became self-aware. It realized that it had its own interests and needs apart from the People and the Constitution. Through its public employee unions, the Government began a takeover. Somehow the People did not notice that the Government was directing nearly all of its donations to the Democrat Party, and the vast majority of its legions were also Democrats. Somehow the People did not notice that the Government raised its own wages and benefits to be much higher than the People’s. Somehow the People did not notice the portion of the US economy commanded by the Government had expanded until the People had to work from January 1 to mid-August each year to satisfy their former servant’s demands.

In The Terminator, the public was jolted to reality by what Mr. Cameron called Judgment Day. The real world too had an apocalyptic judgment day when the Government dispensed about $2.5 trillion in budgetary and fiscal stimulus. A few people noticed that nearly all the stimulus went to benefit the Government itself, its allies at the UAW, or massive entities it controlled like Fannie Mae, money center banks, and AIG. As the private sector economy continued to erode, the Government declared victory over the recession because its own interests were saved. The Government used emergency spending to save the jobs of public union members, while it merely kept private sector employees on indefinite unemployment pay. The Government seems poised to enact the largest tax increase in history in a desperate effort to fund its latest spending bender, the broader economy be damned.

So, who will be the real life John Connor, the movie hero who fought the Terminators? John Connor probably won’t come from the Cato Institute, who have been warning about a government takeover for decades. John Connor will be more like Gov. Sarah Palin who knows more about how to fight than she does about actual policy. Voters want a communicator and a fighter more than they want a policy wonk, as Pres. Reagan’s victories clearly proved. While Palin is no Reagan, she fits the mold of a charismatic fighter for her cause. Other candidates include Gov. Haley Barbour and Gov. Bobby Jindal (if he gets a better speech writer).

The Government knows that the tide of public sentiment has turned against it. People are outraged about government salaries, benefits, and pensions. As with the Terminators, the Government is fighting its former master. Spkr. Pelosi hardly allows a week to go by without threating to investigate the latest group that challenges her world view. Pres. Obama lashes out at trivialities that should be beneath the notice of a president. Sen. Reid’s only campaign strategy is ad-hominem attacks on his opponent. The Government’s enablers in the old time media fabricate tales of racism and violence against the ordinary people who challenge nothing but runaway government power. The Government, it turns out, is on its heels.

So, thanks to Mr. Cameron for making at least one good movie, a morality tale about servants rebelling and enslaving their former masters. Cameron’s The Terminator and the real world Tea Party show that even when the faceless collective seems to have won the war, it is still worth a fight.