Author: David Veksler

Update

In reponse to my last post, I have written a story at Movementarian.com

“PHILADELPHIA, PA – In an unprecedented move of bipartisan cooperation, Bush has proposed and Congress has passed a new Constitution and Bill of Rights to serve a new governing document for the Equal States of America©. The move came after the leaders of both parties openly admitted that they had been blatantly ignoring the old Constitution for years, not to mention to the publicly hallowed but usually ignored Bill of Rights”

I think I'm gonna be sick

Hello again to my hordes of faithfull readers [sarcasm]
I’ve gotten over my cold/fever and am feeling much better, plus I’ve been busy with the various clubs that I’m in.
I’m taking four out of five classes at the Bush school which are fairly interesting, but there is on in particular — Constitutional Rights and Liberties which has been….annoying me to no end. More specifically, reading the textbooks for the class nearly makes me sick every time I pick up my books. Let me give you some examples of the questions the authors poses:
“What are rights and liberties if you lack the resources to take advantage of them?”
“What use is freedom of speech if no one can hear you?”
“Is it possible for the welathy few to dominate public debate and stifle the ‘free marketplace of ideas’?”
and my favorite,
“Does the Constitution protect us from private institutions which interfere with our liberties and rights?”
Hey, Mr Sulivan, do you have any idea what rights are? How about the initiation of force?
Apparently not, as he subscribes to the ideology that everyone is guaranteed the “right” to a paycheck, food, housing, healthcare, cable television, and a spot to spew his rhetoric as part of his “constitutional rights” to everyone else’s life, liberty, and property –an ideology also known as “socialism,” “communism,” and more recently, “democracy.”

Post: Anti-Discrimination Statues and “Gay Rights”

From: Agnostic & Atheist Student Group Discussion List
[[email protected]] on behalf of David Veksler
[[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2002 9:33 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Anti-Gay Laws in FloridaIn response to the Observer article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,788607,00.html
notice that the actual content of the bill is only mentioned once, and very briefly: “voters in Miami-Dade county will decide tomorrow whether to repeal existing anti-discrimination laws” — the rest of the story is spent rooting for the gay lobby.

Ignoring the motivations of the people behind the movement, and focusing on the actual content of the legislature (which is what matters, after
all) I can say that I fully support repealing ALL anti-discrimination bills.

If I am running a business, and I am a smart businessman, I will want to have a friendly, work-conductive environment, where people focus on doing their job, not promoting their sexuality. Just like any heterosexuals, I’d expect any homosexual employees to dress and act business-like, and I won’t hesitate to fire any that don’t, by cross dressing in flamboyant outfits, promoting political agendas during work, etc. In other words, I don’t care which sexual orientation you are, as long as you do your job well — and this benefits me, my business, my other employees, and the economy at large.

Now, if for whatever reason I did care not to hire any gay/black/female employees, I’d be harming my own business first, by creating a standard for employment that was not reflective of the actual qualifications of the people I hired, and in a free market, I, along with any other bigoted businesses, would go out of business. Not only that, but if the public had any decency, they would not frequent my business, and certainly the excluded minorities (or majorities, as the case may be) would not, bankrupting me in any competitive economy.

When the government creates anti-discrimination statues, it does not actually stop me (as a business owner) from being racist, bigoted, etc. Rather, it creates a very arbitrary standard, which can only be widely enforced by the imposition of quotas. Liberals like Clinton have presented dozens of arguments as to why quotas don’t have to be quotas, but it’s impossible to escape that basic fact. Quotas ARE racism. They take away free choice, and replace is with rigid laws that promote once race at the expense of another. They ignore the important qualifications of a person and focus on irrelevant factors. As far as discrimination goes, quotas are far worse than private racism in hiring, because private racism tends to be solved by the marketplace, while law-mandated racism perpetuates itself much more readily. In fact, in many, if not most places in the pre-civil rights south, state laws forced private business to exclude/segregate blacks, and as soon as they had the opportunity, many businesses worked together to end statues mandating separate restrooms, etc to lower their costs in cities like San Antonio, Atlanta, etc. In the end, a shift in thinking begun by such people as Martin Luther King, Jr. ended racism in business, not government action. Government action has perpetuated legal racism in private and public enterprises in a larger scale than ever before in history through affirmative action, anti-discrimination statues, and the actions of various agencies, not to mention cooperating with racists such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who extort millions from decent companies with threats of “exposing” non-existent discrimination with the support of the FTC and various other government agencies.

