Eclipsing Justice

So, did you see the eclipse yesterday? No, no, no... not the intriguing but irrelevant light show in the sky, I mean the dark show that played out on our city streets by the Occupy movement, now protesting NATO, the one where the light of civilization was being eclipsed by the savage hordes of our educated populace?


This one (see pic to right), did you see that? Those were some seriously 'peaceful' activities from the Occupy movement, weren't they? How many people, I wonder, did it occur to, that most of those throwing rocks and bottles for peace... were either college students or college graduates? Doesn't that seem odd? Shouldn't that seem odd?

Where do you suppose they learned such violent ideas about peace?

Did you see the OWS members being arrested for making bombs? Arrested for planning to express their views with Molotov cocktails? Arrested for planning to blow up bridges? Arrested for plotting to blow up President Obama's house and the Mayor's mansion? Have you heard any of their catchy chanting? Lovely and uplifting tunes such as:

"1-2-3-4-No War but Class War! Eat the Rich!"

And how about their peace mongering manners and dress? Capped off with surrounding, attacking and stabbing, the Police?

Do you, from time to time, wonder how these people, these mostly well off American youth, managed to become infected with the ideas which transformed them into those kinds of people?

These ideas they are agitating for, after all, in their minds at least, are about their ideas of Justice.

What is that?

They tell themselves that in using govt power to improve our lives and make life more 'fair', that they are pursuing a greater form of good than is made possible under our nation's constitution, than is possible to be obtained through individuals making their own choices in life. The occupiers believe that their good is better served by telling you what to do, rather than through you living your own life in liberty and pursuing happiness; that the state mandated market is more just than what is possible through the Free Market and its pesky demands for individual rights and property rights protected by law.

These educated mobs truly want to cast that all aside in order to promote 'Democracy!' and Social Justice! But their standards of justice, are ones which, by our traditional western and American standards, are the height of injustice... so where did their barbaric ideas come from?

Seriously.

Think about this as well, when you hear them chant about how they love 'Democracy' - that they think that lawless violence is the way to achieve peace and fairness... do you think that their idea of democracy is the same as your idea of it? Or are you also one of those who thinks that our nation was founded upon principles of 'Democracy'? Wrong. Don't feel too bad though, most of our school's textbooks say just that. What they don't say about Democracy, is what the... majority... of our Founders said about Democracy, as expressed by Madison ,

“…a pure Democracy, by which I mean, a Society, consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the Government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert results from the form of Government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party, or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is, that such Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives, as they have been violent in their deaths.”[emphasis mine]

Our Founding Fathers knew their history, and they knew philosophy, and they knew that 'Democracy' inevitably meant demagogues agitating the mob to the point where 51% of the people could choose to sacrifice 49% of the people. And while that fits in just fine with the chanting of the mobs in Chicago, that doesn't fit in with our American ideas of individual Rights and Liberty and Justice for all. Our Founding Fathers understood that an individuals Property Rights were vital to the protection of all of their Individual Rights,

"The right of property is the guardian of every other right, and to deprive the people of this, is in fact to deprive them of their liberty". (Arthur Lee of Virginia 1775).

Where did our fellows, your children, get the idea that Individual Property Rights is an evil? Aside from Marx, I mean, who said,

"In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. "

, because Marx understood that Property Rights were a barrier to the kind of total power he wanted the state to have. But how, in the United States of America, did Marx's ideas of 'justice' get into American kids heads as their idea of Justice?


Our Virtual 'Education'
The answer is that they got their ideas from School, of course. It is through our schools that the occupiers are made, and it is through schools that these ideas are pushed onto the next generation, in ever larger numbers than the one preceding it. Our children are  taught, not explicitly perhaps, but most definitely by implication, that power, that wise and caring leaders using force, is the path to fairness and peace. And they are taught these pernicious notions, not as ideas to be understood, but as beliefs to be accepted, without question, and they are taught that questioning them is wrong, very wrong.

A case in point this last week, from a student in a high school 'Social Studies' class who recently captured the scene of their teacher demanding, in a very belligerent manner (listen to the OWS crowds chants, see if you can hear the same melody), that he accept her political beliefs,

"The teacher yells -- literally yells -- that Obama is “due the respect that every other president is due … Listen,” she continues, “let me tell you something, you will not disrespect the president of the United States in this classroom.” She yells over the student repeatedly, and yells at him that it's disrespect for him to even debate about Romney and Obama."

This student had been trying to tell his parents about this situation at school, but they were sure he was exaggerating, so,

"... the student had asked his friend to record the discussion to "prove to his parents what he has been trying to tell them for some time. The teacher in this video has a long history of pushing a liberal agenda, by shouting down students. She is very intolerant of other points of view that she does not share. The atmosphere at this school is not very conducive to opposing views.""

Virtual Philosophy = Actual Misosophy
The peoples of the Occupier movements of course come from some of our classrooms (some is all it takes, it doesn't require many bad apples to ruin bunches of defenseless students), and some of those classrooms are taught by teachers who have learned that teaching means indoctrinating students with 'the right ideas', or 'outcomes', and they learn that notion from some of their college classrooms.

Courtesy of Academia (the Irony runs so deep), one philosophy department is now making it possible for you to see a favorite method for how this dastardly deed is done, online. You can now catch a glimpse of how these ideas are taught, how these choices - to be violent or to be violated - are made to seem to be the only choices there are to choose from, you can actually see how students, students in Ethics classes, supposedly devoted to understanding what is right and what is wrong behavior, are being taught that force and sacrifice 'for the greater good' is how justice must be done.

Are these ideas something that's likely to have been discussed in depth? No, exactly the opposite. Most in depth discussions would cause the sorts of notions that are put forth as ideas, such as this, to collapse under their own lack of weight - they truly are meaningless. Instead these issues involve arbitrary situations, with no fundamental principles to rest upon (Surprise!), thrown at you with the expectation that you will make a 'decision', with little or no basis for making it. Translation: Do what is the politically correct thing to do. These are usually passed on through hit & run survey courses in the humanities & philosophy classes (the shallower the better and easier they are to be dogmatized) and they teach their students that questions of right and wrong are to be determined by unresolvable issues made in an emergency situation, such as in the leftists favorite scenario, an overloaded lifeboat.

Soon, it has been announced, these weightless ideas will be able to be wafted through the open minds of even more people, and with much less effort, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, requiring only nominal input from professors of philosophy, and some serious effort by programmers (again, the irony...) so as to make a virtual education indoctrination available on online to all.

These Philosophy professors (keep in mind that 'Philosophy' means 'Lover of Wisdom'), at an American university, are developing a 'Virtual Socrates' program, designed to engage students in a 'virtual dialog', that is supposed to be like "an interactive exercise to try to replicate the classroom experience online", which I'm sure it will do a bang up job of... right down to manipulating the students into situations where they have no choices, no chance to think, no alternatives, but those forced upon them by their sophistic (those who manipulate ideas to achieve predetermined conclusions) professors - the very sorts of people that the real Socrates battled and eventually lost his life to - thanks to a democratic majority vote.

This article tells of the new wonders of Virtual Philosophy

"Some assume that online education is not a suitable medium for courses that rely on the Socratic Method. But the philosophy professors at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro are skeptical.

Oh... how I'd like to churn out a few pages on just that ... but I'll spare you. You're welcome. Moving on...

The Greensboro philosophy department, which already offers online versions of eight of its courses, has adapted two additional ones, including a “capstone” seminar, for the Web. Pending the approval of the university system’s general administration, the new courses would make it possible to earn an undergraduate philosophy degree from Greensboro without setting foot on its campus.

That would make philosophy the first department at Greensboro’s undergraduate college to offer a fully online degree.

"That might strike some observers as odd, given philosophy’s reputation as a discipline that relies on classroom exchanges and whose pedagogical model has hardly changed since ancient Greece. But philosophy and technology are more closely linked than some might assume, says Gary Rosenkrantz, the chair of the department.

