A Large Version Of Detroit

Something we observed starkly in the past century is that the fruits of collectivism are ~always~ poverty, want, and gross inequality between the “planners” and the “masses”. In the early 90’s everyone remembered the example of East vs. West Germany. Today it seems like hardly anyone does. North Korea and South Korea provide an example today, and they are hardly ever presented in terms of the fruits of collectivism vs. the fruits of individualism.

Arguably California, Michigan, Illinois and New York contain today’s examples of the farthest governments have gone towards collectivism in the U.S. and the examples are not pretty. Detroit, a town which hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1961 and which has been politically ruled by the labor union the UAW, has fallen into decline even though the past two Presidential administrations have given billions of taxpayer dollars in corporate welfare to reward businesses which should have failed naturally and/or been restructured.

Look at these pictures of some sections of Detroit. Look through all five pages of the blog.

http://goobingdetroit.tumblr.com/

THIS is the fruit of following collectivism. With no choices and diminishing resources most people resolve to wanting to be rewarded for failing or unproductive behavior and many want someone else to do the work. Goods and services are consumed by government and union employees and by people receiving wealth redistribution, and none of these three groups is producing goods and services that society can consume in turn. It is a net drag on the economy and impoverishes everyone. And it’s reaching a tipping point in some governments across the U.S., especially with national debt now at $55,000 per ~individual~ in the U.S. And progressives in Congress and the various states show no sign of stopping the unsustainable behavior.

Don’t let progressives turn our nation into a large version of Detroit.

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Back To America

Gavin Seim who is running for U.S. Congress in the Washington State 4th Congressional district had a great quote on his Facebook page the other day.   He wrote:

To deprive man the right to protect their person and property from any who without due process assault them, is both despotism and anarchy combined to destroy the foundation of liberty.  Such evil must be given no space. We must press it back and those who practice it must be removed from any office in which they can assault liberty with such vile intents.

The Constitution of the European Union begins with the words, “His Majesty, King of the Belgians…”  Under the charter of the E.U. it is assumed that all rights belong inherently to government, who then dictates to individuals what they can and cannot do.  Almost every government in ~human history~ has made this same assumption.

The Constitution of the United States is radically different.  It beings with the words, “We the People…do hereby ordain and establish…all…powers granted…”  In our form of government is was – until 100 years ago – assumed that all powers lay with individuals who dictate to government what it can and cannot do.

That started to change under President Woodrow Wilson in the progressive era when it started becoming popular to have a “living document” view of the Constitution, a view which says leaders can do whatever they want in the style of European Monarchs.  But the ~letter~ of the U.S. Constitution is still there and many still believe in it today.

Words matter.  In a European style government, the civil authority can claim to nullify the God-given right to defend one’s self and one’s property.  But never under the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

We are a “delegated powers” government where the people delegate what government can do.  The Bill of Rights does not ~give~ us our rights.  It simply acknowledges them and was put in place just in case later generations (like Wilson’s) ignored the plain wording of the Constitution, which they have.  That’s why the fight over the Second Amendment (bearing arms), the Fourth Amendment (honoring of private property and liberty) and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments (acknowledgment of individual and State sovereignty) are so important.

Government has slowly over the last 100 years began to act as if all powers reside with itself and not with the People.  This used to be an occasional occurrence and mainly happened with laws made in wartime and decisions made by activist judges on a range of issues.  But in the past 20 years progressives have become shameless, openly advocating communism, wealth confiscation and systematic government elimination of religious expression, private property and the traditional family.

These voices are still a minority, but they are very vocal and they have targeted absolute control over education and social issues.  They are raising a generation of students who don’t know any better than to sympathize with progressive positions.  The students are being taught a caricature of history and are conditioned to question or dislike individualism, equality of treatment under law, equality of opportunity, traditional values and people reaping the consequences of their own choices.  In a word, they are being taught to dislike America.

The answer for this is to read – read the U.S. Declaration of Independence.  Read the U.S. Constitution, you can read it in one or two hours easily.  Read some of the Federalist Papers, the debates that resulted in the ratification of the Constitution.  Read ‘The Law’ by Frédéric Bastiat.  Read ‘The Road To Serfdom’ by Friedreich Hayek.  Read ‘Ameritopia’ or ‘Liberty and Tyranny’ by Mark Levin. Listen to anything audio you can find from Milton Friedman on Youtube (you can listen to it in the background while you do other things).  Or go to LearnLiberty.org and listen to some of their four minute presentations.

Understand why Individualism always leads to freedom and prosperity, while collectivism always leads to tyranny and poverty.  Just look at North and South Korea, or East and West Germany of 30 years ago.

Or look at daily life in the U.S. just 20 years ago, and compare it to today.  It’s time to vote in some people who truly understand liberty to roll back government and bring us back to America.

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