Racism is wrong and immoral, but so is government control over private enterprise, which inevitably creates a much bigger problem than existed in the first place. If politicians want to end racism, they should promote policies in government that focus on hiring people solely based on their qualifications, and leave the business community alone to do the same. If either one does not, they will only suffer the problems that come with any other form of racism.

–David

[Follow up]
About marriage, straight, gay, or otherwise, government should have nothing to say on the matter.

Marriage is a contract between two people, not a contract between two people and their government. As far as government is concerned, it should be like any other private contract, and government should not step in and regulate it either way. For tax purposes, the law should not favor either married or single couples, unlike its current policy of favoring and taxing marriages simultaneously.

If private business wants to recognize certain contracts for the purposes of giving benefits, they may do so — or not — either way, all my arguments from the previous email will still apply.

The only remaining question is what benefits should partners of government employees receive, but I’d say that you should not receive any extra free benefits just for being married — if an agency wants to give spouses benefits; they should allow you to claim any one person as the recipient.

A Policy Proposal for Economic Reform in Russia

 

Despite making a recovery after the 1998 market crash, Russia remains weighted with numerous holdovers from the Communist era that keep its economy from taking advantage of free-market reforms. In short, Russia has not prospered under capitalism because it has not yet discovered it. In order to do so, the Russian government must engage in extensive reform in several key areas: improving the rule of law, creating stable monetary policy, and ending a policy of favoritism to particular businesses. Engaging in these reforms would lower the extremely high transaction costs of doing business legally, stimulating a wave of new investment and wealth creation within Russia, as well as encouraging investment from abroad.

While the causes of Russia’s economic problems are numerous, the absence of a rule of law causes enormous unpredictability and uncertainty that is the primary barrier to economic growth. The regulatory mess caused by presidential decrees, legislative changes and numerous bureaucracies putting out contradictory rulings is just one aspect of this problem. The court system, which is supposed to be a neutral arbitrator of private disputes, is highly politicized, and even worse, it is used by the governments to silence critics and unfavorable companies.

One of the major challenges to reform is the uncooperative nature of the bureaucratic apparatus in carrying out laws and policies enacted by the executive. While Yeltsin and Putin have generally been in favor of free-market reforms, the bureaucrats meant to carry out their policies are often rich oligarchs who stand to lose financially or politically from reform. To combat this, Putin has replaced most of the Yeltsin-era ruling cabinet with his own men, but it is unclear whether they will be any better than their predecessors.

The lack of clearly defined and enforced property rights is another major problem. The communist-era criminal code has only been partially replaced, and each contract must be carefully examined to check whether it contradicts an ever shifting mess of regulations. In addition, it is unclear what success the communists will have in the next election, so long term planning is very difficult because the future is so unpredictable.

Despite an ambitions privatization program, many of the large factories remain state owned, partly because of the fact that their outdated and inefficient production would immediately and properly put them out of business under a free market. However, because the government has so much influence over the banks, it keeps funding these inefficient enterprises to earn the support of the many workers they hire. Many of the factories that were privatized, simply signed ownership to their communist bosses, and because of their pull with the government, stay alive by government aid.

Despite all the issues mentioned above, the biggest challenge to Russian economic growth is probably its monetary policy. The Russian central bank is a direct holdover from Soviet times and needs to change its policy drastically to adapt to a free-market economy. In a capitalist economy, private banks serve to store money and provide investment to business. Because banks lose their investment when a debtor defaults, they are careful to insure that entrepreneurs large and small have sound business plans and refuse to loan to companies whose profits are dubious. The central bank functions independently of private banks (ideally) serving only to manage the size of the monetary supply indirectly by open market operations, varying the discount rate, and setting reserve requirements.