“It’s not as ironic as it seems if you reflect on the fact that computers -- both hardware and software -- derive from logicians in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,” says Rosenkrantz. Threads of inquiry that use the “if-then” protocol of formal logic are the “foundation of both the computer chip and basic computer software functions,” he says."

If you've been reading my posts, you know just how nauseatingly true that last part is... but again, I'll spare you a rehashing of it, because there is more than enough here to be seen with your own eyes in this single demo, to rant on about.

The online demo is complete with an actor portraying the Greek Father of Philosophy, 'socrates', dressed  in a roman toga no less, and wearing a laurel wreath on his head - if you're not struck by the error there, it's a little like presenting Ben Franklin as wearing an Armani three piece suit while talking on an iPhone in Russia, which is the sort of foul-up I'd expect to see on Saturday Night Live, but not in a presentation by the philosophy dept of a university. On top of that we're given a socrates who mugs, rolls his eyes and shakes his body at you, even pulls his toga over his head in horror, if you dare to click any of the replies that the programmers were doing their best to program out of you.

This is seriously sick stuff, and it is being put across with a straight face, as an innovative approach to something they like to call 'education'. But beneath the awful appearances, lies some truly evil material, and it is a perfect example of how students are fed the bilge which they are taught to think of as thinking about 'justice' and 'ethics', and result in violence, which is the only way they can play out in real life.

Here's the content of one of the slides:

The Lifeboat Problem You are on a lifeboat with 11 people (including you) aboard. The water surrounding the lifeboat is freezing such that no one can survive in the water. There is no rescue ship in sight and worse yet, the lifeboat is sinking. You then notice there is a sign posted on the lifeboat that reads "Capacity 10 normal sized persons." Looking around you notice 10 normal sized persons and one 400 pound man. No one wants to jump out of the boat and if nothing is done it will sink leaving all 11 to die. Would you:

• A. Push the 400 pound man out of the boat to save everyone else. (Achieving the greater good.)
• B. Refuse to push the 400 pound man or anyone else out of the boat and hope for a miracle.
• C. Denounce the person who presented this scenario as an exercise in philosophy, as a fiendish fraud and a misosopher.

Yes, "C" is my wishful addition to the options, but you can bet your bottom dollar that no such option will be presented to your children, instead they will be told that those are their only options, that these are real world examples of 'Ethical choices'.

These supposedly ethical issues, are presented with little context, in situations which forbid contemplation or discussion, without covering any of the concepts involved and with arbitrary options which you cannot question, all of which is presented in order to railroad you into situations where you CANNOT make an intelligent decision... do you get that? You cannot make an intelligent decision with this scenario and these options, and that is exactly their point - you are simply expected to Act, for the moment... pragmatically, with no regard for fundamental principles, with the expectation that you will have no choice but to 'choose' the politically correct thing to do. Go to this page, click on the options that you know are not politically correct, and you will see 'socrates' grimace at you, even hide his face from view, until you just 'get' the right ideas into your head as being the ones you should 'choose'.

If you are interested in doing what is Right, if you are interested in discovering what the meaning of justice is, and how society should be organized so as to exemplify it every day, you do NOT learn to understand it through a an emergency crisis situation, a situation which, by definition, has to be decided and acted upon without thoughtful deliberation.

In the Lifeboat dilemma, as with all emergency scenarios, life itself must be made paramount, and all the secondary issues which are required to support it in everyday living, must be pared away, tossed away, in order to preserve the most life possible. It is, literally, "Women & Children first!", there is no time to consider whether or not one person has led a good and just life, and another a one of debauchery and crime, that goes out the window as those with the breath of life are equal by virtue of that as life itself become the standard, and quantity becomes the goal. The contemplation of life, liberty, property, justice, happiness have no place in a life or death scenario... and that is EXACTLY what the leftist wants to make as the standard for every day life, because they want to throw overboard any and all considerations of Quality - principles of philosophy, law, justice, liberty, must be discarded in their ideal utopia, in favor of quantities of breathing bodies - their quality of life held as irrelevant - and the requirements of living a quality life over the long term, which leads you back to principles, are to be discarded.

You, YOU, and by 'you' they mean them, are to be given god-like, life or death power over the actual you.

What these lessons teach has nothing to do with Ethics or with Justice; those principles require the careful use of deliberative Reasoning, informed with a thorough knowledge of the concepts which they are derived from, in order to discover govt's role in ordering society so that men can live and deal justly with their fellow man. Instead, the purpose of these lessons is to prevent the students from ever arriving at the actual concept of Justice - something the real Socrates would have been driven nearly to the point of madness over. And btw, the real Socrates was no flaccid & flabby priss, such as the actor portrays in the 'Virtual Socrates', the real Socrates was a stone cutter and a veteran of war, he was a man whose battles, in hand to hand warfare, were legendary. He understood well the differences between action and reflection, between sophistry and wisdom, and he spent his life in conversation, seeking to understand the concepts of Justice, and Injustice, which these misosophers defame so despicably. The notion that these put up jobs could be considered in any way as legitimate attempts to teach ethics or justice, would have been, and is, obscene.

These 'lifeboat ethics' are the antithesis to educating students about Justice, but they aren't new, only more visible as of late, as are the results of having be taught ethics from them. I noted in a post on "Teaching Justice at Harvard... Not!" a few years ago, how a popular Professor of Law, an authority on Ethics, was using just this type of scenario, 'lifeboat ethics' to 'teach' his classes with, and each one filled with hundreds of students:

The express purpose of such a scenario, is to put the student into a situation where he has no time to think, and must just react, in order to 'do the right thing'. Somehow.

Look at that again.

A philosophy course, an introduction to philosophy, the study of wisdom, and in this case focused upon the central point of the jewel of Justice, which seeks to resolve issues into what it is good to do and what is wrong to do... dealing with the highest concepts and truths, requiring the most deliberate and refined practice of reasoning... and as an example of entering into this, the most concentrated form of thinking, of reasoning upon vital life changing issues, we are given, as the introduction, your 'first impression' which you never get a second chance to make, and as the choice made for setting the tone for the entire course, is chosen, chosen, a situation designed "to put the student into a situation where he has no time to think".

Where, I want to ask, is the Justice in that? He then rolls on with questions of Marxist derivation, and anti-justice thinkers such as Rawls… the students rapt attention at the entertaining philosophical vivisectionist at work upon them… horrifying.

This is very much representative of the 'teaching' professors employ in philosophy classes today.

There is nothing good that can come of this, and you can seen in Chicago how nothing good is coming from those who have likely been taught with just these 'lessons'. Precisely because these sorts of lessons have been allowed to be drilled into the brains of America's youth, there is no way left for us to find a 'middle ground' with which to co-exist with these people - they have been indoctrinated with the lesson of Lifeboat Ethics, that Justice and Ethics are simply 'Kill or be Killed!', and that it is only a matter of deciding who is to be given the power to make those decisions. The lesson finally learned is that Power! is the path to their conception of Peace, and that Power must be seized through power - Power to the People! No War but Class War! Eat the Rich! Sound familiar? Gotta give em credit, the occupiers are practicing what they were taught to.

What I worry about most lately, is that we are being maneuvered into a situation, similar to a hundred and fifty years ago, where there will be no room left to find a reasonable alternative to action. I pointed out in a recent post, that:

...Conservative positions will always be perceived as a threat, and for at least two reasons.

• First, your principles are a reminder that there are consequences for all that we do, which is an affront to everything they want, and everything they want to believe.
• Secondly, your claim to such principles and rights, are barriers which are keeping them from what they want, in just the same way that the Constitution is a barrier to the power to ‘provide’ the universal healthcare they so dearly want.

