The even BIGGER Minimum Wage Lie

The narrative that the left is attempting to promote, is that the minimum wage, should be a lower middle class living wage.

They have further determined this "living wage" to be about $15 an hour.

Thats about $30,000 a year based on the standard 2000 hour work year (thats 5 full time work days a week, minus 10 unpaid days for national holidays. Most minimum wage workers do not receive paid holidays or paid vacation).

It's also a $15,500 a year RAISE for those workers, more than doubling their pay (currently $14,500 by the 2,000 hour standard).

...If you think someone picking up  litter in parks, or working a cash register at McDonalds, on their very first day of their very first job, is worth paying $30,000 a year...

There is something wrong with you.

...Or your just don't understand how money, or wages work (which, frankly, is often the case).

Normal wages are not just arbitrarily "set" by some big daddy in the sky, or by evil greedy CEOs looking to "exploit the workers". They are based on the value a worker can provide to an organization, and the cost to the employer of replacing that worker.

Normal wages are not arbitrary, they are not fixed, and they are VOLUNTARY. If you dont want to take what an employer offers, then you can find a different job that you want more and are willing to take less money for, or you can find a job that pays more.

If you can't find a job that pays more, then your skills and experience are not worth more, or you are not selling yourself properly. Otherwise, you WOULD be able to find a job that pays more.

On the other hand, if an employer doesn't pay enough for a job, that people are willing to take what they are offering workers to do that job; that employer won't be able to fill that job. They will have to either make the job more attractive to workers, or increase the pay (or both).

It's basic market economics... Of course, the left don't believe in markets...

Here's the thing...

Really, I think this whole $15 an hour idea stems from the concept many seem to have internalized (whether or not they've put it into words, or consciously thought about it):

Having a "good" middle class life shouldn't be hard.

People shouldn't really have to do things like sell themselves well, or find a better job every year or two, or work harder, or deal with politics, or work overtime, or work more than one job; to make enough money for a "good life".

They see how competitive and harsh the world is, and the job market is, and they think it's bad and scary and stressful, and not everyone can compete. Even if they have the skills and experience some people are bad at interviewing or resume writing, and some people are too stressed by it, and some people are discriminated against, and theres just no demand for the skills and experience many people have, and its all changing all ttthe time...

...and dammit everyone deserves a "good life".

They think everyone who is not disabled, should be able to find a "good" job, that gives them a "good life", regardless of their skills and experience.

In fact, many of them even say you have a RIGHT to a good job, that pays enough to have a "good life".

They don't think you should HAVE to compete, or struggle, or be stressed, to have a "good life".

They just want people to be able to get a default job, for default pay, and have that be "enough", without worrying about negotiating, or getting raises, or competing for better jobs or more money, or losing their job and not being able to find one that pays as much.

Sure, if people want to compete for better jobs, or want to make more they can... but they feel that every job, no matter how unskilled, or how little value it provides to their employer, should pay enough to have a "good life", just for showing up and doing the work assigned, and that people shouldn't have to worry and compete, just to have a good life.

That everyone should be able to make enough money to live where they want, at least with a spouse or a roommate.

That everyone should be able to make enough money to raise kids, or to travel, or to live in new York York or LA, or to go to college...

So we can all be equal and free of "wage slavery", and pursue our real passion in the arts or something, I guess?

Same reason most of these same people think that college should be "free", and school loan debt should be forgiven... or just erased. Same reason most of these same people think health care should be "free" (or paid 100% by employers and the government, which to them, is the same thing).

They want people to be able to have a good life, and not worry about having their life screwed up, by losing their job, or getting sick, or not being able to find a new job.

They want people's lives to not be subject to the whims of the marketplace, or of economics.

How... Utopian.

This in fact, was the original promise of socialism, communism, marxism, maoism... and every other utopian ideology. That somehow, through proper application of government, we can be free of struggle and strife, and free of the need to toil, and free to pursue our dreams without worrying about those things.

Of course, this completely ignores basic economics... There is no such thing as "free", and unfortunately, no matter what laws the government passes, you just cannot ignore basic economics. Because on this planet, we live in a scarcity based economy (no matter what economic system "runs" it), and economics runs EVERYTHING.

In ignoring basic economics, It also completely ignores the fact that jobs don't exist to provide a living for workers.

Though actually, if you ask most leftists, that is actually what they believe jobs are for... or at least what they should be for.

Ask a union organizer why the factory exists, and he'll tell you it's to provide good high paying jobs for his union members first... and whether the employer makes any money or not isn't his problem. They're all greedy exploiters anyway.

But that's not how the world works.

Businesses dont exist to give people jobs. Jobs exist, for the purpose of doing the useful and productive work of an employer, in order to make money for that employer... Hopefully at a profit, or those jobs won't exist for very long.

No, the minimum wage is NOT a living wage, because it is not intended to be, nor should it.

It is meant to be the absolute minimum an unskilled and inexperienced worker will make, while they are learning skills and gaining experience, that will make them more valuable to employers.

... Which is exactly what almost all minimum wage workers do. Excluding tipped employees, over 80% of minimum wage workers earn at least 10% more than minimum wage within 2 years, and at least 30% more within 5 years.

Only 4.5% of the overall work force, and only 1.8% of the full time workforce between the age of 18 and 65, earn minimum wage. It is not, never was, and never should be a living wage.

Also, the common narrative that the minimum wage hasn't kept pace with inflation is a lie.

Not just a misinterpretation or shading the truth, it's a flat out propagandist lie.

http://www.thelibertypapers.org/2015/01/03/minimum-wage-lie/

They lie, by choosing the starting point of their timeline at the highest relative value the minimum wage has ever been, 1968... Which, incidentally, was immediately followed by the highest annual peacetime inflation the U.S. has ever seen, for over 15 years.

The minimum wage has kept exact pace with inflation for the last 30 years (since 1985, to the penny), and has more than kept pace, since it's inception in 1938. It was only from 1969 to 1984, when inflation in the U.S. went as high as double digit numbers annually, that it did not.

In fact, it's not only more than kept pace with inflation since it's inception, and has a much higher relative purchasing power... It has actually almost  DOUBLED relative to inflation, since its inception in1938.

The 1968 number was unusually and artificially high. How high? It was a near doubling from just a few years before, at $1.60 an hour (a 20% increase from 1966, which was itself a 40% increase from 1962, and overall it was a 100% increase over 1956... Even though the U.S. had less than 3% annual inflation in those years. The 1956 minimum wage in 1968 dollars was $1.02. In 2015 dollars, it's $6.96... a bit less than minimum wage today).

But even in 1968, the "$15 living wage" people's baseline year, the minimum wage was STILL not intended to be a living wage. $1.60 an hour in 1968, meant about $3,200 a 2000 hour work year, or about $10.88 and $22,000 a year in 2015 dollars.

That year, the median wage for ALL workers was $6,580 or $3.30 an hour, a bit over DOUBLE the minimum wage. The household income was appx. $7,800. However, the median wage for full time employed males, was actually $7,600 (because women were a small percentage of the full time work force, made far less then men, and rarely worked if their husbands worked a good full time job).

In 2015 dollars, that would be about $45,000 a year for all full time workers, $51,000 for full time employed men,  and the household income would be about $53,000.

Which by the way, is not very different from what they actually are now. $44,000 for all full time workers, $48,000 for full time men, and household income is about $54,000

Remember, these are medians, not averages. Also note, all were above 1968 levels before October of 2008, but the recession has taken about $2k-4k out of personal income and $4-6k out of household income ("official estimates" are as low as $1k personal and $2k household, but no-one actually believes that. Also, they don't account for inflation... official estimate, or actual... Adjusting for inflation using official numbers... which are well known to be very low... Some estimate as much as $6 personal and $9k household accounting for wage freezes, reduced profit sharing and bonuses, and lack of job growth and promotions; as middle income males were hit worst by unemployment and wage cuts, and have recovered least).

So, by that logic, with the artificially high minimum wage of 1968 being approximately half the prevailing median full time wage; to "keep up" with 1968, the 2015 minimum wage should be...

... Wait for it...

$11 an hour.

So, to match what the highest minimum wage in all of American history, the glory day, their chosen baseline, wouldn't be $15, it would be $11.

Of course, as As I have now explained several times, the 1968 wage was a sudden and artificially high raise, double the 1956 wage, and in constant dollar terms, four times the minimum wage at its inception in 1938.

To keep up with 1938, would be? About $4.20

To keep up with 1956, the year before the minimum wage started jumping every couple years much faster than inflation? About $6.95

At $7.25, we're at about the same in constant dollars, as 1962.

..... So the inflation argument is a flat lie, and the $15 argument is not based in economic reality.

But, just to put the nail in that coffin for good... Just in case somehow the $15 minimum wage sounds like anything close to a reasonable or good idea...

Let's do some comparative analysis:

U.S. military E1 (private/airman basic/seaman recruit) makes about $18,500 a year, or about $9.30 an hour base pay (based on the same 2000 work year... This of course is far less than a duty year even in peacetime, which is about 2700 hours, working out to $6.88 an hour).

Once that soldier, marine, airman, or seaman, are trained and ready to perform the basic duties of their basic occupational field ( E2, at 6 months or so), they get a raise to about $20,800, or about $10.40 on 2000 hours, or $7.70 on 2700 hours.

When they reach fully trained and qualified in the basics of their specialty ( E3, usually around 12 to 18 months or so), they get another raise, to about $24,400, or about $12.25 an hour (or $9 an hour).

Once they are fully trained in the details of their specialty, and have a couple years of experience in their field (E4, usually 24  months or so), and are directing the efforts of 2 to 5 other junior enlisted, they get a raise up to about $25,500, or about $12.75 an hour ( or about $9.45 an hour).

After 3 to 5 years, an E5 (sergeant/staff sergeant/petty officer 2nd class) whose job is to be a well trained and expert specialist in an particular area, and/or to supervise and direct the efforts of 5 to 10 other enlisted personnel...

...and here's the kicker...

... makes a base pay of $30,800, or a bit over $15 an hour on the 2000 hour scale, or about $11.47 an hour on a peacetime 2700 hour duty year.