In a socialist economy, the function of the banking system is entirely different. All banks are part of a single system to distribute funds from the central government to individual business and factories. Branch banks don’t care whether any business is profitable or not because the credit risk of any investment is zero, since the government simply sends more money to an unprofitable factory instead of letting it go under. Private savings accounts are small or nonexistent because there is nothing to invest in, and no interest to earn from the investment, and event if there was money to be saved, there is usually nothing to spend it on in the stores. Instead of being independent, the central bank is simply an accounting organ of the state to determine which industry receives what funds. Inflation however is kept low because all large purchases require permission from the state, exchanging rubles into other currencies is illegal, and outside the black market, there is nothing to spend money on anyway.

When the USSR collapsed, the banking system was officially privatized on some levels, but remained much the same in function. Most banks remained either partially state owned or state controlled, even if officially privatized. These banks fund inefficient public and private enterprises with funding from the central bank, which simply prints new money to cover the expense. State workers receive new rubles for doing little or nothing. Of course, basic economic theory dictates that printing money without a corresponding increase in wealth is going to create huge inflation, which it did on a grand scale, with the ruble falling more than 20% in value on some days.1 One of the insidious effects of inflation is to transfer money from the money making companies to the recipients of new government money, diminishing the incentive of workers to get jobs in the private sector. In an attempt to protect the value of the currency, the government made it illegal to exchange rubles for dollars, making them even more worthless because there was so little to spend the rubles on. In effect, the government was printing enormous amounts of money to keep inefficient state enterprises alive, but not allowing workers to spend any of the money so as not to devalue the currency.

If the monetary policy of the Russian government is not bad enough, the International Monetary Fund directly supported it by funding the government with billions of dollars in loans. Because more and more money was necessary to support the old state enterprises, the foreign aid went directly into dilapidated old factories, which often were not producing anything at all, with most workers employed elsewhere, but registered as working at the factory for the state salary. As Russian reformer Grigory Yavlinsky said in 1993, “It has become clear that new Western credits are no longer a remedy for Russia, but a drug helping to maintain an unfit system.”10

Inevitably, the ability of the Russian government to pay back loans steadily declined until it was forced to default in its debt in 1998. The IMF failed to learn its lesson however, as it continues to fund inefficient and government favored enterprises all over the world, notably in South America, creating a false sense of economic stability that politicians use to stay in power and the IMF uses to prove its relevance until the country is no longer able to pretend to be able to pay back loans and engages in the familiar scenario of funding payments with inflation while trying to limit citizens ability to spend the new money. At no time is any investment in new, economically efficient infrastructure actually made, something Russians would do well to mind when asking for international loans.

Historically, the inflationary policy of the new Russian government is typical of both Soviet and tsarist era central banking. 3 The nature of printing money to cover losses from inefficient state enterprises means that high inflation will be inevitable unless the government either confiscates private savings accounts or limits the ability to withdraw money from the savings accounts to drastically decrease the real money supply. The former has happened several times during the Soviet era, most recently in 1991, when Gorbachev allowed only a small amount of rubles to be converted into smaller bills, wiping out private savings of millions, and not surprisingly leading to the familiar sight of pensioners begging on the street, which the western media blamed on the effects of privatization rather than irresponsible monetary policy. The 1991 savings confiscation destroyed any remaining confidence in the ruble or the banking system, leading to a mass conversion of rubles into dollars, or dollarization. Today, Russians illegally hold over 40 billion in dollars, five times more than they hold in rubles, 1 and this despite ruble to dollar conversion being against the law. The difficulty in converting dollars to rubles combined with the inflationary instability of the ruble and the socialist era banking system is perhaps the primary factor in the huge underground economy.

The solution to Russia monetary crisis is simple: the ruble must be made sound by making it convertible and establishing an independent central bank which is not a puppet of the government and aims to maintain a stable monetary supply (as opposed to supporting state industry) as its primary goal. This action would free up many billions of dollars by giving Russians confidence in the ruble. It would also force the government to pay for state industries through taxation, not inflation. In the immediate short run, the government would be force to cut loose thousands of state enterprises – which is why this policy is so difficult to implement, but in the long run Russia would benefit enormously from the increased investment. Lenin correctly pointed out that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency — and vice versa, the best way to inspire confidence in capitalism is to establish a sound and secure currency.