Read that lifeboat scenario above, to you see any room for principle? Any mention of it? Worse, if you take that 'ethics' track from the start to finish, it deliberately seeks to draw out your principles, and then after the above scenario, no matter which option you choose, show you that your principles are in conflict with whichever choice you make, the inescapable conclusion being that principles as such are useless, and that all such important decisions must be made 'pragmatically', on the range of the moment. It is intended to teach you that Right and Wrong are childish fantasies. These scenarios are taught to inculcate the 'answers' that there are only two options available to you.

1. to eat your neighbor
2. to be eaten by your neighbor

The conclusion that must be drawn from those options, by any person with the ability to count to three twice in a row, is that you'd better use whatever force you can, in order to secure what you think is fair, before the Other guy does... IOW, someone will have to choose which neighbor is to be eaten, first, for the greater good.

What the educated Occupier just knows they Ought to do
For an example of how someone educated in these types of these ideas believes that they ought to be put into action, this article gives a glimpse into how one of the occupiers arrested recently for plotting bombings, a college student at a New Hampshire community college, thought his ethics demanded he ought to behave:

He posts against perceived “authoritarian control” and states he would “rather die for a cause than live a life that is worthless”. When Anonymous targeted Oakland officials in revenge for what they perceived as bad treatment of Occupiers in Oakland and released personal information on the internet on the officials, Chase’s comment was “Eat it dirty pigs!” He notes his arrests at Occupy Miami and in D.C.. One of his Facebook friends asks him what is the purpose of Occupy, to which he responds, “Revolution, disent”[sic].

The two most striking comments include a threat against the Miami police:

Jared Chase Miami has the most crooked cops in the country. We should execute them before they do something well regret.

That is the only sort of justice which Lifeboat Ethics can produce in action, in real life; a demonstration of how 'Virtual Philosophy' means 'Actual Misosophy' (Hatred of Wisdom).

Look around America - what you see is what your modern ideas of education, of 'useful' and 'pragmatic' education, of turning the primary purpose of going to college, into getting a good paying job, has brought you to. Parents, fellows, there are no skills that can compensate for the loss of liberty, and there is no liberty that can be had if you don't first how to employ Right and Wrong in your own life. Such an 'education' can only deliver us to the cultural loss of the concept of justice, loss of the self; that is the popular understanding that this form of 'education' is bringing us to.

I was reminded this weekend of an essay by the great Richard Mitchell. He stirred the pot up as "The Underground Grammarian" in the 70's & 80's, doing his best to alert us to what the 'educationistas' were bringing our way. This from his book on Educationism, The Leaning Tower of Babel, opens with a quote by Lenin who's giving advice on how to deal with those who disagree with the Party - see if it rings any bells for you,

"'Why should we bother to reply to Kautski? He would reply to us, and we would have to reply to his reply. There's no end to that. It will be quite enough for us to announce that Kautski is a traitor to the working class, and everyone will understand everything.' - Nikolai Lenin

... Lenin's bolshevism and American educationism have so much in common.

"Give me four years to teach the children,'' said Lenin, "and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.'' He wasn't talking about reading, writing, and arithmetic. He wanted only enough of such skills so that the workers could puzzle out their quotas and so that a housebroken bureaucracy could get on with the business of rural electrification. Our educationists call it basic minimum competency, and they hope that we'll settle for it as soon as they can cook up some way of convincing us that they can provide it. For Lenin, as for our educationists, to "teach the children'' is to "adjust'' them into some ideology."

His books & articles are online at this site (which I highly recommended), if anything they are even more relevant today, with our "Education Reform!" mantras for Basic Minimum Competency, No Child Left Behind, Common Core Curriculum, Competitive Skills, Data Driven Education, Educational Choice through private Charter Schools!(which have to follow federal govt rules and guidelines - wow, bet that'll  show some real entrepreneurial initiative, eh?!)... Lenin would smile and Marx would chortle. Mitchel is worth a read, especially if you are one of those who thinks that the purpose of an education is to get a good paying job, because soon enough, due to just that form of educationism which has already reformed, or deformed, our nation into its current shape, there may, perhaps sometime soon, be no good paying jobs left.

At that point it will only remain to be decided who is to be on the menu for dinner.

Oh, and if that doesn't trouble you, you might want to recall that Obama defined 'The Rich' down from his previous campaign's high of those who 'were paid' over $250k, to being any household making above $100k.

Bon Apetite

Abolishing Freedom for the 99%

The new Breitbart site has this post "Exclusive: SEIU Helps Occupy ‘Abolish Capitalism’", which you should read and listen to very, very, carefully.

As you do so, you should keep in mind that "Capitalism" was the term which Marx used to rename the Free Market with... why? Why do you think? Who could possibly stir up a free people against Freedom? But against money/capital? That's as easy as stirring a pot.

Why should you care? Try this out, read that headline again, but this time try reading it as what it actually means: "SEIU Helps Occupy 'Abolish Freedom'... now how's that working out for you?

Nothing short of Evil.
In the video, during a panel at the "New School" (I'll come back to that in a moment) in New York City, you can hear such luminaries as David Graeber from the University of London Anthropologist and Anarchist, who coined the phrase "We are the 99%", as he says:

"What strikes me is that if one is going to pursue this to its logical conclusion, the only way to have a Democratic society, is also to abolish Capitalism in the State."

And another panellist, Marina Sitrin, Attorney for Occupy Wall Street, nails it with this comment:

"But, um, we can't have democracy and capitalism. We could make more representation I think, but democracy and capitalism don't work together."

On that point, our Founders, such as John Adams thoroughly agreed. And for that reason they did everything they could to ensure that we would never, ever, become a Democracy, as they, and these people, understand the term to mean.

Why? Because he knew, as do these scum, that Democracy means nothing other than mob rule. They knew that it meant that no one's property could be secure or safe under a Democracy, and they understood that if no one's property was safe, then no one's lives could be safe because no one could possibly have any rights at all; unless all individuals have the means to retain their property and make their own decisions about their own lives, then no one can have anything they could possibly refer to as being 'their own lives'.

No Mob can rule, if individuals have rights. Period. No Property Rights, no Individual Rights, no Liberty and no Freedom, can endure or even exist, under Mob Rule, aka: Democracy.

Welcome to the 99% who occupy the Gulags. Oh, and as to the "New School", those of you in Missouri who have memories longer than a news cycle, you'll love this one; how many of you remember Missouri State Senator Jeff Smith? Do you remember him as he likes to be remembered, and as his new employers at the New School,  who employs him as a Professor of Political Science, would like him to be known as:

THE NEW SCHOOL MILANO SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, MANAGEMENT, AND URBAN POLICY 2011–2012 CATALOG Faculty Full-Time Faculty Jeff Smith
(PhD, Washington University), assistant professor of politics and advocacy. Smith majored in Black Studies and Political Science at UNC-Chapel Hill before going to graduate school in Saint Louis. He has taught political science at Washington University (Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence) and Dartmouth College. At the Milano School, he teaches and conducts research on campaigns and elections, the role of race in urban politics, policy advocacy, and the legislative process. He served in the Missouri Senate from 2006 to 2009 as the nation’s only white state senator from a majority-black district. As a co-founder of a group of inner-city charter schools, the Confluence Academies, he became the senate’s leading voice on education reform. He writing a memoir about his experience in state politics and contributes to The Recovering Politician, a blog for former elected officials. His articles have been featured in Inc. and New York, and he has been profiled in Harper’s, The New Republic, and other magazine. In 2004, he ran for the congressional seat vacated by Dick Gephardt, losing narrowly to Russ Carnahan. His youth-powered grass-roots campaign was chronicled in the film Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?, which was lauded by the Washington Post, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune, and short-listed for an Academy Award.