Oh and by the way, its likely that sergeants immediate "supervisor", in HR terms, would be a 2nd lieutenant. A position that requires a bachelor's degree, and only pays $35,000 a year (with MUCH higher expenses than enlisted men, and they don't get a raise for 18-24 months)

So... According to this theory, minimum wage...

...for a 15 year old high school kid working at the mall food court lets say..

...Should be... about the same as base pay for a serious, skilled professional, with five years experience in their field, and at least two years experience supervising as many as 10 subordinates... With the added bonus of being taken away from their families for months at a time and BEING SHOT AT.

If you can't see just how ridiculous that notion is...

But hell... let's take the comparisons further...

The average starting base pay for cops in the U.S. (and most departments require degrees and certifications now) is?

$26,600 a year, or about $13.30 an hour (before overtime and detail of course)

How about teachers?

$36,000 national average (though they vary significantly by state, from $27k to $51k) or $18 an hour based on the 2000 hour year (which is how teachers are paid, even though they work very different hours... Usually about 1600 a year, including after school and work at home time).

Thats with a degree, and a teaching cert (which in some states can take two more years and thousands more dollars over and above the degree). Before they get certified, they average $24,000

Accountants?

$34,000 with a degree, but no experience, masters or CPA, $48,000 with a CPA but minimal experience.

Auto Mechanics?

$27,000 with no certifications, but at least 2 years experience and their own tools. $31,000 with a certification, tools, and experience.

Computer systems and networks operator or technician?

$29,000 with a degree and at least two years of work experience, preferably in tech support. $22-24k with no degree, a few of the right certs, a demonstrated skill and aptitude, and SOME experience.

How about carpenters?

Apprentices start at between $10 and $15 (with tools), journeymen start at $15 to $22 depending on specialty (framing, finish, roofer, cabinet maker etc..), region, seasonal demand, and unions.

Plumbers?

Plumbers helpers and apprentices start at from $11 to $14 an hour. Journeymen $18 to $28.

Electricians

Apprentices start between $9 and $15. Journeymen, from $16 to $24.

...Hmmm... Thats... Umm...

So... yeah... Apparently a grocery stocker, on his first day at work... should make more to start than a cop, a teacher, a mechanic, a computer and network tech, a carpenter, a plumber, and an electrician?

Yeah... NO.

But wait they say... "Now that the minimum wage is $15, then everyone else will have to get paid more proportionally, and everyone will be better off".

Umm... first, thats not how that works. Ever heard of an "inflationary spiral"? Probably not, since if they had, they wouldn't be suggesting the $15 minimum anyway... So look it up.

Second... hey... wait... that means this isn't actually about the minimum wage at all, and its not abput "helping the poor" now is it?

If it were actually about helping the poor, then they'd be pushing for $11 or $12. First, they would be MUCH more likely to get $11 or $12 than $15.

$11 would be roughly half the median full time wage, at $22,000. This is roughly equivalent to the 1968 level (whereas, today's minimum wage is roughly equivalent to 1962).

Critically, $12 an hour would give a single minimum wage income earning family, with two adults and two kids a $24,000 income, enough to lift them out of poverty, while allowing a parent to care for the children. It would bring a dual income family $48k, which is close to the national median household income (which would be $13.50 an hour with two full time wage earners by the way).

... and of course, we don't even need to get into the fact that outside of wealthy urban areas, minimum wage employment would fall to somewhere around zero, if even an $11 national minimum passed...

No... It's not really about helping the poor.

As it happens... A huge number of union contracts, are index linked to the minimum wage, or to the mean or median wages (which would also be increased).  When them minimum wage goes up, so so do their union contract wages.

So are large numbers of government programs, and statistics... Including many poverty and welfare statistics.

And of course, if non-union labor is forced by law to be as expensive as union labor (and by the by, unions are usually exempt from wage regulations), then there's going to be less competition, less price pressure, and more jobs for union members.

So, all if a sudden it's not a "reasonable living wage" for less than 2 million people... It's a big raise for 15 million union workers, and and big budget increase for a whole bunch of government programs (whose administrators and staff are likely union members themselves. 50% of union workers are government workers)... and... what? They think that's actually going to happen?

Really? They think that's actually going to happen?

Or maybe they're hoping that by asking for $15, they can split they're difference, and get $11?

And hey... it's still a huge increase on their contracts right?

And they think that's going to happen?

Where's the money going to come from?

Hell, the money doesn't exist even to give just the less than 2% who actually make minimum wage, a raise to $11 (about 8 billion a year, mostly born by small businesses who already have an 80% failure rate, without increasing their labor costs by 50%). Never mind giving that same raise to 15 million more... Or... any raise to any more.

What are they going to do, mandate it by law, and just print some more money?

I direct you to the "inflationary spiral" concept I noted above.

The entire concept of $15 is a patently ridiculous and disingenuous scam.

UPDATE for 2021

In July 2021, the last month for which official inflation has been posted, the minimum wage if adjusted for inflation from its original inception in 1938, would be $4.84.

No, the minimum wage was never intended to be the entire household income for a family, or any kind of "living wage". It's intended to be a minimum subsistence wage for someone living within a family unit, such that all working age people are working, or an entry level wage for those entering the workforce for the first time, or for those unable to perform higher compensated work due to disability. 

It's not MEANT to be a primary income fully supporting a household. It was never meant to be. And it has far more than kept pace with inflation.

It has only not kept pace with inflation if you start your basis for comparison in 1968, when the minimum wage was boosted to a historic high rate, immediately before the US experienced 15 years of sustained high inflation. 

The minimum wage was increased that year to $1.60, a 60% increase over what it had been in 1960, and even then that would only be about $12.30 today, nowhere NEAR the $15.00 they're claiming should be the minimum wage. 

This is a deliberate distortion of the facts, through cherry picking. 

If we want to start with a more recent basis, 1985, the first year after the historically high inflation ended, the minimum wage was $3.35, the inflation adjusted minimum wage would be $8.44. 

If adjusted from the first increase after the inflation ended, in 1990 the minimum wage was increased to $3.80, which would be $7.82. That adjustment however only lasted one year and in 1991 it was adjusted again to $4.25, which would be $8.41.

Accordingly, if they wanted to be at least closer to honest, they'd be saying "the minimum wage is about a dollar and a quarter less than it should be to keep up with inflation since 1991", not "the minimum wage is less than half what it should be".

Commentary from an Honest and Self Aware Liberal

They do exist...

CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #383

For me, the epiphany came in my second season on Roseanne. At thirty-nine years old I finally woke up to the fact that the principles I was taught as a child, like fairness and justice, have no place in the world of power and money. The rules of the sandbox, strictly enforced by a wise and compassionate adult, are laughable when the sandbox is the television business and there are Mercedes and Bentleys parked alongside it. What's odd is that twenty years later, despite my belated awakening to the reality of amorality, that old schoolyard programming continues to insist on its rightness. Ideas like "play nice," "share your toys," "no name-calling," "take turns" and "misbehaving gets punished" still resonate inside me as if they were some sort of fundamental truths. Of course, I now know that they are not. At best, they're ideals. Lofty goals to aspire to. The truisms of the real world are more along the lines of, "my ball, my bat, my rules" and "money talks, bull$#*! walks." Which brings me to our impending presidential election. A classic showdown between the lessons we all learned as children and, well... reality. Further complicating the situation is our collective, unconscious desire to be supervised by that wise and compassionate adult. But there is no such adult. The truth is, we are alone in the sandbox. The game we play, seemingly forever, is called "Ideals vs. Money and Bats." For what it's worth, I'm betting on the latter, but there's a little boy in me who insists on voting for the former.

This would be a liberal admitting that their ideas don't work, that the world isn't the way they want it to be or pretend it is... but that they keep voting for it anyway because they WANT it to be that way.

Of course, they think the reason it doesn't work is because the other side are bad people, and they're wrong about that; but hey, can't win'em all.

It's not about elites or idiots

Over the past few years, there has been a constant drumbeat from "progressives" (and even some non-lefties) that conservative anti-elitism is effectively "anti-science", "anti-education", "pro-stupidity" etc...

This is partially in response to the fact that many conservatives use the terms "elitist" or "the elite" (in the political and social context, not in the context of achievement... though that distinction is lost on leftists) as a pejorative.

Their basic comment comes down to "Well, if you don't want intelligent, well educated people running things who would you rather run them, idiots?"

Thus, completely missing the point.

Conservatives and libertarians aren't against smart well educated people; in fact many of us ARE smart, well educated people.

...We're against people who want to run things.

This idea is so utterly foreign to the leftist mind, that they literally cannot conceive it, or believe it.

You see, to a conservative or libertarian, it's inherently obvious... axiomatic even:

The world runs better, when everyone runs their own lives, and their own business, with as little interference as possible; save that which is absolutely necessary for the common good, or to prevent harm to others.

No government official or lawmaker can know more about your life, or your business, than you do; therefore, they cannot run your life or you business as well as you can.

No matter how smart, or well educated they may be, and no matter how many of them there are; they will always be working with less information then you have. Their information will always be less current. They will always have less experience in dealing with the conditions unique to your life and your business.

Since no-one can run your life as well as you can; no-one should.

Note: Economists call the idea that if you’re just “smart enough” “well educated enough” etc… you can make everything run right, the “perfect information fallacy”. If you could have perfect information (that is all information about all conditions and factors that could possibly effect the outcome of a decision) and perfect reason (that is, the ability to analyze all factors correctly at all times), then you could make perfect decisions. However, it is impossible to have perfect information in a complex system (never mind perfect reason) thus all decisions will necessarily be imperfect. This is the primary reason why communism or socialism… or in fact any kind of “managed economy” could never possibly work on a large scale; even if every person participating in that economy were a perfect communist, acting only for the benefit of the collective.

To a leftist, that is simply ridiculous... Impossible even. Someone has to be running things. It simply cannot be any other way.

You have to understand, leftists fundamentally and fully believe, that nothing (or at least nothing good) can possibly happen, without "someone running things".  No matter how "free" or "unregulated" something may appear to be, in reality, there is always someone behind it, really in control, and making sure it goes the way they want it to; favoring some parties and punishing others; exploiting some for the benefit of others.

Note: Conversely, this also means that whenever anything happens, it's because of the person in charge. Everything good that happens is to their credit, and everything bad that happpens is their fault. 