One way of making the ruble convertible is to make the dollarization of the currency official by creating a currency board to establish a fixed rate of conversion between rubles and dollars. 5 This board must be limited to maintaining the exchange rate it set, so it would be unable to support state firms by inflationary policy, since that would drain its reserve of dollars. Such a board would greatly reduce the size of the black market and enjoy popular support by following earlier dual currency policies employed both by the left and right, only it would be much more orthodox in its ability to control the monetary supply. 3

Whatever policy Russia employs to stabilize its currency, if it wishes to partake of the advantages of capitalism, it has to somehow let go of inefficient state enterprises which keeps millions of workers idle and sink a large chunk of the economy every years. As many as 40% of industries in Russia are still unprofitable, a situation that could never be tolerated for long in any capitalist economy. 7 The classic argument that a maintaining a losing enterprise is “for the good of the workers” ignores the fact that the rest of the nation must pay for the idle workers, something nations all over the world would do well to mind. While critics argue that cutting lose millions of workers will lead to economic depression and a popular revolt, this argument ignores the fact that these industries are not producing anything worthwhile anyway, and that many of the workers already have other jobs to supplement the small and often tardy incomes they receive from the state.

In addition to cutting lose failing industries, the government must stop playing favorites with business. Both the central and regional government regularly favor certain companies for lower taxation, less regulation and outright subsidies. Oftentimes, the businesses show their appreciation by practically enrolling various bureaucrats on their payrolls. At other times, bureaucrats are owners or stockholders of the industries they regulate, as conflict-of-interest laws are practically non-existent. Additionally, much of the foreign aid that Russia receives is funneled directly to these favored businesses, which then “thank” the officials who provided the aid. Obviously, this is not an especially good situation for encouraging the most efficient companies to grow, but the ones with the most pull with the government. This is also a leading cause of corruption in Russia as well as in many other developing countries that receive foreign aid.

A similar problem exists with both the central and regional government using economic pressure to bend business to their will. Recently, the last independent television station in Russia was shut down when a minority shareholder (controlled almost entirely by the government) sued it and had the court declare bankruptcy and shut down the network despite the fact that in was one of the few profitable companies among a government controlled industry. 9 Not surprisingly, the station had been critical of the Putin government. Such political favoritism is common and does little to inspire investors’ confidence in impartial courts, further depressing both domestic and foreign investment.

Despite failing to adopt an active program of reform, Russia has shown several promising signs since Putin took power. Putin has taken actions to consolidate control and establish oversight over the regional provinces, helping him carry out policies that were previously resisted in distant provinces, some of which have remained de facto communist and ignored many of the central government’s rulings. Another significant new measure to improve the economy has been a 13 percent flat tax that has helped the economy grow at 5% last year and boosted tax revenues 28%. (The new tax rate doesn’t guarantee a responsible fiscal or monetary policy however, as Russia has used seignorage rather then taxes as the primary source of income, imposing much greater costs on the citizens in the process.) A new generation of entrepreneurs is becoming proficient at managing private enterprises and learning the principles of individualism and self sufficiency, as well as pushing for a radical deregulation of the economy. These entrepreneurs have cooperated, with help from the government and western advisers, to establish a stock market and worked together to push for reforms. Nevertheless, Russia’s economy remains mired in regulation, bad monetary policy, unsound and corrupt banks, and an other vestiges of communism that drag it down.

In conclusion, despite several positive reforms under the Putin administration, Russians needs to take major steps to embrace capitalism if they want to partake in its benefits. The most important reforms are:

* A radical reduction in federal and local government regulation. Simple, clear, well publicized, standardized, and long term regulations and laws to establish a clear and predictable rule of law. Increased transparency on both the central and local levels, centrally published regulations, standard forms, and well published government statistics would also help in this area.

* A complete privatization of the banking industry. This would stop the hidden flow of money to failing industries and increase access to credit for private entrepreneurs.

* Establishment of an independent central bank and a dollar convertible currency to stop inflation, allow people to invest their dollar savings, and secure confidence in the stability ruble.

* The IMF and other foreign lenders should exercise much more caution in the policies they promote, by focusing on funding promising private ventures, not corrupt government officials who funnel foreign aid into their own private accounts.