Or do you remember him as he should be remembered,  as David Birdnow remembers him, as a locus of political corruption, criminal behavior, and as a felon:

"...in the summer of 2009. Smith had committed perjury and filed a false affidavit with the Federal Election Commission in 2004, in connection with an investigation concerning election fraud in the congressional primary. In January, 2009 the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Eastern Missouri, reopened the criminal investigation after uncovering new information concerning the obstruction of the FEC inquiry. Smith pleaded guilty to two felony counts of conspiracy to obstruct justice, with each count punishable by up to 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines. He resigned his office on August 25, 2009 and was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison, and a $50,000 fine. Smith served his prison term in a federal facility in Manchester, Kentucky and spent three months in a halfway house in St. Louis. He was released from federal custody in late November of 2010. Doctor Jeff Smith is now a professor of political science at the New School in New York City..."

Sure hope none of you have any children, or friends (I'm afraid I have one friend there) being 'educated' at the New School... yeah, it's new all right, very proregressive.

Be sure to read that article, because your St. Louis Post Dispatch has the same amnesia as New York's New School does... apparently that's one Missouri Newspaper which has absolutely no understanding of what "Show Me" means.

How about you? Are you going to wait until the people behind Occupy Wall Street shows you what Democracy looks like?

And now for a few words from one of our Sponsors...

Hey, when the opportunity comes along to match up Jon Stewart, and John Adams... who can resist? First enjoy a moment of honest & highly humorous insight from Jon Stewart on The Daily Show about the class warfare within 'Occupy Wall Street' at Zuccotti Park:

And then a couple words from one of our Republic's sponsors, John Adams; see if you can find some parallels between yesterday and today, in what he says in his Letters to John Taylor... ring any bells for ya?

"...Take the first hundred men you meet in the streets of a city, or on a turnpike road in the country, and constitute them a democratical republic. In my next, you may have some conjectures of what will appear in your new democracy.
V.

When your new democratical republic meets, you will find half a dozen men of independent fortunes; half a dozen, of more eloquence; half a dozen, with more learning; half a dozen, with eloquence, learning, and fortune.
Let me see. We have now four-and-twenty; to these we may add six more, who will have more art, cunning, and intrigue, than learning, eloquence, or fortune. These will infallibly soon unite with the twenty-four. Thus we make thirty. The remaining seventy are composed of farmers, shopkeepers, merchants, tradesmen, and laborers. Now, if each of these thirty can, by any means, influence one vote besides his own, the whole thirty can carry sixty votes,—a decided and uncontrolled majority of the hundred. These thirty I mean by aristocrats; and they will instantly convert your democracy of one hundred into an aristocracy of thirty.

Take at random, or select with your utmost prudence, one hundred of your most faithful and capable domestics from your own numerous plantations, and make them a democratical republic. You will immediately perceive the same inequalities, and the same democratical republic, in a very few of the first sessions, transformed into an aristocratical republic; as complete and perfect an aristocracy as the senate of Rome, and much more so. Some will be beloved and followed, others hated and avoided by their fellows.
It would be easy to quote Greek and Latin, to produce a hundred authorities to show the original signification of the word aristocracy and its infinite variations and application in the history of ages. But this would be all waste water. Once for all, I give you notice, that whenever I use the word aristocrat, I mean a citizen who can command or govern two votes or more in society, whether by his virtues, his talents, his learning, his loquacity, his taciturnity, his frankness, his reserve, his face, figure, eloquence, grace, air, attitude, movements, wealth, birth, art, address, intrigue, good fellowship, drunkenness, debauchery, fraud, perjury, violence, treachery, pyrrhonism, deism, or atheism; for by every one of these instruments have votes been obtained and will be obtained. You seem to think aristocracy consists altogether in artificial titles, tinsel decorations of stars, garters, ribbons, golden eagles and golden fleeces, crosses and roses and lilies, exclusive privileges, hereditary descents, established by kings or by positive laws of society. No such thing! Aristocracy was, from the beginning, now is, and ever will be, world without end, independent of all these artificial regulations, as really and as efficaciously as with them!

Let me say a word more. Your democratical republic picked in the streets, and your democratical African republic, or your domestic republic, call it which you will, in its first session, will become an aristocratical republic. In the second session it will become an oligarchical republic; because the seventy-four democrats and the twenty-six aristocrats will, by this time, discover that thirteen of the aristocrats can command four votes each; these thirteen will now command the majority, and, consequently, will be sovereign. The thirteen will then be an oligarchy. In the third session, it will be found that among these thirteen oligarchs there are seven, each of whom can command eight votes, equal in all to fifty-six, a decided majority. In the fourth session, it will be found that there are among these seven oligarchs four who can command thirteen votes apiece. The republic then becomes an oligarchy, whose sovereignty is in four individuals. In the fifth session, it will be discovered that two of the four can command six-and-twenty votes each. Then two will have the command of the sovereign oligarchy. In the sixth session, there will be a sharp contention between the two which shall have the command of the fifty-two votes. Here will commence the squabble of Danton and Robespierre, of Julius and Pompey, of Anthony and Augustus, of the white rose and the red rose, of Jefferson and Adams, of Burr and Jefferson, of Clinton and Madison, or, if you will, of Napoleon and Alexander.

This, my dear sir, is the history of mankind, past, present, and to come.

And one more summary, a bit more concise, particularly for Bill Gerling, a consultant for Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, who sees no problem creating 'Social Studies Standards for Missouri' which are teaching our children that we are a Democracy, or a “constitutional democracy” or a 'democratical republic' rather than what we are, a Constitutional, Representative Republic; perhaps he'll find a few moments of concern and caution from another of Adam's letters,

Who, btw, can be reached at: Bill Gerling Social Studies Consultant\Assistant Director of Assessment Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education 573-751-0398 800-845-3545 573-526-0812 Fax Bill.Gerling@dese.mo.gov

"...No simple Form of Government, can possibly secure Men against the Violences of Power. Simple Monarchy will soon mould itself into Despotism, Aristocracy will soon commence an Oligarchy, and Democracy, will soon degenerate into an Anarchy, such an Anarchy that every Man will do what is right in his own Eyes, and no Mans life or Property or Reputation or Liberty will be secure and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral Virtues, and Intellectual Abilities, all the Powers of Wealth, Beauty, Wit, and Science, to the wanton Pleasures, the capricious Will, and the execrable Cruelty of one or a very few."

And finally for some incredibly correct words on politics, rather than political correctness, this from John Adams' Discourses on Davila,, for those who are oh so very impressed with our 'knowledge' and technology,

"First follow nature; and your judgment frame
By her just standard, which is still the same."
Alexander Pope

The world grows more enlightened. Knowledge is more equally diffused. Newspapers, magazines, and circulating libraries have made mankind wiser. Titles and distinctions, ranks and orders, parade and ceremony, are all going out of fashion. This is roundly and frequently asserted in the streets, and sometimes on theatres of higher rank.* Some truth there is in it; and if the opportunity were temperately improved, to the reformation of abuses, the rectification of errors, and the dissipation of pernicious prejudices, a great advantage it might be. But, on the other hand, false inferences may be drawn from it, which may make mankind wish for the age of dragons, giants, and fairies. If all decorum, discipline, and subordination are to be destroyed, and universal Pyrrhonism, anarchy, and insecurity of property are to be introduced, nations will soon wish their books in ashes, seek for darkness and ignorance, superstition and fanaticism, as blessings, and follow the standard of the first mad despot, who, with the enthusiasm of another Mahomet,† will endeavor to obtain them.