It's called the "daddy" (or more formally the paternalistic) philosophy of government...

As with all leftist ideas, the basic principle of the daddy government is based on what children learn during kindergarten. All money, power, control, and guidance comes from "the people in charge", like your daddy, or your teachers.

Daddy has authority, and money. From that money, he gives you your food, housing, education, medical care etc... With that authority, he sets rules, rewards you with things when you do well at what he says you should do well at; and punishes you for doing badly, for doing things he doesn't want you to do, or for not doing the things he thinks you should do.

When you need something, daddy makes sure you get it. When you want something, you ask daddy, and if he thinks you should have it, he gives it to you.

Daddy enforces "fairness". Daddy makes sure you share, and play well with others. Daddy protects you from the bad people hurting you, or taking advantage of you. When things are bad, daddy will make them all better.

I should note, some people prefer to call this the "mommy" philosophy of government... which may be closer to appropriate, given most leftists have no idea what a father is , or what they are good for anyway.

When you're five years old, daddy controls the entire world; and there's nothing daddy can't do (this is why it's called the paternalistic worldview).

Leftists have never really advanced in economic, social, or moral maturity beyond that point. They believe that the world continues to work that way as you grow up; only instead of daddy, the one in charge is "government".

In fact, they not only believe it's the way it should work, they believe it simply IS the way it works, and there can be no other possible way.

Since there is no other possible way, and someone has to be controlling things; it's absolutely critical that we get the smartest, best educated, most "elite" people to be in charge. If you're against that, it must be because you want someone in charge who is going to favor you.

Or rather, because they have such a low opinion of the common man, they believe that the people themselves are idiots, being deceived by the people who secretly want to control everything. The people who want to control everything have convinced the "common man" of the lie of the "free market", and of "equal opportunity" and "the American dream". They're all just lies the secret controllers tell the "common man", so that the controllers can rig things to favor themselves, and their cronies. Those people are anti-elitist, anti education, pro-stupidity, and want idiots to run things, because they can secretly control the idiots for their own benefit.

Note the assumption there that anyone who is smart and well educated MUST know that the leftists are right; therefore anyone who disagrees with them is either stupid, or evil.

This isn't some far out conspiracy theory by the way; this is exactly what leftists think was behind the Bush presidency. Not only do they freely and publicly admit it, they write books and make movies about it.

They completely miss the point.

They don't understand that conservatives and libertarians have a completely different idea about what government is, and what it should do.

They don't understand...

We don't want idiots running things....

We don't want ANYONE running things.

I'm not sure how often I can say this...

Or how much I can ephasize it... I've been delivering this message in every privacy and security training class I've delivered for over 10 years....

EMAIL ISN'T PRIVATE.... EVER! UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!

Never put private information, or send communications over the internet, unless it is in a secure, encrypted, controlled, and verified way; and in all steps of the end to end chain from senders eyeball to receivers eyeball, it stays that way. note: If you actually want email privacy, I recommend PGP for starters. 

Email, is almost exactly the opposite of that. The only way email could be any less private is if it automatically remailed itself out to hundreds of people, who might then forward it on to others.

I must have delivered this line 10,000 times by now... Never put anything in an email you wouldn't want published on the front page of the Washington Post....

The HOA Model and Next-to-Impossible Dreams

A comment from long time reader Glenn Bartley sparked something:

Mel, I just got done reading that piece again (about the 5th time, maybe the 6th) because something was bugging me about it. No not bugging me in how you want to live your life, not bugging me in that you want the government out of most of your life. Heck I work for the government and I would like to see a lot the same as you would like to see it. Less government from both the federal level and the state level would be a much better thing for all of us as far as I am concerned. Less government in general would be great - fewer lawyers, legislators, executive bureaucrats and judiciary types would mean a lot less legislation to trouble all of us. Yeah I agree with you, but I had to read it again, and again, because something just was not clicking, something seemed terribly wrong with what you said and I just could not figure it for the life of me. I could not put my finger on it after a second, even a third reading, not even after a fourth, but each time I was done reading it, I came to the same conclusion - you had just said something that seemed to bother me for some unknown reason. I slept on it, then came back to it again today, and read it again, and again and just as I finished this last time around BANG - realization went off like a shot fired next to my head. Do you realize what you just did in your anti government piece? You yourself became the government ruling others or at least stated your unwitting capacity to do so. No games from me - so here is what I mean: You said this: "Well I have a message for all you busybodies, bureaucrats, rent-seekers, and whored-out legislators. LEAVE US THE HELL ALONE. Get out of my contracts. Get off of my land. Leave my property alone. Stay the hell out of my bedroom. Most of all, KEEP YOUR NOSES OUT OF MY BUSINESS." Which is all well and fine for you and me for those who think like us. Then though, you added this: "And everyone else's for that matter." That is the part that for the past couple of days has been eating away at me, making me wonder why the heck am I so uncomfortable with what you have written when I in general agree with the overwhelming majority of it. The thing that made me uncomfortable was the fact that you were so ready to demand the government not only to stay out of your business but out of everyone's business and therefore in essence you replace the government interference in other people's lives with interference created by your demands. What I just said was not meant as a flame, nor as a troll, nor as disagreement with your opinion. It was meant only as an intellectual observation, one that raises a few questions. Here is what I mean by that: We live in a Republic where we elect officials to represent us in government. We are in the mess we are in now because too many of us, over many years, have agreed that government intrusion into our lives is the way to go. Too many of us have agreed that they need a helping hand, a shoulder to lean on, a crutch to get them through it. Yet at the same time, may of us, probably at least half if not more of our citizens wish the government would only minimally involve itself in our lives. This is an inevitable conundrum of our type of government; it is also one that is very difficult to overcome, isn't it? So just how do we overcome that issue. How do we get less government interference in our lives while at the same time not interfering with the lives of others who have elected to allow for government control in their lives? Is it possible? I think it is, but not to the extent you seem to want it to attain. I am very interested to hear what you have to say in answer to this dilemma because if we can get enough people to elucidate on this topic, we may come up with the answer, we may yet be able to save the Republic and our Constitution and at the same time give Americans a better America while at the same time reducing unnecessary government and governmental control. All the best, Glenn B

Glenn, you make an excellent point. Yes, it seems hypocritical for me to tell the .gov to get out of everyone else's business when I myself rage against control freaks in government. What about those people who voted for such intrusive government? Shouldn't we support their right to ask for intrusion?

Oh yes. We certainly should.

It's called voluntary association.

Technically, it's called "voluntary collectivism" and it's historically been expressed in many way; but I like to call it the HOA Model.

People are not required to join an HOA, it is a choice. The choice to move into a neighborhood with an HOA, sign onto the contract, and obey the rules. The rest of us may not understand their zeal to be controlled, but we don't interfere with the choice either. They have designed a mini-government that meets their needs.

Military service members, by voluntarily enlisting, leave behind the civilian code and embrace the UCMJ, which is a separate justice system (though they intersect and interact of course), and certainly a separate system of regulation.

Those joining a religion also voluntarily join a quasi-government, with its own rules and regulations. Catholics for example have rules around who can join in the sacraments and who can be married.

These are all forms of government, except with consensual interference and nannying. Hell, voluntary associations are Constitutionally protected for a reason.

The only problem is that those who want to be nannied by a secular civil government, want the rest of us to be treated like infants too.

That's the problem.

If the government minimalists (like you and I) had our way, we'd have a minimal federal government. The individual states would be more like tiny countries, with different levels of interference, different taxes, different laws etc. Those of us who want to be left alone would gravitate towards states with minimal interference; the rest could gravitate towards the nanny states. That's how we would solve the problem.

Not coincidentally, that's how the founders intended our country to be, and that's how our constitution is written (if, sadly, not how it is followed).

Unfortunately, many states would then become like Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado. All 3 states are becoming Californicated as unhappy residents of Cali leave the conditions but keep the ideology that made the conditions in the first place.

I'm more than happy to leave everyone else alone. Unfortunately the pro-government control freaks are not content to leave us alone. Their "peace of mind" absolutely REQUIRES all of us to be as controlled... or really MORE controlled... than they are.

In fact, many of them believe that our mere desire for freedom, and a lack of government interference, PROVES just how much more we need to be controlled than they, the "civilized" and "enlightened" do.

What's the solution? I really have no idea. Every civilization trends towards interference, we're not exactly the first. Last time we solved the problem by moving to a new country and fighting a war; this time it won't be so simple. There isn't any place left to go to...

The only way we can ever go back is to get enough of a majority to reverse centuries of damage to the system. The only way to accomplish that is to convince our friends and neighbors that less government is a good thing, and for them to act accordingly.

Yes, and if wishes were horses...

I do see a bit of hope in technology though, and oddly enough in the attempts of the Greenies.

Currently most people are dependent on government and well... dependence to live their lives at the level they have become accustomed to. Electricity is regional and generated in bulk so we all share the same supplies. Water is too, as well as phone connections, internet, cable... nevermind that most jobs are to be found in urban centers. Food is grown or raised on huge farms and delivered to regional centers. Mass transit is still cheaper than operating a car (on an individual basis anyway), and less stressful in urban centers. Those of us who have cars are dependent on gas stations, which are dependent on long supply chains.

All of this, well, togetherness (and I don't mean that in a good way), encourages dependence on everyone else and dependence on government to keep the peace and make sure no one gets screwed over by their neighbors. And to enforce standards. And keep traffic moving. And, and, and...

My hope is, that with distributed technologies, and efficiencies in transportation; much of that is changing.

More and more jobs are mental, not physical, enabling telecommuting (at least in theory). The price of individual electricity generation is dropping precipitously. Wireless phone coverage is expanding, keeping those in rural areas in the loop. Internet can be delivered wirelessly. Satellite TV keeps getting cheaper. Amazon offers memberships where you can pay one fee a year and get free 2-day shipping. Netflix. Apple TV. HD TVs and high-end entertainment centers are more comfy than the theatres.

The cost of operating a vehicle? Dropping every day. Cross-country travel? Not a problem.

Oh, and the Greenies are pushing a "return" to family farming and energy dependence, as well as biodiesel. Between organic gardening, solar cells, wind turbines, hydroelectric, and water catchment and recycling we're fast approaching a time where family could supply much of their needs on their own rural property (if they had a couple acres per family member anyway).