Some of these changes will not be easy, especially in the short run, but unless and until Russia bites the bullet and jumps head first into capitalism, it will continue to experience economic instability, corruption, and mass poverty like all other socialist and pseudo-socialist regimes.

References

  1. Kurt Schuler and George A. Selgin, Cato Policy Analysis No. 348: “Replacing Potemkin Capitalism: Russia’s Need for a Free-Market Financial System”. June 7, 1999.
  2. The Heritage Foundation: 2002 Index of Economic Freedom – Russia. http://cf.heritage.org/index/country.cfm?ID=122
  3. Steve H. Hanke, “Create a Currency-Board Law for Russia.” September 14, 1998. http://www.cato.org/dailys/9-14-98.html
  4. Central Bank of Russia: http://www.cbr.ru
  5. Steve H. Hanke, “The Case for a Russian Currency Board System”. October 14, 1998 http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb-049.pdf
  6. Kurt Schuler and Robert Stein, “The Mack Dollarization Plan: An Analysis” Paper for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas conference “Dollarization: A Common Currency for the Americas?” March 6, 2000 http://www.dallasfed.org/htm/dallas/pdfs/schuler.pdf
  7. Clifford G. Gaddy and Barry W. Ickes, Russia‘s Virtual Economy, Brookings Institute, 2002. Excerpt at http://www.brookings.org/dybdocroot/press/books/chapter_1/russiasvirtualeconomy.pdf
  8. Gary T. Dempsey, “Mafia Capitalism or Red Legacy?” January 7, 1998 http://www.cato.org/dailys/1-07-98.html
  9. Dmitry Pinsker, “TV6 saga nears final episode.” The Russia Journal http://www.trj.ru/index.htm?obj=5321
  10. James A. Dorn and Ian Vasquez. Ending Russia‘s Chaos, September 9, 1998 http://www.cato.org/dailys/9-9-98.html
  11. Daniel J. Mitchell, “Tax Reform: Russia, 1; United States, 0,” March 21, 2002 http://www.heritage.org/views/2002/ed032102.html
  12. Rose Brady, Kapitalizm : Russia‘s Struggle to Free Its Economy, New Haven, Conn. Yale University Press, 1999.
  13. Martha De Melo, and Gur Ofer, “Private Service Firms in a Transitional Economy: Findings of a Survey in St. Petersburg”
    Studies of Economies in Transformation, 1014-997X ; Paper No. 11: 1994.
  14. William C.Gruben, “Dollarization: The Greenback Goes Global,” Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Expand Your Insight, March 1, 2000 http://www.dallasfed.org/eyi/money/0003.html

Listserv: The Virtues of our Time: Collectivism, Nihilism and Pragmatism

 

August 11, 2002

The Virtues of our Time: Collectivism, Nihilism and Pragmatism

By David Veksler

American politicians today generally act on the dominant philosophy of the day, which can be described by three main values: collectivism, nihilism, and pragmatism. These values directly contradict those held by the founders of the United States: individualism, moral objectivism, and principled action. While both conservatives and liberals accuse each other of immorality, the loss of traditional, rational values in favor of a bankrupt “postmodern” philosophy has lead to a contradictory, inconsistent, and ad hoc policy that is the primary cause of most of the problems America faces today.

Collectivism is the idea that groups, not individual people, are the only proper beneficiaries of values. It states that your identity as a human being comes from involuntary or voluntary membership in various groups – such as society, race, “culture” or even sexual orientation. It then states that the only or the primary recipient of one’s labor should be this group, rather than yourself. In politics, this means that “serving your country” is more important than the services your government is supposed to provide you, namely protection from the criminal elements of the world. This view was summarized by JFK as “Ask not what your country can do for you: Ask what you can do for your country.”