Are riches, honors, and beauty going out of fashion? Is not the rage for them, on the contrary, increased faster than improvement in knowledge? As long as either of these are in vogue, will there not be emulations and rivalries? Does not the increase of knowledge in any man increase his emulation; and the diffusion of knowledge among men multiply rivalries? Has the progress of science, arts, and letters yet discovered that there are no passions in human nature? no ambition, avarice, or desire of fame? Are these passions cooled, diminished, or extinguished? Is the rage for admiration less ardent in men or women? Have these propensities less a tendency to divisions, controversies, seditions, mutinies, and civil wars than formerly? On the contrary, the more knowledge is diffused, the more the passions are extended, and the more furious they grow. Had Cicero less vanity, or Cæsar less ambition, for their vast erudition? Had the King of Prussia less of one than the other? There is no connection in the mind between science and passion, by which the former can extinguish or diminish the latter. It, on the contrary, sometimes increases them, by giving them exercise. Were the passions of the Romans less vivid in the age of Pompey than in the time of Mummius. Are those of the Britons more moderate at this hour than in the reigns of the Tudors? Are the passions of monks the weaker for all their learning? Are not jealousy, envy, hatred, malice, and revenge, as well as emulation and ambition, as rancorous in the cells of Carmelites as in the courts of princes? Go to the Royal Society of London. Is there less emulation for the chair of Sir Isaac Newton than there was, and commonly will be, for all elective presidencies? Is there less animosity and rancor, arising from mutual emulations in that region of science, than there is among the most ignorant of mankind? Go to Paris. How do you find the men of letters? united, friendly, harmonious, meek, humble, modest, charitable? prompt to mutual forbearance? unassuming? ready to acknowledge superior merit? zealous to encourage the first symptoms of genius? Ask Voltaire and Rousseau, Marmontel and De Mably.

The increase and dissemination of knowledge, instead of rendering unnecessary the checks of emulation and the balances of rivalry in the orders of society and constitution of government, augment the necessity of both. It becomes the more indispensable that every man should know his place, and be made to keep it. Bad men increase in knowledge as fast as good men; and science, arts, taste, sense, and letters, are employed for the purposes of injustice and tyranny, as well as those of law and liberty; for corruption, as well as for virtue.

Frenchmen! Act and think like yourselves! confessing human nature, be magnanimous and wise. Acknowledging and boasting yourselves to be men, avow the feelings of men. The affectation of being exempted from passions is inhuman. The grave pretension to such singularity is solemn hypocrisy. Both are unworthy of your frank and generous natures. Consider that government is intended to set bounds to passions which nature has not limited; and to assist reason, conscience, justice, and truth, in controlling interests, which, without it, would be as unjust as uncontrollable.*
Americans! Rejoice, that from experience you have learned wisdom; and instead of whimsical and fantastical projects, you have adopted a promising essay towards a well-ordered government. Instead of following any foreign example, to return to the legislation of confusion, contemplate the means of restoring decency, honesty, and order in society, by preserving and completing, if any thing should be found necessary to complete the balance of your government. In a well-balanced government, reason, conscience, truth, and virtue, must be respected by all parties, and exerted for the public good.* Advert to the principles on which you commenced that glorious self-defence, which, if you behave with steadiness and consistency, may ultimately loosen the chains of all mankind. If you will take the trouble to read over the memorable proceedings of the town of Boston, on the twenty-eighth day of October, 1772, when the Committee of Correspondence of twenty-one persons was appointed to state the rights of the colonists as men, as Christians, and as subjects, and to publish them to the world, with the infringements and violations of them,† you will find the great principles of civil and religious liberty for which you have contended so successfully, and which the world is contending for after your example. I could transcribe with pleasure the whole of this immortal pamphlet, which is a real picture of the sun of liberty rising on the human race; but shall select only a few words more directly to the present purpose.

“The first fundamental, positive law of all commonwealths or states is the establishment of the legislative power.” Page 9.
“It is absolutely necessary in a mixed government like that of this province, that a due proportion or balance of power should be established among the several branches of the legislative. Our ancestors received from King William and Queen Mary a charter, by which it was understood by both parties in the contract, that such a proportion or balance was fixed; and, therefore, every thing which renders any one branch of the legislative more independent of the other two than it was originally designed, is an alteration of the constitution.”

Americans! in your Congress at Philadelphia, on Friday, the fourteenth day of October, 1774, you laid down the fundamental principles for which you were about to contend, and from which it is to be hoped you will never depart. For asserting and vindicating your rights and liberties, you declared, “That, by the immutable laws of nature, the principles of the English constitution and your several charters or compacts, you were entitled to life, liberty, and property; that your ancestors were entitled to all the rights, liberties, and immunities of free and natural born subjects in England; that you, their descendants, were entitled to the exercise and enjoyment of all such of them as your local and other circumstances enabled you to exercise and enjoy. That the foundation of English liberty and of all free governments, is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council. That you were entitled to the common law of England, and more especially to the great and inestimable privilege of being tried by your peers of the vicinage, according to the course of that law. That it is indispensably necessary to good government, and rendered essential by the English constitution, that the constituent branches of the legislature be independent of each other.”* These among others you then claimed, demanded, and insisted on, as your indubitable rights and liberties. These are the principles on which you first united and associated, and if you steadily and consistently maintain them, they will not only secure freedom and happiness to yourselves and your posterity, but your example will be imitated by all Europe, and in time, perhaps, by all mankind. The nations are in travail, and great events must have birth.

But... I'm sure that's all just 'old' stuff, outdated, and not relevant to our world today, right? I mean, obviously, having an iPod in your pocket is tantamount to the evolving of an entirely new species... right? Hey, do you suppose that means that new predators have evolved as well?

No need to worry though, really, there's nothing new under the sun, and so whatever the case, I'm sure that the old predators will suffice; and also true is that what was rare then, remains rare still, the race ultimately goes to those who seek after not what is new, but what is true.

Which are you? Where do you stand? Not fully clear on the question? Look at it this way, will you have the courage to live your own life? Or does allowing others to make your decisions for you, replacing the active part of you, within your own life, sound not all that bad? Does being a zombie sound just fine to you?

Really?

Do you really think that you can get by without making a choice?

Trick or Treat doesn’t end with Halloween - It's the Stupidity Stupid pt.2

I did a post not long ago about Robert B. Reich's advice to President Obama on putting together a Jobs Bill, which I'm continuing here, and later this week....why bother? I mean, Robert B. Reich...? Really? Why bother with what he says? Why does it matter what someone who no longer matters says or thinks? Well, along with the eye you should keep out for the upcoming super-committee budget meltdown later this week, again, you should keep another eye looking behind you towards Halloween and its Tricks & Treats. With that spooky night still fairly fresh in mind, I'll offer up an old treat by Niall Ferguson, historian & economist, who partly exposes the trick in his "History lesson for economists in thrall to Keynes", quipping off of Lord Keynes’s quip,

"It was Keynes who noted that “even the most practical man of affairs is usually in the thrall of the ideas of some long-dead economist”. Today the long-dead economist is Keynes, and it is professors of economics, not practical men, who are in thrall to his ideas."

But IMHO Ferguson only got that partly right, because the problem is that washed up economists like Reich, who are in thrall to long dead economists like Keynes, still have the ear of those many impractical men who are very much alive and holding the reins of power - see Obama's Jobs Bill and the budget super committee debacle at the end of this week - not only in America, but around the world; and the problem is that through them, the wealth & futures of practical men are being held in thrall, to the haunted cemeteries of these men’s minds.

And I for one am afraid of those ghosts.

Why? Because they are real. The problem with long dead economists, is that living ones still listen to them... and politicians, who can't make sense of modern economics themselves (because it is non-sensical), listen to them... even when there is no reason to believe that they were ever right, or ever cared about what would work... in the long run. That merry quipster Keynes had another quip for those sensible people who pointed out to Keynes himself that in the long run, his policies would exhaust the system, completely disintegrate and collapse the economy and that in the end his system, like a ponzi scheme, wouldn't work; he simply shrugged and said,

"In the end, we're all dead".

See what I mean? We're near the end, and he's dead... where does that leave you and me? Thinking which is that dis-integrated, which is so focused upon the here and now, tends to lead you into the sorts of dark times that are gathering around us now... meanwhile, those who led us to these ends are dead and gone. That's some scary stuff, and I for one am very much afraid of those ghosts, because that is what Keynesianism is all about, and we are being haunted, robbed and beaten up by it to this day.