Soon no one will have to be tied to landlines, cable, city water and sewer, or huge utilities. The cost of biodiesel converters is rapidly dropping while efficiency is improving, and every gardener has waste of one form or another to convert. Gas stations may eventually become obsolete.

Once we don't HAVE to live close together to have all the "modern conveniences", and technological independence is possible, how many will opt for independence? How many, upon experiencing independence, will take kindly to government interference? How much more intrusive will government become if we aren't so easy to find anymore, not as dependent, and we have to be hunted down?

That right there is basis for a new revolution; and my hope is that it will be both a successful one, and require no (or no more) bloodshed.

Maybe there is hope after all.

Mel

Why I have a great deal of respect for Camille Paglia

Because although she is a liberal, she is mistaken, not either foolish nor craven, nor pharasiacal. She is intellectually honest, and generally rigorous in her thought, rather than dogmatic or reactionary.

I disagree with her analysis, and in some cases her principles; but she respects facts, and THINKS about things rather than simply feeling and reacting; and then she writes about them, generally quite well (though sometimes she's a bit overblown).

She is the type of liberal you can actually debate with.

I present two extended quotes from her most recent responses to reader mail on the RIDICULOUSLY liberal web site (which still features some excellent writing by the way) Salon (it's four pages, these are from page 2):

I am a conservative lesbian living in New York. I would love you to address how the Fairness Doctrine has become a viable possibility for the liberal agenda, given that it is simply modern-day censorship, and also taking into account the undeniably left-leaning media. How can the left not see its hypocrisy?

Kara McGee

If there's anything that demonstrates the straying of the Democratic Party leadership from basic liberal principles, it's this blasted Fairness Doctrine -- which should be fiercely opposed by all defenders of free speech. Except when national security is at risk, government should never be involved in the surveillance of speech or in measuring the ideological content of books, movies or radio and TV programs.

Broadcasters must adhere to reasonable FCC regulations restricting obscenity, but despite the outlandish claims of Democrats like Sen. Charles Schumer, there is no analogy whatever between pornography and political opinion. Nor do privately owned radio stations have any obligation to be politically "balanced." They are commercial enterprises that follow the market and directly respond to audience demand. The Fairness Doctrine is bullying Big Brother tyranny, full of contempt for the very public it pretends to protect.

As a fan of AM radio since childhood, I adore the proliferation of political talk shows spurred by Rush Limbaugh's pioneering rise to national syndication in the late 1980s. It represented a maturation of the late-night coast-to-coast radio programs that I had been listening to in the 1970s, such as Herb Jepko (broadcasting from Salt Lake City), Long John Nebel (from New York) and Larry King (from Miami).

However, I do lament the gradual disappearance of small, quirky local shows due to the trend toward national syndication. And I often get bored and impatient with the same arch-conservative message being drummed out 24/7. But let's get real: Liberals have been pathetic flops on national radio -- for reasons that have yet to be identified. Air America, for example, despite retchingly sycophantic major media coverage, never got traction and has dwindled to a humiliating handful of markets. The Democrats are the party of Hollywood, for heaven's sake -- so what's their problem in mastering radio?

Instead of bleating for paternalistic government intervention, liberals should get their own act together. Radio is a populist medium where liberals come across as snide, superior scolds. One can instantly recognize a liberal caller to a conservative show by his or her catty, obnoxious tone. The leading talk radio hosts are personalities and entertainers with huge rhetorical energy and a bluff, engaging manner. Even the seething ranters can be extremely funny. Last summer, for example, I laughed uproariously in my car when WABC's Mark Levin said furiously about Katie Couric, "What do these people do? Open fortune cookies and read them on air?"

The best hosts combine a welcoming master of ceremonies manner with a vaudevillian brashness. Liberal imitators haven't made a dent on talk radio because they think it's all about politics, when it isn't. Top hosts are life questers and individualists who explore a wide range of thought and emotion and who skillfully work the mike like jazz vocalists. Talk radio is a major genre of popular culture that deserves the protection accorded to other branches of the performing and fine arts. Liberals, who go all hushed and pious at Hays Code censorship in classic Hollywood, should lay off the lynch-mob mentality. Keep the feds out of radio!

Have you noticed how much the call for combating global warming crusade has in common with how we got into the Iraq war?

In both cases, there are "experts" who tell us that evidence justifying action is undeniable. They say, "The risk of doing nothing is too great for us to do nothing." And as a fallback position they say, "Even if we're wrong, we'll still be doing some good in the world."

Kind of makes me think man-made CO2 emissions will turn out to be the biggest case of nonexistent WMD since Saddam Hussein's nukes. (Or maybe even bigger!) What do you think?

Jim Carroll

Wonderful letter! I became a vocal opponent of the onrushing Iraq incursion when I was shocked by the flimsiness of evidence presented by Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations in 2003. Similarly, I have been highly skeptical about the claims for global warming because of their overreliance on speculative computer modeling and because of the woeful patchiness of records for world temperatures before the 20th century.

In the 1980s, I was similarly skeptical about media-trumpeted predictions about a world epidemic of heterosexual AIDS. And I remain skeptical about the media's carelessly undifferentiated use of the term "AIDS" for what is often a complex of wasting diseases in Africa. We should all be concerned about environmental despoliation and pollution, but the global warming crusade has become a hallucinatory cult. Until I see stronger evidence, I will continue to believe that climate change is primarily driven by solar phenomena and that it is normal for the earth to pass through major cooling and warming phases.

And here's two more from back in 2007:

I know you are a Democrat, but you certainly have very strong libertarian opinions. I was wondering where you stand on the Second Amendment. I'm a registered Independent who, the older I get, leans more toward libertarianism. Ideally there would never have been a Bill of Rights, and all freedoms would be understood to be the rights of every American. But since we have one, the rights listed, to me at least, are sacrosanct -- all of them, not just the first and third through the tenth!

I am pro-gun ownership. I have never been arrested, and the sum total of my criminal activity amounts to a pair of moving violations when I was still in my 20s. However, since I live in New York City, I need to either be rich and famous or navigate a confusing legal process if I want to acquire a permit.

We are always reminded, not least by Mayor Bloomberg (whom I generally like and voted for) that illegal guns kill. The problem is, there is no real means to get a gun legally, and those in the world who are anti-gun want to make it harder. The thing that leaves me scratching my head is when people say, Mayor Mike among 'em, that we need stricter laws to crack down on illegal guns! Exactly what needs to be in place to make an illegal gun more illegal!

I know there are bigger issues right now facing our presidential candidates, but this speaks to personal freedom as much as any other issue. Just wondering how you see it.

Dave Hunt
Brooklyn

As a Salon columnist (dating back to the founding of Salon in 1995), I have tried to provide a forum for defenders of the Second Amendment to make their case. The Northeastern major media, which remain heavily liberal, rarely permit these voices to be heard.

I do not own guns and have no interest in them. (Swords, those Homeric and chivalric emblems, have always attracted me more.) But as a libertarian, I read the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights as granting to private citizens the right to bear arms against the potential abuses of a government turned tyrannous. Furthermore, should police authority evaporate after a cataclysm of storm, flood, earthquake or terrorism, citizens have a right to defend their families and property against criminals and looters. If food and water are in short supply over a protracted period, expect predators and violence.

The horrendous problem of illegal guns now rampant among the urban underclass cannot be solved by depriving all American citizens of their Second Amendment rights. Major cities must address their internal problems, which include improving public education and vocational training, creating job-rich public works projects, and instituting on-the-street neighborhood policing. The major media, concentrated in their metropolises, should stop extrapolating their local issues to the nation as a whole.

Just wondering what your thoughts are on the global warming issue. Have you seen the Al Gore movie? Any thoughts on the current debate on climate science?

Many thanks,
April
Vancouver

Oh, great, here comes the hornet's nest!

As a native of upstate New York, whose dramatic landscape was carved by the receding North American glacier 10,000 years ago, I have been contemplating the principle of climate change since I was a child. Niagara Falls, as well as the even bigger dry escarpment of Clark Reservation near Syracuse, is a memento left by the glacier. So is nearby Green Lakes State Park, with its mysteriously deep glacial pools. When I was 10, I lived with my family at the foot of a drumlin -- a long, undulating hill of moraine formed by eddies of the ancient glacier melt.

Geology and meteorology are fields that have always interested me and that I might well have entered, had I not been more attracted to art and culture. (My geology professor in college, in fact, asked me to consider geology as a career.) To conflate vast time frames with volatile daily change is a sublime exercise, bordering on the metaphysical.

However, I am a skeptic about what is currently called global warming. I have been highly suspicious for years about the political agenda that has slowly accrued around this issue. As a lapsed Catholic, I detest dogma in any area. Too many of my fellow Democrats seem peculiarly credulous at the moment, as if, having ground down organized religion into nonjudgmental, feel-good therapy, they are hungry for visions of apocalypse. From my perspective, virtually all of the major claims about global warming and its causes still remain to be proved.

Climate change, keyed to solar cycles, is built into Earth's system. Cooling and warming will go on forever. Slowly rising sea levels will at some point doubtless flood lower Manhattan and seaside houses everywhere from Cape Cod to Florida -- as happened to Native American encampments on those very shores. Human habitation is always fragile and provisional. People will migrate for the hills, as they have always done.

Who is impious enough to believe that Earth's contours are permanent? Our eyes are simply too slow to see the shift of tectonic plates that has raised the Himalayas and is dangling Los Angeles over an unstable fault. I began "Sexual Personae" (parodying the New Testament): "In the beginning was nature." And nature will survive us all. Man is too weak to permanently affect nature, which includes infinitely more than this tiny globe.

I voted for Ralph Nader for president in the 2000 election because I feel that the United States needs a strong Green Party. However, when I tried to watch Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" on cable TV recently, I wasn't able to get past the first 10 minutes. I was snorting with disgust at its manipulations and distortions and laughing at Gore's lugubrious sentimentality, which was painfully revelatory of his indecisive, self-thwarting character. When Gore told a congressional hearing last month that there is a universal consensus among scientists about global warming -- which is blatantly untrue -- he forfeited his own credibility.