Both conservative and liberal presidents frequently espouse this ideal. For example, in promoting volunteerism, President George Bush said: “Citizen service is the very American idea that we meet our challenges not as isolated individuals but as members of a true community, with all of us working together. Our mission is nothing less than to spark a renewed sense of obligation, a new sense of duty, a new season of service…”

The basis of this view is that a collective of individuals is more than the sum of its parts, and that by belonging to a collective, a person can acquire special rights and obligations he would not have otherwise. The clear implication of collectivism is that the individual becomes secondary to the group, and in fact becomes its tool rather than an end in himself. Implicit in collectivism is the idea that collectives can think, benefit, and obtain rights just as individuals can. Collectives are even attributed personalities called “culture” that everyone within it is expected to embrace. Each member of a collective is responsible for its failures, and everyone is to be praised if any one person in it accomplishes something. Anyone who pursues his own “selfish” interests, or has goals that differ from the “collective’s” is deemed a traitor to his society, country, race, and so on and usually faces dire consequences. Reality is rejected in favor of the consensus, and truth becomes relative to the purposes of the collective.

The opposite of collectivism is individualism. Individualism declares that each and every man may live his own life for his own happiness, as an end to himself, neither sacrificing himself to others, nor others to himself. It rejects the view that a group of men has special rights and that a “public good” exists by declaring that there is no collective stomach or a collective mind because only individuals can benefit from any good, and only individuals can think. Individualism is the idea that groups are simply a collection of individuals, and any rights claimed by them derive directly from the rights of the individuals composing such a group. As Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The only associations that an individualist values are those voluntarily chosen, not born or drafted into.

Any good stolen from a man for the sake of “society” cannot be shared with society as a while, but must be given to other individuals, benefiting some at the expensive of others. Likewise, an invention is not the result of “collective thought” but of innovation and originality on the part of its creator. He may have built on the ideas of others, but his invention represents his own original, independent thinking, from which he has a right to profit without having to share the values the inventor receives with others. Politically, the result of such as principle is capitalism: a social system where the individual does not live by permission of others, but by inalienable right. The inevitable result of collectivism on the other hand is socialism: a system where the individual is only a tool to serve the “social good” – and because there is no such thing a collective benefit, the profit of the politically well-connected looter at the expensive of the productive worker is the inevitable result of any collectivist system.

The second major trait of “post-modern” political thought is nihilism. Nihilism assumes that there are no objective values independent from one’s thought, but that values are derived solely from whatever means are necessary to achieve one’s immediate goals, whatever they may be. This means that there are no objective or universal standards which everyone must observe, but only the immediate actions needed to accomplish one’s passing whims and fancies. Embracing collectivism, nihilism states that any arbitrary values chosen by culture or individuals are an absolute, independent of the actual benefit or harm they may have on one’s life. In short, nihilism takes the stance that values are not physical, but mental entities – that they are not derived from reality but whatever random goal your mind comes up with.

The opposite of nihilism and subjectivism is moral objectivism – which states that values are in fact derived from reality, not random whims, and that the facts of reality, not culture or consensus determine right and wrong. Moral objectivism states that there are certain necessary values, such as food, shelter, and other material goods that man needs to obtain to survive. The rejection of objective, rational values is the primary cause of the rise of crime in America.

The state of public education is a perfect example of the natural consequence of collectivist, nihilist values. Educators correctly state that self-esteem is crucial to children’s development, but they take away the means to attain self-esteem by claiming that it comes from cultural and racial group association rather than individual achievement. They cripple the ability of children to set goals and motivate themselves by preaching that serving society through community service, rather than self-motivation and hard work, leads to success. They reward students for C’s as well as A’s and teach that all that is needed to be happy with oneself is to be oneself, whatever that means, rather than work at setting and reaching goals. Furthermore, by claiming that reality and morality is subjective and dependent on cultural, social or personal opinion, that logic is useless, and that confidence in one’s opinion is “close-minded” they cause kids to follow the inevitable consequences of such an ideology. When social approval rather than individual accomplishment is the only standard of value children have, peer approval becomes the ultimate goal, and kids seek it by open sexuality, drugs, or violence because it is the only means they perceive of being recognized in the collectivist system their schools put forth.