But even that isn't the most frightening part of this - the really scary part is that Keynes entire corpus of non-sense was exposed and disarmed long ago - Henry Hazlitt demolished Keynesianism 50 years ago in " The Failure of the 'New Economics'", and yet we are still being beaten up and robbed by an unarmed dead man's ghost.

Now that's some serious Trick or Treating.

How? What it comes down to, is that the proregressive left (and 'right'), and those who can gain power over you through them, don’t care all that much about real reality, they aren't interested in what is right and true, but only in gaining power and winning; they care about how they can spin you into thinking that their trick is actually a treat - and Keynesianism is the very ticket for doing just that - it has an impressive argument (not a good one, but, like Kant's, it's one that is boring and very long ,just the sort of thing that people would rather put it into practice so you can find out what's in it, rather than bothering with reading it first - which seems to go well with our Pelosi-like times), and, best of all, it promises something for nothing, which is a demagogues dream, an elitist mask for a populist's pretext.

You might even say that it's something to Occupy the.001% (who think that they're the 99%) with.

On top of that, Keynes doesn't makes the mistake of coming out and saying what Marx did, that his system could be summed up in a single sentence "the abolition of property rights", Keynes only slyly implies and assumes it, without ever coming out and saying so directly, so Keynesianism can be used to accomplish the very same ends - the abolition of property rights - without having to use all those old scary words and names. Very ghost-like. And it is the perfect mask, that of a long dead economist, and a Lord no less, over that of an even longer dead economist, and one which gives the envious mob the blessings of the elites to take whatever they will, and feel justified in doing so.

Trick or Treat!

The Demons of Demand Don't Haunt Alone
But Keynes isn't the only ghost treating us with his tricks of course, there's Dewey & Rousseau, and of course Marx & Hegel & Kant... and Descartes too, the gangs all here, but Keynes is the one whose preachings, concocted from their ingreedients, makes their practical magic possible. It is his tricks that have succeeded so admirably in producing the money from our wallets to fund their schemes with, so that everyone willingly keeps up his pretenses.

Keynesianism doesn't make sense, it is important to realize that it doesn't actually work, but it can, with some distracting waving of the magicians arms, be made to appear to work and most people who do try and look closer at its workings simply assume that it is working and that it must be they who are missing something in understanding it. In fact it's Keynesianism that is missing something - a respectful grip on reality - but that is its trick, that it doesn't make sense, but people will assume that it does, so as not to appear to be unable to understand it - no one wants to say that the emperor has no clothes, and so everyone goes along with the trick.

We are being defeated by a whole lot of nothing. A ghost as a machine.

The American people's problem has been in recognizing that when these guys play trick or treat, they aren't playing games - in truth, most of those playing don't realize that they are, they mean well, and so assume things will turn out well, somehow, but the ruin they cause is real. The Wackademics, the Economists, the Politicians - look closely at their masks... they aren't masks... they don't come off... and though they don't mean to be, in practice their actions are those of spiritual vampires, economic ghosts and political Frankenstein monsters; everything they've been telling us about Political Correctness, managing the economy, and regulated rights. has been what has tricked us, themselves included, into playing along, on and on.

Most people spread Political Correctness because they think they are giving a tolerant benefit of the doubt to those who need a break, when in fact they are spreading falsehoods and enabling lies, and their good intentions sap our spirit. They push financial chicanery and sleight of hand because they really think their complexity can produce causes from effects, but their effects are produced through artificial demands and they produce only the destruction of wealth. Politicians push regulations thinking that they are aiding the little guy, when in fact they succeed only in centralizing power far away from the individual, empowering the most corrupt of corporations and decitful of politicians, over them.

Our perceptions are inflated by vast amounts of nothingness, and we mistake size for substance, keeping us blowing up one bubble after another, distracting ourselves with their continually popping about our heads.

There's a lot of talk and disagreement about what bubbles are, and even whether or not they are, but what bubbles are is more about what they are not: reality. Bubbles form when the information which people have and are making decisions based upon, doesn't reflect the reality that really exists beneath them. When real estate prices are soaring, based upon the idea that large numbers of people, have the actual wealth or a reasonable expectation of acquiring it, want to live in a particular area, then the market forces of supply & demand causes those real estate prices to soar.

But when it's discovered that most of those people couldn't really afford the property they were buying - they hadn't produced the wealth or had a reasonable expectation of producing it - that their debts could not be repaid because they could not produce the wealth to pay for what they'd consumed ... then the sharp end of reality pricks that bubble and as it pops, everyone who'd been floating up and along in it, falls to the ground... or at the very least they fall onto the next bubble rising on up beneath them.

The baseless real estate prices... fall upon the empty securities... which fall upon the unfunded pensions... which fall upon the extended loans which cannot be repaid... and the currencies which are discovered to have no wealth to prop them up... which fall upon the creditor nations who based their own credit upon the credit of those they loaned to....

*POP*

But know this - the encampments of Occupy Wall Street, are the very embodiement of their ideals, it is political correctness in practice, it is keynesianism in toto, it is the ideals of modern philosophy that have been 'educated' into the OWS'rs heads, on full display right before our eyes, is what those ideals mean in practice. This is also one of those rare instances when those who brought such a fearful diaplay about, will openly and admiringly admit it - see the press, see the professors, see the economists, see the politicians; they all look and praise what they are seeing with the Occupiers - will you look and see the refuse, the filth, the lice, the disease, the drug addiciton and overdoses, the theft, the violence, the arson, the rapes, the murders - will you have enough respect for the truth to see that those are the ends which the modernist monsters means will mean for everyone's lives?

Trick or Treat! Will you look? Will you call them on it? Probably not. Why? Because they say they don't mean for that to happen, right? they don't intend such bad things, only good, and so we continue on in your ever deepening indebtedness - you can thank Kant for that.

What those bad debts really are, is misinformation, a confusion between what some people wished was true, and what really was true. Many Cassandras have tried warning us of this for years, here is one from Nelson Hultberg in "Apocalypse This Way Comes", from back in 2003,

"But this time around our malaise is not caused by Fed engineered high interest rates. It is far deeper and more systemic. It stems from the great Keynesian theoretical flaw that will always manifest in the long run: central bank credit expansion leads to "debt saturation" and "malinvestment," which reverses the boom that the credit expansion was meant to perpetuate, but does not do so until the latter stages of the Kondratieff cycle."

Sadly for us, reality doesn't pull it's punches, and our society, indeed the world, is saturated with just this sort of Debt, and the debt collector is a coming. Hultberg goes on in one of the cheerier passages (really, don't read the article if your sanity is hanging by a thread... Boo!),

""Something ugly this way comes," writes brash and brainy Jim Willie in his Ass-Backwards Economics series. But the bovines in our establishment pasture are not cerebrally independent enough to grasp the horrific financial collapse of which he speaks. Lacking the contrarian attitude necessary to see truth coming down the pike, they drone out Pollyannish bunkum about the economy that pacifies the herd and reinforces the dogma to which they subscribe. What they should be stocking up for, however, is the devastating "mother of all bear markets" that is now beginning its attack upon our lives in the manner that bubonic plague begins its contagion by first striking isolated victims, then later explosively metastasizing throughout the whole of society with pervasive death and ruin."

The one thing they never tell us about all of the 'bubbles' we've had popping about us, is that they aren't confined to economics; while we have had plenty of real estate bubbles, and stock market bubbles, they are only the visible edge of the larger larger philosohical and educational bubble starting to be felt in the College bubble. What? You haven't heard about that one yet? Why? Where do they come from? A hint can be found in that all of the bubbles begin by promising to give us what we want, without our having to work for it.

Here, look closer, see if you can see the strings behind three of the biggest bubble blowers:

• Public Education was ostensibly mandated to produce an educated populace for free, but it has nearly succeeded in removing even an understanding of what being educated means.
• The FED was ostensibly established to do away with depressions, recessions and economic bubbles by letting experts handle things... but the reality is that we've had more of each since its establishment, than we ever experienced before it.
• Regulatory Agencies were ostensibly created to help the little guy, but no one is so oppressed by them as the individual.