Environmentalism is a noble cause. It is damaged by propaganda and half-truths. Every industrialized society needs heightened consciousness about its past, present and future effects on the biosphere. Though I am a libertarian, I am a strong supporter of vigilant scrutiny and regulation of industry by local, state and federal agencies. But there must be a balance with the equally vital need for economic development, especially in the Third World.

Here's a terrible episode from my region that made the news just last year. A bankrupt thermometer factory in Franklin Township, N.J., vacated its building in 1994 but ignored a directive to clean the premises of residual mercury toxins. There was a total failure of oversight and follow-through at the state and local levels. The result: In 2004, a daycare center opened in the renovated building and for two years subjected children and pregnant women to a dangerously high level of mercury vapors from the contaminated site.

The degree of permanent health effects on those children is still unknown. This kind of outrageous negligence should not be tolerated in a civilized nation.

How many liberals today would admit the facts here, and address them rationally?

Plus, she hates the French, and pisses off other liberals and feminists.

So I may disagree with her frequently, but I always respect her.

Adequately Explained

SO, it's been ,aking the rounds on the far lefty luny blogs and forums for some time now that Bush and company are going to stage a terrorist attack and use it as justification to suspend the elections etc... etc...

This is generally followed by a litany of supposed "crimes and abuses" by the Bush administration, some of which are legitimate, some are blown out of proprtion and context, and some of which are jsut plain lunacy.

Then of course is the requisite rant about how the "right wing idiot sheeple will just swallow whatever lies they are told and give up all our essentials freedoms because they believe Bush is getting messages from god about the rapture" or some other such nonsense.

Bull. Utter and complete, unmitigated bull.

Believe me on this one, real conservatives and libertarians dislike the abridgment of our fundamental rights FAR MORE than those on the left do.

Leftists are almost always willing to accept a tyrant, or tyrannical abuses of power, if they believe it's all in a good cause. Libertarians and real conservatives are not.

Even if you LIKE what the president is doing with the power he has arrogated to himself (and in some cases I think real good is being done; though mostly it's just a stunning example of incompetents given too much power and authority), you don't want them to HAVE that power, because the next guy could be a deranged madwoman.

Oh and for those of you who harp constantly on the "unprecedented disrespect for the American people of the Bush administration", you obviously weren't paying attention from January 20th 1993 through January 20th 2001.

As an Air Force officer, I saw a lot of "interesting" data during the Clinton administration. Believe me, it was every bit as bad as you imagine Bush to be; they were just a lot better at sugarcoating it and/or hiding it. If you don't believe me talk to anyone who did any intel analysis during those years; they'll have a similar story to tell. The Clinton administration lived by the dictum: "Power Corrupts, Absolute Power is really kinda cool".

What is striking isn't how much this administration abuses the power of the executive office; Clinton, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Wilson, and both Roosevelts did FAR worse. What's striking is how utterly incompetent they have been at doing so.

The Moral Superiority of Self Defense

So I've been having a hard time with something for the past week. I've been struggling with a bunch of factors which combined to relieve me of even more of my innocence, most of which I won´t go into. I've had to admit to myself that I don´t understand how some people think, and that there is more evil in the world than I thought before, and that people will do ANYTHING to other people, immoral and wrong or not.

However, I still hadn't made that leap from understanding that the world sucks to mentally preparing for what could happen if crime and inhumanity came right to my front door and I had to fight back. I HAVE the knowledge, and I HAVE the training, but I didn't have the will to use it in my own defense. I didn't have the will to protect myself (and only myself, the kids I've always been capable) from mortal danger.

So today (and just today) I discovered what had been holding me back. I had not yet resigned myself to the fact that, although my education taught me otherwise, pacifism is not actually the moral high ground. Pacifism is actually a fine-tuned, well-concealed form of selfishness and cowardice.

Pacifism (in the current Liberal definition, not the classical pacifism of Shakers, Quakers, Mennonites, etc.) teaches that there is a moral superiority in not fighting back, that if we do not resist the enemy will just see how much ¨better¨ we are and be so simultaneously cowed and shamed that they will just ¨see our point of view.¨ This is folly in the best of times; deadly and destructive in times of war.

As many have said before me, the real reason GFWs hate the idea of everyone being armed for their own self-defense, or being allowed to own firearms is simple: somewhere along the line these GFWs got the idea that just because they can´t be trusted to use these obviously inanimate tools of self-defense (excuse me, mass destruction), no one else can.

Somewhere along the line they got the idea that thought is action, and just because they (like everyone else) occasionally think violent or destructive thoughts that they are incapable of self-control and will act on those thoughts.

They assume that because they fear their own capability for violence, and distrust their own ability to restrain it; that everyone else has the same trouble (except for police officers, soldiers, etc who obviously have this ability mysteriously trained into them). Then, rather than restrain themselves; they try to control the beast within by removing all opportunity for temptation to mayhem; and assume that everyone else has to as well.

Itś this basic logical fallacy (what psychiatrists call projection) that convinces liberals, that since they can be convinced to not commit violence out of fear of consequences AND lack of opportunity, those with malicious intent can be similarly convinced.

Thus convinced of their own rectitude and moral superiority, they will try to convince the malicious that a.) they understand what theyŕe going through, they've thought about destroying lives too, b.) they will take away EVERYONES ability across the board so NO ONE will be tempted, and c.) they will punish those who are capable of self-restraint, those who are ¨different¨, by making up for those differences with restrictions on the capable, and handouts, equalizations, etc etc for those who are not.

...And of course, the more violent you are and ¨misunderstood¨ you are, the more equalization is needed.

This idea of being able to reason with the malicious is based on a false premise. Shrouded in this ideal is a very basic mis-understanding of human nature: that people who have shown malice and a lack of respect for the rights and lives of others can be reasoned with; and their "better nature' can be appealed to. If they had enough reason, or better nature (or for that matter any shame at all) to begin with, talking them out of violence would be unnecessary, as they wouldn't be inclined to commit predatory violence in the first place.

So why is this the cowardly and lazy way out? Because instead of requiring that everyone be brought up to a high standard of self-control and responsibility (formerly referred to as ¨adulthood¨) the intent is instead to bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator; the person who needs to be controlled by someone else, preferably the not-plagued-by-human-error-yet-run-by-humans state. Which of course should be run by the oh-so-enlightened Liberals who came up with these ideas in the first place.

Those of us in favor of self-defense and personal responsibility know better.

We know that someone with malicious intent is not a downtrodden, misunderstood, helpless human being who just needs to be convinced and coddled. We know that someone with malicious intent either a.) knows exactly what they are doing, exactly how wrong it is, and exactly what the consequences are; and chooses to commit evil anyway, or b.) is incapable of understanding and/or self-restraint. Both should be removed (imprisoned or committed) from the general population as both present a continual danger and the latter is also IN continual danger themselves.

So what happens when those with the Liberal doctrine of pacifism outnumber those of us with a doctrine of personal responsibility, in most positions of power, influence, and policy-making? The doctrine of ¨equalization¨ becomes public policy, and the ¨victims¨ become protected classes.

Their whole philosophy can be summed up as ¨these people made you feel bad for not acting like an adult. We will make them pay.¨

...And pay we do.

We pay for counseling for criminals, welfare for those unwilling to grow up and be responsible adults, court settlements for bogus discrimination, and don´t even get me started on how much those poor boys at Duke had to pay for the crime of looking at a "stripper".

All of these "equalizations" to try to make up for the fact that those of us who value personal responsibility work harder, behave better, and are as a whole more trustworthy.

Self-defense and responsibility advocates look at things a bit differently. Oh, we're guilty of projection too: We think that since we are capable of reason and self-restraint, others are too.We tend to see people the same way we see ourselves, as worth trusting unless they indicate otherwise.

For example, AZ is an open-carry state. What that means is that anyone who legally owns a firearm can carry that firearm openly on their person anywhere not prohibited by law.

This includes many places people go every day, from parks to grocery stores and just strolling down the street. Every now and then I see someone who is obviously armed and not uniformed, and it doesn't bother me. However I've heard exclamations of fear from others, as if the presence of a firearm is an automatic threat.

And don't assume such reactions are limited only to the gun fearing general public. A well known blogger was recently harassed and physically assaulted by a police officer, when said ignorant police officer (and there an unfortunate number of them) caught a glimpse of the bloggers gun, that flashed while he was reaching for some groceries.

Since I trust myself to carry a firearm and not commit murder (as the EEEEEEVIL semi-automatic death machine is obviously whispering me to do) I can trust another adult to carry a firearm and never have it leave the holster. Unless the situation indicates otherwise, I know that a person who is openly carrying a firearm a.) has passed the background check that indicates whether or not they've displayed lack of self-restraint in the past, and b.) is carrying that firearm as a precaution, just as I do.

What that means to me is that the adult carrying the firearms understands that there are people with malicious intent in the world and is prepared to protects themselves and others from the violent actions of those people. Honestly, the sight of another armed person (generally) doesn't alarm me, and sometimes is comforting.

As a sidenote here, this is something that gun-control activists don´t understand. Grouping serious gun owners together with criminals who buy guns, is like saying the responsible Rottweiler owners who give their dogs proper training and care are comparable to the irresponsible... never mind, they think that too.

Okay, Iĺl try again. It's like saying that someone who spent months of their free time rebuilding a classic automobile will use it in a drive-by shooting so it can get the crap shot out of it and possibly seized by the police.

Someone who has sunk tons of time into finding the right firearm, practicing with it, becoming proficient with it, etc... does NOT want that firearm used in a crime and seized by police (just as after spending months getting my Llama working I don't want to have to hand it over to our boys in blue).

Serious gun owners who are serious about self-defense DON'T want their firearms used in criminal acts, and don´t deserve to be treated like theyŕe criminals who will use a firearm in a crime and ditch it later. They are two completely different mindsets and should be treated differently.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand...

This is very indicative of how personal responsibility advocates think. We think a person should not be judged by their impulses, thoughts, or upbringing, but how they ACT upon those factors.

For example we applaud those who escape poverty and work hard to improve their lives and encourage others to follow in their footsteps.

We tend to think of every adult as capable of improving themselves and supporting themselves, and handling the consequences of their actions; but we also donate more per capita to charities that help those who, for whatever reason, need help to survive and become self-sufficient. We WANT everyone to be responsible and self-sufficient, and trust that adults have self-restraint.