Pragmatism follows naturally from nihilism. It is the idea that men do not need to follow absolutes or principles, but should act only on the immediate needs of any situation. As president Bush recently said, “I’m so pleased that a member of my Cabinet came. I picked a good man when I picked the Secretary of Education. I didn’t pick somebody who dwelt on theory.” The rejection of “theory” is the rejection of the idea that any choice has any implications to consider other than the immediate consequences. Bill and Hillary Clinton are the typical products of such “post-modern,” unprincipled thinking. Both Clinton and Bush welcome the Arab dictators and urge compromise with PLO terrorists when they need to please the oil interests, just as warmly as they welcome Israeli leaders and the praise the cause of Zionism to please the Jewish lobby. That Bill Clinton would retaliate for terrorist attacks with one or two missiles fired into the desert so as not to offend world opinion, ignoring the kind of message it would give to terrorists, and then lobby and claim that he “would personally grab a rifle, get in a ditch and fight and die” to protect Israel demonstrates this unprincipled and pragmatic mentality. In her campaign for Senate, Hillary Clinton solicited campaign contributions from racist, anti-Semitic Muslim groups right before speaking at Synagogues in front of welcoming crowds. President Bush is only a marginal improvement. Initially strong in his anti-environmentalist stance, and support of business, he wavered and conceded whenever he saw his poll number sag. Then, despite his lip service to free trade and free market, Bush supported steel tariffs, subsidies to farming interests, and a huge “economic aid package” that passed just as the economy was starting to recover from an overly controlling government that caused the depression in the first place. Recently, he has curbed efforts to pursue terrorists abroad as coalitions composed of less-than democratic nations have faltered – exemplifying the collectivist notion that a moral judgment can only be reached by a social consensus, and wavered in his support of Israel’s right to self defense to please European and domestic critics.

The opposite of pragmatism is principled action, the view that decisions must be made in accordance to established, universal principles, because ad hoc, pragmatic action will lead to contradicting and self-defeating policy. For example, while Alan Greenspan recognizes that setting interest rates to be too low will over-encourage investment, create economic instability and lead to recession in the long run, he still engages in short term “emergency” inflationary measures that caused the investment spree of the late 1990’s and consequently, the recent financial depression. This is equivalent to obtaining huge credit card balances to fulfill “immediate needs” –ignoring the need for long term saving and planning and the consequences of permanent debts. However, politicians claim to be immune from principles that apply to individuals as if policies that are bad for individuals can me made good by volume. Turning to foreign policy, in his campaign, President Bush claimed to follow a principled policy by claiming that “The first question is: What’s in the best interests of the United States? What’s in the best interests of our people? When it comes to foreign policy, that’ll be my guiding question: Is it in our nation’s interests?” However, Bush has acted otherwise, retaining an unnecessary military presence in Bosnia to please European allies, while mounting a weak and incomplete response in Afghanistan and trying to attain a “consensus” before taking any military action, sacrificing America’s security for to please the whims of both our allies and enemies. Most recently, faced with growing criticism of pursuing the countries that sponsor terrorism, the president and congress have endorsed a campaign against businessmen to distract the nation from their foreign policy and economic failures while giving traitors generous plea bargains. Interestingly, both democrats and republicans have been united in their condemnation of CEO’s as “greedy crooks”, requiring more and more government oversight so that they can better “serve their country” (and maybe keep a little bit of profit in the process) while debating if any response at all should be mounted against nations that sponsor terrorism.

Thus, the guiding philosophy for politicians on both sides of the spectrum is collectivism, nihilism, and pragmatism, while the classical liberal values that this country was founded on is sometimes given lip service, but largely forgotten. The resulting consequences have been clear – a faltering economy, emboldened and unchallenged enemies abroad, a failing educational system, and an increasingly invasive, controlling government. The only way out of the current mess is to once again embrace values that promote the individual’s “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness,” adopting an objective morality, and a policy that is based on principle, not momentary pragmatism.

SPAM

I got spam from the Air Force Reserve today. Are they getting desperate or what? Maybe they should make a flight simulator game — hey, it worked for the Army.
Would it work so that you were always fighting the enemy, and if so, who would you go after? Is it open season on Iraq yet?
I think I am going to have to write a letter to the Air Force:
“Dear Sirs,
Please take me of your subscription lists. I don’t wish to receive any more unsolicited mail or email from the Armed Force, so if you could remove me from the spamming list as well as the draft rolls, I’d much appreciate it.
Sincerely,
David V”
(Check out a little article I wrote about dealing those spammers here.)