Whatever their original intentions might have been, and good intentions no doubt they were, they have in fact served as a trio of virtual bubble blowing machines, they inflate us with information that has less and less relation to reality, puffing us up ever higher and larger, until eventually one of their bubbles pop, distracting us from the next one in line. But what we miss with all the lesser bubbles, is that there is one massive great pumpkin of a bubble which we've all been standing upon, one that has made all the others possible, and its motto is that you can 'have your cake and eat it too', but we are all far too distracted by all the little ones floating & popping around our heads to take much notice, ar even really care... because, be honest, the cake tasts good... and while you know you don't still have it... everyone else is pretending right along with you, so what's the problem, right? You might get found out in the end, but... in the end... we'll all be dead, right?

Keynesianism is the leading edge of that bigger bubble... but it isn't the bubble itself, that belongs to Mssr's Descartes, Rousseau, Hume & Kant, but he is the leading method for implementing their emptiness and for blowing up all the other little bubbles with it.

But rest assured, at some point we are going to realize that there are no smaller bubbles left, and we'll all look down, and then, like Wylie E. Coyote, we'll look back at the camera, gulp, wave, and then 'Foop!' shoot down out of the screen towards the canyon bottom far below, dissappearing in a little puff of dust.

That real philosophical bubble, which has expanded to puff up very nearly the entire world, probably won't be acknowledged or recoginzed in our time, in time; nope, more likely it'll take historians looking back and remarking on how terribly wrong the rhyme was that ended with 'Words can never hurt you. "

Trick or Treat indeed.

Why am I being so cheery today?

Well, there have been several things which have occured recently, which lead me to think I may find myself with the horrid pleasure of saying "I told you so". Indicators such as this recent tid-bit from a governor of the Bank of England saying "OMG!"

"World facing worst financial crisis in history, Bank of England Governor says: The world is facing the worst financial crisis since at least the 1930s “if not ever”, the Governor of the Bank of England said last night."

And... also some indications that the last financial bubble standing, China, is getting scarily close to popping - oh yeah, it is. But before looking at the latest, lets look at a couple years ago, when a couple Keynseian's were happily expressing their views just before and after Obama’s 2008 election. Here one leftist economist is speaking glowingly of China's Keynesian policies,

"… a U.S. stimulus of the same size as the Chinese … would amount to $2.2 trillion. That's the kind of rocket-powered stimulus we need! … Obama's team is already ready to roll with similar plans."

And this one from just after Obama's election denouncing those who were foolish enough to oppose his plans,

"The Republicans want to put the brakes on, and just fall back on cutting taxes, and hoping that lower taxes is going to inspire big business …Many Americans, like me, just don't buy it… If big business cared about the people of the United States they would invest in the US and not ship jobs off to exploited workers in countries with low…."

Blah, blah, blah. That was two years ago. And last week. And tomorrow too, no doubt. But the fact is that their Treat is their Trick. Stimulous. Printing... digitizing money, spending, regulating, encouraging demand... Keynesianism... the offering up of a trick as a treat... with a bigger, nastier trick waiting in the wings to close out the show with. In the end. Hopefully, after you've left.

Not sure what I mean? China is the new economic super power, isn't it? Everyone from Glen Beck to Paul Krugman, and even Niall Ferguson, have been trumpeting how the Chinese are preparing to eat the West's lunch. While that's true, in a sense, what they aren't expecting, or rather what they have been expecting but will soon see is nowhere to be seen, is that the West will produce the coins to pay the bill and tip the waitress.

Come on... one more time... say it with me... Trick or Treat! From bad to worse, let's peek under the dragon's mask... first from Stratfor, the well respected global observer,

"One of the solutions the Chinese have tried to follow is urbanization: the idea that if they build it, people will come and if people move to the cities they will suddenly have jobs and in having jobs in the cities and living in a city, they’re going to become consumers. And certainly this is not for the entire billion of the population that’s not active, but maybe another hundred million, 200 million, 300 million. And that would help to better distribute wealth throughout China; it would also ease China off from their heavy dependence upon exports.

This boom in urbanization coincided with this government need to spend a lot more on domestic investment. It also fell right inside of what was already building as a speculative bubble in real estate investment. ...

So we have a China that’s facing a real estate bubble in an attempt to build a new urbanized society, but the individuals who would be moving into that urbanized society can’t afford to move in because of the price rise in housing. The government is trying to find ways to slow down that rise in price, but if they move too quickly it can undermine the collateral for the loans from state-owned enterprises, it can pull away the nest egg from their middle class and that can cause a very rapid backlash against the central government.

For China then, what this European crisis has done is it has brought something that they’ve known for a long time right up into the front. They no longer have the ability, it seems, to simply keep pushing back economic change and perhaps even not the ability push back political change in the country because the European crisis has ended their ability to count on this continuous rise in exports."

And then moving from Stratfor's cool detachment, to a more human reaction, here, from last week, have a closer look,

But what happens when the China bubble bursts? When it goes bang it will be worse than the US credit crisis and far worse than the EU sovereign debt crisis. For when China goes under the entire economy of the planet will sink into oblivion with it.

The only question remaining once China falls is when the bottom will be reached.

The day China's bubble bursts may be a lot closer than many think…at least The Daily Bell's market analysts think so, and they make a frighteningly good case.

For the past decade China has been riding the wave of the West's reckless spending and debt cycle. Becoming the biggest exporter in the world next to America (that's right, America—the US is still number one despite what you may have heard), China has pinned its currency, its hopes and its future on trade with the West.

And though Western economists, even some of the best, such as Fergusson, think that China has the advantage... who are you gonna believe, them or the Chinese? You see, we've been passing our IO‭U's to China... and China is beginning to realize that there is nothing behind them, the rich people in China are beginning to examine those IOU's, and they're beginning to realize that the reality they promise, just doesn't exist - IOW, they're false, unfounded financial information - bad debt. Forbes notes:

"China’s rich, primarily driven by a sense of insecurity, are taking money out of their country. Many are actually preparing to move elsewhere.

According to a new study, almost 60% of China’s “high net worth individuals,” defined as those possessing more than 10 million yuan in investable assets, are either considering emigration through investment programs or are completing the emigration process. The survey, conducted by China Merchants Bank and Bain & Co., also reports that 27% of those with more than 100 million yuan in investable assets have already emigrated and 47% of them are thinking about leaving the Motherland.

The stunning results correspond to reports that the U.S. Treasury unit monitoring illegal money flows has, since the beginning of last summer, detected a surge in hidden cash transfers out of China.."

What is the trick that these guys have all been treating us with? The answer is in the cards, which we'll start flipping over in the next posts, but what you should simply ask yourself, is does the free market work? Does communism fail? If you answer yes, then you've got to ask yourself, do you think that there is a reason beyond their names? Hopefully your answer is Yes again.

But if you answered no to the free market... then... ask yourself, what it is that happens when you forbid people from doing what they wish to do?

It makes no difference whether you are talking about forbidden ideas, intoxicants or economic practices, when people are forbidden from living their own lives as they'd like to out in the open, then you might have noticed that they begin doing so in the shadows, hidden from view, telling likely stories to mask the truth... can you guess what those allibi stories create when they are spun, told and followed?

That is precisely where bubbles come from.

The Free Market works for a reason, and Communism fails for a reason, and that reason is that it violates what the Free Market upholds - the right of the individual to live their own lives. Violate that, and sooner or later, your system will come crashing down... and ladies and gents, it is later... right now.

To be continued.

Occupying the Slippery Slope - Mayor Slay's Sleighride down into OWS

Occupy your own life or THEY will Occupy your life for you
Who's they? That's a very good question, and one you really need to begin asking, because 'They' is made up of a lot of people, from a lot of walks of life - 'They' are anybody with enough friends who don't mind breaking the law 'for the people!', 'They' are anybody who has been filled with so much false self esteem that they think they know better than you do, how you should live your own life.