Liberals think they have the moral high ground here; that pacifism is more moral because it results in less bloodshed; and that in their attempt to ¨help¨ the perpetrators of predatory violence, they are doing good.

Except they don't, it isn't, and they aren't.

Usually pacifism ends in more bloodshed, as the criminals are free (after probation and free counseling) to commit more malicious acts on more innocent victims.

So what do the Liberals try to do? They try to take away the tools of violence, as if taking away the temptation will take away the act. They don´t allow for the fact that criminals aren't quite as lazy as they are, and WILL find other avenues to obtain tools of violence. Money and a lack of scruples can accomplish anything except world peace.

Self-defense and responsibility advocates KNOW that criminals don´t give a damn about the law or the consequences of their actions; if they did they wouldn't be criminals. There is the occasional case of someone who wants to leave the gang life or otherwise comes to their senses (occasionally 20 years in prison will change a man for the better... very occasionally), and we help them as much as possible; but for the truly malicious there is no help.

The very basis of self-defense is very simple: the life of the person being attacked (usually an innocent) is more important than what the attacker wants. (This is of course assuming a civilian situation; militaries and war zones have their own very specific sets of agreed to terms.) This is one of the few times that life really is a zero-sum game; in that either the criminal gets what they want and the innocent must live with what the criminal metes out, or the innocent successfully defends themself.

Now here's where self-defense advocates and Liberals differ. A Liberal will tell you that you can't assume the criminal will hurt you in order to get what they want. This is assuming that someone who has shown a distinct lack of respect for law, morals, or fundamental standards of human behavior, has a discernible stopping point, or a moral code of their own that you can depend on. Self-defense advocates will (rightfully) assume that if a person is willing to commit one crime, they are willing to commit another.

Thankfully, the state of Arizona agrees with us on that point.

As of 2006, Arizona has a doctrine of presumed justification. This means that it is presumed that one is justified in using lethal force (or the threat of lethal force), if one is presented with a situation where a reasonable person would believe they were threatened with immediate, present, physical force; or that it was necessary to defend others being threatened with immediate, present, physical force. Unless prosecutors can explicitly prove that you were NOT justified in doing so; they are not even allowed to file charges.

In this state, there is no duty to retreat; and we explicitly allow that ones home, vehicle, and place of business are specially protected; and that any person threatening or trespassing on those areas, is by that very act presenting a credible threat of force.

Additionally, Arizona has a list of crimes which any citizen would be justified in using deadly force or threat of deadly force in order to prevent. They specifically include (but are not necessarily limited to):

• Aggravated trespass (trespass with the use or threat of force)
• Aggravated theft (theft with the use or threat of force)
• Arson of an occupied structure
• Burglary in the second or first degree
• Kidnapping
• Manslaughter
• First or second degree murder
• Sexual conduct with a minor
• Sexual assault
• Child molestation
• Armed robbery
• Aggravated assault

Arizona assumes that if a person is willing to commit one of the crimes above that they are willing to take it to the next level and take another personś life. Often kidnapping and rape do become murders; and quite often rather than be stopped a criminal will take the life of an innocent who has the bad luck of getting in their way.

Our state legislature assumes that criminals are without scruples, why can't Liberals?

...Because they identify with the criminals.

Liberals can see themselves doing the same things in the same circumstances. They want to pretend that a person is only a product of their social status and upbringing; and that "if only they'd had the same education and opportunity I had", that the criminal would magically have been a good person.

Of course his way, when they aren't willing to go through the hard work of being self-sufficient or take responsibility for their actions, they have someone to blame.

A lot of times it's guns; quite often it's successful businesspeople (who won´t share), religious conservatives (who don´t believe in hedonism), or any other figure who insists that they work hard for what they want. You see, it's not the criminal's fault, it's life's fault... really it is.

But anyway...

Self-defense is the moral high-ground. There are two sides to this conflict, one is right, and one is wrong. One, the criminal, wants whatever they want, whether it be valuables or power or whatever; without regard to the law, or the rights of others. The innocent just wants to survive with as little harm as possible, and if others are involved without anyone else coming to harm. The criminal is WRONG, and the innocent is not.

In the Liberal world, the innocent would hand whatever it is over and possibly survive, possibly be raped, or possibly be killed. However since it leads to only one death, the death of the victim and not the poor, innocent criminal, thatś the better end in their eyes. However this leaves a criminal on the loose who is more than capable of murder, and will most likely do so again.

(no, seriously, they believe that. It sounds insane, but one thing you'll always hear from victim disarmament advocates is "Well, if I had a gun, maybe we'd both end up dead. At least if I don't have a gun, only one person has to die, and maybe he won't kill me". It's absolutely mind boggling)

In our world, the innocent would fight back, maybe bare-handed, preferably with something that gives them parity, or superiority in the conflict, like a firearm of their own. In our perfect world the criminal would be the one in a world of pain or hurt with the innocent unharmed.

Unfortauntely, that doesn't always happen. Sometimes the victim still gets killed; but our hope (and what we train for) is for the criminal to be stopped either by injury or death. The aim is always for the innocent to survive; and when they don't, the next aim is for the criminal to be stopped, therefore ending the train of victims.

And thatś where the moral superiority of self-defense comes in.

In a world of self-defense we have people who believe it their responsibility to not let evil go about its business. In a world of self-defense we have a military that protects us from those who want to kill us, police to take care of minor criminals before they progress to violent crimes, stiff penalties for those who abuse the rights of others, no matter their upbringing or ïnequities¨, and people who stop violence when they see it. All of these factors combine to make everyone more safe and secure, as those with malicious intent are removed from society and therefore unable to victimize more people, and those who care about others enough to prevent greater harm are left alive and well.

That is the moral superiority of protective violence: leaving a world with more people who protect others than people who harm others. More servicemen than ruthless dictators, more self-sufficient people than subjects. That is truly leaving a better world for our kids, which is the most morally superior action of all.

So now I get it. Now I understand why defending myself is the most important thing of all. I previously didn't understand why my life was worth the pain and the trouble, or the consequences of defending myself.

Now I do.

By saving my life, I save much more than that. I save my kids' mother; I save the children I am going to have; I save my family from the pain of losing me; And I save myself, a moral upright person who wouldn't unnecessarily bring harm to anyone else. I save myself from a beast who, after they are done with me, will go on to another innocent victim. I stop one evil person, and that one person stopped is worth it. It is, after all, the most moral thing to do.

Mel

Just call me Mel, everyone else does.

Elimination of discriminating thought - The Modern "Liberal"

Generally not just a linker, but... you absolutely MUST watch this:

I've been saying this for years, but never this well, and never to this kind of audience.

Here's his blog post explaining the concept.

Here's a rough and partial transcript:

Let me tell you my story. I call myself a 9/13 Republican. I grew up a liberal, a New York Jew -- you don't get much more liberal than that, though it was lower case L, not what's considered liberal today. Graduated from high school knowing one thing (about politics basically) that Democrats are good and Republicans are evil. I'll tell a story. It's not a true story, but I think it clarifies what happened to me. Imagine being in a restaurant with an old friend and you're catching up, and suddenly, he blurts out: "I hate my wife." And you kind of chuckle to yourself because he says it every time you're together and you know he doesn't hate his wife -- they've been together for 35 years. He loves his daughters, and they're just like her. "Ah, no" he doesn't hate his wife. You're having some dinner and you look out the window and you spot his wife, and she's being beaten up and you grab your friend and say, "Come on, come on, let's help her!" and he says: "Naw, I'm sure she deserves it." At that moment it dawns on you, he really does hate his wife. Well, that was what 9/11 was to me. I would hear my friends on the left say how evil and horrible and racist and imperialistic and oppressive America is, and I'd laugh to myself: "Oh, they always say that; they love America." Then on 9/11 we were beaten up and I grabbed them by the collar and jumped up and said, "C'mon, let's help her, let's help America", and they said: "No, she deserves it." At that moment I realized they really do hate America. It began for me what is now a five year -- a five year plus -- quest of trying to understand the mind set. How could you possibly live in the finest nation in the history of the world and see only oppression? How could you live in the least imperialist power in human history and see us as the ultimate in imperialism? How could you live in the least bigoted nation in human history and, as Joe Biden said, see racism lurking in every dark shadow? And over the next five years what I came to think through, what I came to learn, what I came to find in conversations, became this talk and hopefully very, very soon will be the book: "Regurgitating the Apple: How Modern Liberals Think." I've got to assume that just about everybody in this room agrees that the Democrats are wrong on just about every issue. I'm here to propose to you it's not "just-about" every issue, it's quite literally every issue -- and it's not just wrong, it's as wrong as wrong can be; it's 180 degrees from right; it's diametrically opposed to that which is good, right, and successful. What I discovered is that this is not an accident, this is part of the philosophy that now dominates the whole of western Europe and the Democratic Party of today. I -- like some others -- call it Modern Liberalism. The Modern Liberal will invariably side with evil over good, wrong over right, and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success. Give the Modern Liberal the choice between Saddam Hussein and the United States, he will not only side with Saddam Hussein, he will slander America and Americans in order to do so. Give him the choice between the vicious mass murderer and corrupt terrorist dictator, Yassir Arafat, and the tiny, wonderful democracy of Israel, he will plagiarize maps, forge documents, engage in blood libels (as did our former President, Jimmy Carter) to side with the terrorist organizations and to attack the tiny state. It's not just foreign policy, it's domestic policy, it's every policy. Give them the choice between promoting teenage abstinence and teenage promiscuity (and believe me, I know this from my home town of Hollywood), they will use their movies, their TV shows, their songs, even the schools to promote teenage promiscuity, as if it's cool. Like the movie American Pie, in which you are a loser unless you've had sex with your best friend's mother while you're still a child. While conversely, [ inaudible ] a pro-abortion group masquerading as a pro-choice group will hold a fund raiser called "F-abstinence." And it's not just "F," it's the entire word because promoting vulgarity is part of their agenda. So the question becomes: Why? How do they [Liberals] think they're making a better world? Well, the first thing that comes into your mind when trying to understand (as I've so desperately tried to understand) is that if they side always with evil, then they must be evil. Though we have a problem with this, don't we. We all know too many people who fit this category who aren't evil. Many of my lifelong friends, the people I grew up with, relatives, close relatives, and -- they're not evil. So, if they're not evil, then the next place your mind goes is -- they're just being incredibly stupid. Right? They don't mean to always side with evil, failed, and wrong. They just don't know what they're doing. But we have a problem with this as well. You can't say that Bill Maher is a stupid man, my old boss; you can't say Ward Churchill is a stupid man; you can't say all these academics are stupid people. And, frankly, if it were just stupidity, they'd be right more often. What's the expression? Even a broken clock is right twice a day; even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and again. So if they're not stupid, and they're not evil, what's their plan? How do they think they're making a better world? By siding with Saddam Hussein, by keeping his rape and torture rooms open? by seeking the destruction of the democracy of Jews? I don't know if you've seen the list going around the Internet of all the Nobel Prize winning scientists from this tiny state of Israel. How do they think they're making a better world by promoting to children behaviors that are inappropriate and cause diseases and unwanted pregnancies and ruins people's lives? How do they think they're making a better world? What I discovered is, the Modern Liberal looks back on -- give me a number here -- 50 thousand years? a 100 thousand years? of human civilization and knows only one thing for sure. That none of the ideas that mankind has come up with -- none of the religions, none of the philosophies, none of the ideologies, none of the forms of government. None has succeeded in creating a world devoid of war, poverty, crime, and injustice. So, they're convinced that since all of these ideas of man have proved to be wrong, the real cause of war, poverty and crime and injustice must be found, can only be found, in the attempt to be right. See, if nobody ever thought they were right, what would we disagree about? If we didn't disagree, surely we wouldn't fight; if we didn't fight, of course, we wouldn't go to war; without war there would be no poverty; without poverty, there would be no crime; without crime, there would be no injustice. It's a Utopian vision. And all that's required to usher in this utopia is the rejection of all fact, reason, evidence, logic, truth, morality, and decency. All the tools that you and I use in our attempts to be better people, to make the world more right, by trying to be right, by siding with right, by recognizing what is right, and by moving towards it. When this first started to dawn on me, I would take this out and question my liberal friends (and believe me there were plenty of them in Hollywood). The thing about Hollywood is that it is overwhelmingly Liberal, upper case "L", not lower case "l". But there are a lot more of us then you'd suspect. But, they're afraid, and it's hard to come out because what's so Orwellian (and virtually everything about this philosophy is Orwellian) is that they are -- the Liberals -- are as ill-liberal as you can imagine. And quite literally, as much as they scream "McCarthyism!" constantly, there is, in fact, a gray list there that sees people not get hired because they don't toe the leftist line. So what you have is people who think that the best way to eliminate rational thought, the best way to eliminate the attempt to be right, is to work always to prove that right isn't right, and to prove that wrong isn't wrong, to bring about a philosophy. You see this in John Lennon's song "Imagine." "Imagine there's no countries" -- not imagine great countries, not imagine defeat the nazis -- imagine no religions, and the key line is imagine a time when anything and everything that mankind values is de-valued to the point where there's nothing left to kill or die for. Now obviously, this is not going to happen overnight. There are still going to be religions, but they're going to do their best to denigrate them. There are still going to be countries, but they'll do what they can to get us to cede our national sovereignty to one world bodies. But in the meantime, everything that they believe is designed -- everything they teach in our schools, everything they make into movies, the messages of the movies, the TV shows, the newspaper stories that they pick and how they spin them -- have but one criterion for truth, beauty, honesty, etc., etc. And that is: Does it tear down what is good and elevate what is evil? Does it tear down what is right and elevate what is wrong? Does it tear down the behaviors that lead to success and elevate the ones that lead to failure? So that [eventually] there's nothing left to believe in. You may not recognize this as the paradigm and the purpose of one of the most successful Liberal motion pictures of all time -- Fahrenheit 9/11. There's nobody who believes Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 was an honest attempt to accurately portray the real events of that horrific day and its aftermath. Everybody knows that Michael Moore is a leftist, and that his was a propaganda film in which the facts were cherry picked, the evidence manipulated, the narrative near lunatic; all designed for one purpose. The question that we were debating at the time was "Should we go to war against the Iraqi government and Saddam Hussein?" So he used all the tricks and manipulations and lies that he could to show that America isn't that good; America's not worth fighting for; to show that Saddam Hussein isn't that evil, not worth fighting against; for the purpose of undermining our efforts to go to war. Again, there is, quite literally, nothing in Hollywood, in the newspapers, in our schools, that does not have this as its sole criterion. For example, there is no journalistic standard -- none, zero, zilch -- by which the misdeeds of a handful of night guards at an obscure prison for terrorists, misdeeds in which nobody was killed, nobody was seriously hurt. There is no journalist standard by which this is a front page story in the New York Times. Much less for 2 days in a row, 5 days in a row, 10 days in a row, 20 days -- 44 straight days this non-story was a front page story in the New York Times. Why? Because while it met no journalistic standard, it met the one and only Modern Liberal standard -- it said: "Do you think America's good? We've found something that's going to make you not believe that any longer. Do you think that the Islamic fascists are bad? No, no, no, no -- this is why they do it -- no wonder they fly airplanes into our buildings." That is just one of so many other examples. Newsweek Magazine. There was no journalistic standard by which they printed the story of Korans being flushed down the toilet. Not only was it a bogus story -- it never happened -- it's an impossible story. It cannot happen. Think about it. Can you flush a book down a toilet? Try it. Go home and try it. And if there are any liberals here, go to your neighbor's house and borrow a book. Even a child. Even a five-year-old would know that you can't flush a book down a toilet. The first day that he plays that puzzle at school [he learns] you can't fit a square peg into a round hole. So why did Newsweek run with a story that was not only bogus, that failed to meet even the most obvious logic, as I say, it's an old expression: "You can't fit a square peg into a round hole"? Because nothing matters to them. There is no standard. Because a standard would require them to say "Something is better than something else," which goes against this entire philosophy. It met the one and only criterion of truth to Newsweek which was that it attacked America and justified the Islamic fascist terrorists. And you see the same thing is true in the art world. There is no artistic standard. There is no aesthetic criterion by which (forgive me) a jar of urine with a cross in it is "beautiful." There's no aesthetic criterion by which the curators of the museum says, "Yeah, take down the Monet and put up the urine." But it met the one and only standard of art that exists to the Modern Liberal. And just as in Hollywood and the movies last year -- I don't want to speak to the movies that were nominated this year because I didn't see them all. But the movies from last year met no criterion of story-telling, met no criterion of cinematography. The five nominees for Best Picture all met one criterion. "Brokeback Mountain" said: "Heterosexual marriage isn't that important; go be a homosexual if you choose." "Munich" said: "There is no difference between the terrorist and the people who try to stop them from murdering again"; and if you look at the other pictures as well, with "Crash" winning, "Crash" saying that America is this evil, horrible nation where every moment of every day is filled with bigotry and racism. I'm going to repeat, probably for the third time; it's so important and it's so hard to really accept -- but there truly is no standard, no criterion for truth, beauty, justice or anything else amongst the Modern Liberal, the dominant force in today's Democratic Party. Not all Democrats -- OK, there are awards for Democrats who have standards, it's called Republicans. And it's true, there are a good many of us who've come to become Republican and then conservatives, and even others who are still Democrats. Tammy Bruce is a lesbian, feminist, former president of [inaudible] largest chapter who recognizes -- well, a minimum standard -- "Let's stop the people who want to hack off our heads." That's a starting point. There are people who get it. Clearly, not everybody who voted for John Kerry, not everyone is like my cousin who will mindlessly accept, without question, without doubt -- "Of course we went into Iraq to steal their oil, because that's what America does, no need to even consider any other possibility." That's how sure she is that America is imperialist and we steal resources and what not. Not everyone who voted for John Kerry and who fits that description is aware of the elite's Blueprint for Utopia -- that's what I call it. But what the elite have succeeded in doing is (by the way, I don't think they'd support it, if if they were [aware] -- I don't think my cousin would trade-off supporting evil, failure, and wrong, for some promise of a future Utopia.) But what the elite have succeeded in doing... But what the elite have succeeded in doing through the institutions we've allowed them to control (and if we're going to save America we must take back the schools, the universities, the media, the entertainment industry) what the elites have succeeded in doing is indoctrinating. Starting with the very young and going all the way up through college and beyond. Starting the first time they turn on Sesame Street and Buster Bunny; going up through the middle years when they're told, "Hey, little boy, if you have a queer eye, you're going to be a cool guy; but, hey, little girl, doesn't matter how cool you are -- if