But don't make the mistake of thinking that 'They' are only the unkempt vagrants stinking up your public places, 'They' are all of those who are willing to use the persuasion of power to get what they want, including those who are actually in power, and are sympathetic to 'the cause' which they themselves see as 'progress', but who still feel restrained by the law and your respect for it, from openly violating the laws they were elected to uphold.

Mayor Slay's Sleighride down the slippery slope
Here in St. Louis, after enough people from the actual people, the actual 99% who don't like unwashed activists occupying their public places, complained about their doing so, and doing so on the people's electricity bill, Mayor Slay offered up a feeble response on his blog:

"The participants in the nation’s Occupy movements, including those in St. Louis, are saying some important things about the direction of the country. I support their right to say them."

I certainly support their right to say what they want to say also, but that isn't the issue, and the Mayor should know it. They can say all they want, what is at issue here is where they stay and what they do, while staying and saying it. Occupiers are substituting 'free camping' for 'free speech', without a shred of legitimacy to support their actions, they are simply occupying the law at the expense of the rule of law.
Anybody see the teensiest possiblity that "The Law" and "Equal protection under the Law" might suffer if such practices have a blind eye turned to them?
Mayor Slay doesn't see it that way:

"I emphatically disagree with those who say that allowing the encampment to remain during those national events showed St. Louis in a bad light. Instead, I think it showed us to be a reasonable and compassionate place to live and work. Moving the Occupy residents simply to deny them a chance to tell their story to a large audience would have been wrong-headed and wrong-hearted."

Who is buying this load of manure? No one wanted to deny them the 'chance to tell their story', they simply expected an unsightly and unlawful menace to be dealt with. Is it really now considered to be reasonable and compassionate to let thugs take over your public parks? Thugs whose stated goal is the overthrow of your government? Not only is that not unreasonable, but, if your government is based upon the rule of law, what can it possibly mean to allow a mob to violate your laws, other than actually aiding them in overthrowing your government?!

Good lord, wake up people, Halloween is over!

The Mayor goes on,

"From the first week they arrived in Kiener Plaza, I have reminded the people who have gathered there to obey the law or accept the consequences – citations, arrest – of not doing so. That is the basic formula for civil disobedience in this country."

Obey the law? That's the issue here Mr. Mayor, they aren't obeying the law right now! But maybe what the Mayor means to say, is that he is going to pick and choose which laws he feels comfortable with allowing them to violate, and in doing so, ladies and gentleman, he is announcing his particiapation in the occupation of St. Louis. Mayor Slay is effectively using the Occupy Wall Street to enable him to Occupy the Rule of Law, unceremoniously shoving equal justice for all out of the building.

He as much as admits this... and for those of you who never seem to be able to grasp the concept of the slippery slope, here it is:

"In the intervening weeks, some arrests have been made; but, for the most part, the City’s ordinances regarding encampments in parks have not been enforced.
(This is the kind of tolerance with which the City tries to handle minor matters about which no one complains and which do not threaten life or public safety. Food trucks operating outside the vending zones and the Gus’s Pretzel guy vending on Jamieson are other examples of that philosophy.) "

And there is the real meaning of 'toleration', when voiced by those in power, 'toleration' means enabling the passions of men to rule in place of the rule of law. If you've ever found yourself looking around for the proverbial slippery slope, there it is, and Mayor Slay is taking a sleigh ride down it.

he continues,

"But, we went a little further than just ignoring the Occupy encampment. The City offered a permit and, even wrote one, but Occupy’s occupiers declined it."

Allow me to translate:

'We offered to fudge appearances by offering a permit - but the occupiers chose to fully and blatantly thumb their nose at even making a pretence of respecting the law - and I, as your Mayor, decided that that was just fine with me. After all, hey, I'm only here to uphold and enforce the laws I choose to, for the benefit those we like, so... why pretend that it has any meaning anymore at all? Whatever.'

BTW, just a little bit off topic, but I'm not aware of the city offering, let alone writing permits for other groups to express their opinions for free, the Tea Party for instance. And, no, it would not have been ok in that case either.

Unhappily for the Mayor, the actual 99% who are disgusted by these hippie retreads, have been letting the Mayor's office know that they're starting to notice the smell of something rotten in Denmark,

"Over the past several days, there has been a rising tide of complaints. I know, and the Occupy participants know, that they cannot stay there forever. Bad weather and other programming for Kiener Plaza are racing each other to mark the end of their tenure.
The City’s Parks Department has prepared a list of ordinances and regulations which it believes Occupy is in current violation. We will present that list to Occupy.
I expect that we will reach an accommodation that allows Occupy to use Kiener Plaza, to exercise its First Amendment rights, but to follow City ordinances and regulations. "

Are you serious? The Mayor of St. Louis expects to 'reach an accommodation' with lawbreakers? Would he seek to reach an accomodation with drug gangs who decided to occupy the streets of their neighborhood? Why not? What, may I ask, in principle, is there left still standing to prevent them?

A more supliant and craven response they could not have hoped to receive from the government which you thought you had. And together with offering "We will present that list to Occupy.", the Mayor of St. Louis is legitimizing a lawless group of wannabe hippies and thugs, to pick and choose the laws they wish to ignore or obey, and give them standing from which they will deign to peruse the wishes of the government of the 100%, whose lands they are forcibly occupying, and by deigning to allow them to, he is gelding the law.

Here's a thought from a century ago, upon the actions of leaders a thousand years earlier. Hint to Mayor Slay - the Anglo Saxon kings dissappeared within a century after paying the Dane-geld.

Do any of you see anything that could possibly go wrong with that scenario? Think you should be considered capable of driving home without making a political statement? Not if They think otherwise. Think you'd like to listen to someone's point of view? Not if They think otherwise. Think you'd prefer to make your own decisions? Not if They don't approve. Think you'd go to your bank in peace? Not if They would rather use it as a toilet. Think you'd like to get a burger? Not if They want theirs for free. Think you'd like to... Not if They think you should't. And what's to stop them... the Law?! Getting the picture here? Do you really not see a problem when those in power tacitly authorize the breaking of the law, because they approve of what the law breakers are doing? If not, then there's another angle you ought to look at this form - does the name Richard Millhouse Nixon ring any bells for you?

From 'A School History of England (1911)' by Rudyard Kipling: Dane-geld - A.D. 980-1016 IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation To call upon a neighbour and to say: – "We invaded you last night – we are quite prepared to fight, Unless you pay us cash to go away." And that is called asking for Dane-geld, And the people who ask it explain That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld And then you'll get rid of the Dane! It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation, To puff and look important and to say: – "Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you. We will therefore pay you cash to go away." And that is called paying the Dane-geld; But we've proved it again and again, That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld You never get rid of the Dane. It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation, For fear they should succumb and go astray; So when you are requested to pay up or be molested, You will find it better policy to say: -- "We never pay any-one Dane-geld, No matter how trifling the cost; For the end of that game is oppression and shame, And the nation that plays it is lost!"

You might want to ask yourself what would likely have happened, if the press, and the congress, were in sympathy with Nixon? Was Nixon run out of office because he broke the law... or because those who didn't agree with him found the law to be useful for running him out of town? There is a difference... do you see it?

Occupiers are any of those who feel that the law is preventing them from doing what needs to be done now!, and the call of the Occupiers can be heard coming from Wall Street, to City Hall, to the Whitehouse, and what they are all saying is We Can't Wait!
Hint to St. Louisans, and the nation as a whole - the Occupiers aren't new... they've been occupying your schools for a century... what is new is that they now feel that they've successfully occupied enough of the minds of your neighbors and kids, that they can now bring their troops out of hiding. The Dane-Geld has been paid.

This is a nation of ideas will you allow it to be occupied?