you grow up to be a heterosexual married woman, you're going to be a Desperate Housewife." And, going all the way up and all the other shows that are on the air. But so many of the other shows that are on the air show family and marriage and all the things that are traditional -- that we recognize as good. There's "The War at Home;" there's "Rules of Engagement," as if it's another battle. They wouldn't allow "Make Room for Daddy" and shows like those, because they were not realistic, so instead we now have "The Bundies" where the mother and the father hate each other and are looking to get as much as they can from each other; and this whole mind set continues on through Ward Churchill's "Ethnic Studies" class. And what happens is they're indoctrinated into what I call a "Cult of Indiscriminateness." The way the elite does this is by teaching our children, starting with the very young, that rational and moral thought is an act of bigotry. That no matter how sincerely you may seek to gather the facts, no matter how earnestly you may look at the evidence, no matter how disciplined you may try to be in your reasoning, your conclusion is going to be so tainted by your personal bigotries, by your up-bringing, by your religion, by the color of your skin, by the nation of your great-great-great-great-great grandfather's birth that no matter what your conclusion is -- it is useless, it is nothing other than a reflection of your bigotries. Therefore the only way to eliminate bigotry is to eliminate rational thought. There's a brilliant book out there, and to those of you who know it, you'll recognize how heavily informed my opinion is by it. It's called "The Closing of the American Mind" by Professor Allan Bloom. Professor Bloom was trying to figure out -- I'm going to be blunt, he was a little less blunt -- he was trying to figure out in the eighties, why his students were suddenly so stupid. And what he came to was the realization, the recognition, that they had been raised to believe that indiscriminateness is a moral imperative, because its opposite is the evil of having discriminated. I paraphrase this in my own words, I say: "In order to eliminate discrimination, the Modern Liberal has opted to become utterly indiscriminate." I'll give you an example at the airports. In order to not discriminate, we have to intentionally make ourselves stupid. We have to intentionally pretend we don't know some of the things we do know. And we have to pretend that the next person who's likely to blow up an airplane is as much the 87-year-old Swedish great-great-grandmother as those four 27-year-old Imams newly arrived from Syria, screaming "Allahu Akbar!" just before they board the plane. In order to eliminate discrimination, the Modern Liberal has opted to become utterly indiscriminate. The problem is, of course, that the ability to discriminate, to thoughtfully choose the better of the available options, as in "she's a discriminating shopper" is the essence of rational thought. So quite literally we are dealing with the whole of western Europe and today's Democratic Party dominated as it is by this philosophy that rejects rational thought as a hate crime. So what you're left with after 10, 12, 14, 20 years in the leftist indoctrination centers (that our schools have become) are citizens of voting age who on the one hand are utterly unwilling and incapable of critically judging the merits of the positions they hold, and have held, unquestioned since they were five years old, since they first entered the leftist indoctrination process. This is important to me because it sounds impossible. I mean, am I saying that they have the mentality of a 5-year-old? That sounds like hyperbole and I've tried to avoid hyperbole. It sounds perhaps like a gratuitous slander. There was a book that came out at just about the same time as Professor Bloom's that in some ways even better describes and explains the mind set of the Modern Liberal. It was called: "All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten." And it reads like the bible of modern liberalism and the playbook of Democratic Party policy. Of course, you'll notice in the title, he doesn't say, Robert Fulghum doesn't say, "All I Know, I Learned in Kindergarten." Of course, Bill Maher has learned a good number of things, including bigger words. But the concepts that he still holds dear, he learned in kindergarten. So, yeah, the sentence fragment: "Don't hit" which is one of the lessons that Fulghum refers to has morphed into an entire sentence now that they're adult. It's "War is not the answer." And, of course, they've learned things in-between, but they didn't really need to know anything because even though they know about Neville Chamberlain; they know about what happens if you appease evil; but they don't really need to know it because knowing it or not knowing it, it would not have changed the position they have now and have held unquestioned since they were five. When I was five years old, I used to go around the neighborhood, trick-or-treating with my friends on Halloween (not every day). And we'd have in one hand our bag for candy and in the other hand a little box with a slit on top for nickles and dimes and pennies for UNICEF, for the United Nations. At five-years old, the United Nations is a terrific thing: "Don't hit, talk." Another lesson from Robert Fulghum was "Share Everything" -- well, yeah, we'll share power and we'll share our wealth; we'll pay for the United Nations; let's talk things out; what a lovely, wonderful thing. Then you turn 10, 15, 20, and you learn some things about the United Nations that change your opinion. You learn about the corruption. You learn about the antisemitism. You learn about [how] they ran away from the genocide in Rwanda, and have done nothing about the Sudanese genocide. In fact, made the Sudanese members of the Human Rights Commission while they were committing this genocide. And you and I change our positions because these are things we really need to know. Yet they will maintain their five-year-old's position, their belief that the United Nations is this great, wonderful thing and completely ignore everything they've learned since and are quite literally locked into this. There was a song that came out at about this time. It was called "Good-bye Stranger" by a group called Super Tramp (because, you know, being a tramp is "super"). In it this guy and this girl hook up, they shack up together for a couple of weeks. Apparently things are pretty wonderful until she says, something like: "Honey we've run out of food, why don't you go to the supermarket and we could do this for another week or two." He says: "I should go shopping? No, no, that's not my paradise. No, I'm leaving." And as he's walking out the door he says to her "I believe that what you say is the undisputed truth, but I have to see things my own way, just to keep me in my youth." And that is so much the mind set of the Modern Liberal. It's not so much they're not aware of all the things that we are aware of; it's that they need to reject them in order to remain in their five-year-old's Utopia that they've been told is the only hope for mankind: A mindless indiscriminateness. So what you're left with is not only adults, citizens of voting age, who cannot judge their own positions, but who are virulently antagonistic to any position other than their own. Why? Because in a world where you're indiscriminate, where no behaviors can be deemed better or worse than any other then your expectations are that all behaviors should lead to equally good outcomes. When in the real world, different behaviors lead to different outcomes. You and I know why, because we think. And we know why teenage promiscuity and communities that promote promiscuity tend to fail at a greater rate than communities that promote teenage abstinence. Because teenage promiscuity and teenage abstinence are not the same behaviors. Abstinence is the better behavior. Forget the moral component for a moment. Let's just talk practicalities. If your boy's out messing around, he's not home reading a book. If your daughter's down at the abortion mill, again, she's not at the library studying for the SATs. If your son's in the hospital bed somewhere dying of AIDS, he's not putting together his five-year plan. So you and I recognize why those communities that promote teenage abstinence do better than those that promote teenage promiscuity in their music, in their movies, even in the schools. But to the Modern Liberal who cannot make that judgment, must not make that judgment (that would be discriminating), they have no explanation. So therefore the only explanation for success has to be that somehow success has cheated. Success simply by its existence is proof positive to the Modern Liberal of some kind of chicanery, and likely bigotry. Failure, simply by its existence, no other evidence needed, just the fact that it is failed, is enough proof for them that failure has been victimized. So the mindless foot soldier, which is what I call the non-elite, will support the elite Blueprint for Utopia, will side with evil over good, wrong over right, and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success -- out of a sense of justice. This is why I said at the beginning, they're not evil. My cousin is not evil, but it's just a mindless acceptance that in a world where she's indiscriminate, where her answer to any political question is "So what?" without any true Socratic desire to have that "so what" lead to -- "Yeah, let's talk about the real consequences." "So what" being an indiscriminate rejection of any possibility about the future. It's meaningless to them and it's why John Lennon said Utopia was all the people living for today. And, by the way, it's not a coincidence that those who live for today, now have so much debt. What is debt? It is the failure to re-pay a promise from yesterday. And vote themselves nothing but more and more entitlements, which is what? Stuff for me, I'll worry about who pays for it later. The same is true of good and evil. Since nothing can be deemed good, nothing can be deemed evil, that which a society does recognize as good must be the beneficiary of some sort of prejudice. That which a society recognizes as evil, must be the victim of that prejudice. So again the mindless foot soldier will invariably side with whatever policy, mindlessly accept, whatever policy seeks to tear down what is good -- America, Israel, Walmart -- elevate what is evil, until everything meets in the middle and there's nothing left to fight about. Let's take an issue in the news and let's think like a Modern Liberal and you'll see how once you subscribe, once you've been indoctrinated into this mind-set, there is no other choice. Remember I said that it was inevitable. Once you belong to this cult of indiscrimnateness, there is no other conclusion you can come to other than that good is evil and that evil is the victim of good. We all know what standard practice is, in fact, it's official policy at the leftist media outlets to never call Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Asqa Martyrs Brigade, or any of the other Islamic fascist terrorist groups around the world "terrorists." And you know why, you've heard it a million times. In fact, it's even in one of the official memos -- I forget the news organization, probably the Times -- to the reporters, ordering them not to use the appropriate word. And that reason is "Hey, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Who are we to employ critical, rational judgment?" But if one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, see you and I can tell the difference. At least, at a very minimal standard can't we at least agree that in order to be called a freedom fighter you have to be fighting for...Freedom? We know what Osama bin Laden is fighting for; he's told us. It's not freedom. It's an oppressive theocracy in which women are covered from head to toe, and unless we all change to his religion, we are considered the offspring of pigs and monkeys. Quite literally being indiscriminate leaves people like Cindy Sheehan and Michale Moore -- they will call Osama bin Laden a freedom fighter -- because quite literally being indiscriminate leaves them unable to tell the difference between freedom and having your head hacked off. That is quite literally how sick this mentality is. So if there is no objective difference between the terrorist and the freedom fighter, then why is it that you and I, in our schools, teach that George Washington is a hero and Yassir Arafat and Saddam Hussein are villains? See, you and I know why because we think George Washington risked his personal fortune to personally lead his troops into battle. Battles fought nobly against other uniformed warriors, for the purpose of creating the finest nation in the history of the world. Pretty noble, pretty heroic stuff. Yassir Arafat , on the other hand, stole his people's money; sent 14 year olds out to fight his battles, battles fought against kids and women and civilians at pizza parlors and at Passover ceremonies and what not -- all for the purpose of maintaining his corrupt dictatorship. Pretty villainous stuff. But to the folks of the New York Times who have established as official policy that there is no objective difference between the terrorists and freedom fighters, why do we teach our children that George Washington is a hero? The only possible explanation is because he's a white Christian of European descent. If there is no difference between the behaviors of the terrorist, then why do we teach that Yassir Arafat and Saddam Hussein are villains? There can be no other reason then that they're dark skinned Muslims of Middle Eastern birth. So when push comes to shove, after 18 United Nations resolutions and ten years of having our airplanes shot at (in direct violation of our very clear agreements), after Saddam Hussein had invaded Iran and invaded Kuwait, bombed Saudi Arabia, and bombed Israel, committed atrocities against the Kurds in the north, and committing genocide against the Marsh Arabs in the south, we finally, reluctantly go to war to liberate those poor people. You and I know why, because we think . Because we make critical, rational, moral judgments. But to the Modern Liberal, to the mindless, to those who cannot discriminate between these behaviors, the only possible explanation for us going to war is some nefarious "cause" -- because we're evil and Saddam Hussein therefore is a victim. And they will rush there as we've seen, and act as human shields to protect his rape rooms and his torture chambers, because they won't judge rape rooms and torture chambers -- that requires a judgment. And if you listen to the chants of the mindless minions who march down the streets at their anti-American rallies, which the forged document users and the leftist press euphemistically call anti-war rallies, you can hear their chant: "1-2-3-4 we don't want your racist war." What race, exactly, comprises Iraq? What are they talking about? They don't know; they have not a clue; it's not a factual statement; it's not an accurate statement. Wait a second, didn't we just recently go to war to protect Muslims in Kuwait? Didn't we bomb the Christians of Europe to protect the Muslims of Europe? What is this based on? It's based on the reality that once you subscribe to indiscriminateness, anything other than indiscriminateness is the evil of having discriminated.