To a Homeless Person Who Blames Capitalism

I cannot respond to this post (below) where it was posted since I would be instantly suspended. No one was suspended for agreeing with everything she says or who blames free market capitalism, Donald Trump or the Christian church (the usual suspects for the left). Sarah Beauchamp, the homeless author, is angry because she was made to move from private property to a government sponsored "campground". She is angry because the bureaucrats that run it aren't delivering all the services they were promised. She wonders where the 800K that was spent on this homeless resettlement project went. But does she blame anyone who was actually responsible for her predicament? Look, I'm not a mean person. I spent 4 decades working to help the homeless, disabled, seniors with disabilities, low-income families, abused women and children and the mentally ill. I have no 401K or retirement plan. They don't call them nonprofits for nothing.

I've even been homeless before. It was not fun. We weren't taking drugs. Circumstances not in my control left my wife and I out on the street. I scraped enough together to get into a cheap motel room with WiFi. I got busy online and earned enough freelancing to keep us in the hotel and scrape together food. My wife cleaned the room to a shine worthy of a surgical suite. We borrowed a little from family to help us get through and from an organization that owed me for a lot of free labor I did. We prayed a lot and God sent us landlords who were wonderful Christians who helped us get through months where we weren't able to pay the rent.

Once I retired and social security started up our situation stabilized and we caught up. We'd have recovered more quickly, but we elected a president who killed my business (and it wasn't Trump). We were recovering during 2017-2020, even during Covid, but in January 2021, the bottom fell out of my freelance and grant-writing market again. I work from home because both of us are pretty much disabled now. So the spiraling cost of living has added $400 a month to our expenses in the past two years. So it's a struggle. But socialism has done little to help us, that I can tell you.

To Sarah:

You know, you indite capitalism for the failures of the socialist style program that dragged you out of the woods into what sounds like a government gulag. I'm from Texas. Where I lived in East Texas we have some amazing homeless shelters. They come with warm food, safe indoor rooms, clothing programs and job placement services. The churches created a common social service setup to prevent people from shopping church to church preying on people's sympathies for money for drugs. There's a huge train yard there and we used to get a flood of hoboes and homeless off the Interstate. After we organized ourselves, set up food banks in dozens of churches, folks who wanted to stop being homeless were able to. Word quickly got around the homeless community that if you get off the train in Tyler, they'll make you work.  That cut the homeless population drastically. The corner panhandlers got to where no one would give them money. You'd see guys with a bag of cold uneaten McDonald's hamburgers which was a dead giveaway they weren't hungry like the sign said.

This homeless guy was taking in $200 an hour.

 

Your situation is exactly how socialism works. If there's no incentive to do better, you get bureaucrats who sit in the office and embezzle from the organization. A lot of homeless folks are angry at Christian churches, but the irony is, they can be the best route to recovery. Our churches in East Texas did so well with the church-based food bank program that the feds cut the Food Stamp Program by 800K. They tried to recuperate their funding by spending 150K, not on food but on a marketing program. The theme of the ad campaign was "Food Stamps is not part of welfare reform." When asked they said nothing would change with regard to the proctological application program people had to go through, they just wanted more applications. It turns out the homeless numbers their appropriation is based on is according to how many "applications" they get, not how many folks they give food stamps to. There's your government social programs. That famous one in five go to bed hungry statistic is based on how many applications they get. And if you make an extra hundred bucks to pay on your back rent, they pull your food stamps and make you reapply. And they count every time you reapply as another hungry person. Government programs play with the numbers like that.

Kiddo, if you're looking for government social programs to save you, you are going to be very disappointed. The purpose of federal social programs (Lyndon Johnson's Great Society) was primarily a tool to break down families of color and make them dependent and reliable Democrat voters. The big corporations the anti-capitalists hate pay billions to support Democrat candidates because they protect them from competition by small independent (dare I say "Mom and Pop" businesses.

You're mad at the wrong people; victimized by Marxist propaganda. Capitalism is the only system in history by which the poor have been able to rise in the world by working hard, providing quality goods and services through mutually beneficial fair trade with others of all class, race and culture groupings.

There's a Great Lie being perpetrated, but it's not the one about Russian collusion. Here's Sarah's manifesto is appended below; written apparently with the help of her boyfriend who's spelling and grammar I've corrected.

© 2012 by Tom King

My name is Sarah Beauchamp and I'm one of many homeless people who's home has been destroyed and forced to relocate to the encampment ran by the Tacoma rescue mission. My friends and neighbors have been forcefully relocated and promised safe housing, bathrooms, hand wash stations, laundry facilities, hygiene services, community tent, community food tent with access to food, microwaves, kitchens to cook, case managers to help with more permanent housing, job searching, and social worker services. There is supposed to be a donation center where the residents can go to claim dry clean clothing, blankets and other materials, but what we got was unlivable, dangerous, wet, cold stinking tents with no waterproof floors where the rain just pours into the living area ruining everything in it's path. The tents were made for snow.... Not rain, and made for ice fishing, not living in. Square footage allocated to each person is such that it barely allows for someone to lay down... on the cold wet floor. No bedding is provided or bed roll of any kind. I was given a power strip with 2 outlets and a USB port and the last heater they had in supply. Many more people came after me and still have no heat. Everyone's personal belongings are getting ruined by the rain.

The staff from valeo don't know what there doing and are usually sleeping or hiding in their office which is filled with donations of food but not given to the people who need it most. My friend who is a war veteran for our country who lives onsite has diabetes and in desperate need of fluids and sugar he ventures to the office and asks staff for a Gatorade or something to halt his plummeting blood sugar and was met with nothing but refusals from staff. They said "no you can't have any of this food in here it's for staff only." The Tacoma rescue mission is so keen on saving face and not admitting that they have fallen so short of the mark they promised that they are turning away donation's of food, clean dry blankets, tarps and ties and canopies to keep people dry. Why? They don't want witnesses to the deplorable inhuman conditions they are forcing these people to endure with no alternative as camping is now basically illegal in Tacoma. 

We were better off in our tents because at least we were warm and dry and could feed ourselves. With rules like no cooking in your tent how are people supposed to feed themselves and with all the promises made dozens of people are suffering waiting for someone to advocate for them. 

Well here I am! I was lucky enough to get housing but I have been waiting 8 years I lived at the camp and know everyone there. There is no Tacoma rescue mission staff on duty there only heartless, uncaring security staff. There's no laundry facilities or kitchen or food or donation closet there's no kitchen tent or case managers trying to help us better our situation. The tents are still leaking the conditions are getting worse the trash is overflowing and people are starting to get sick. This is a text I got from a good friend living there: "Okay, so we're all still getting wet all they did was throw tarps over the tents some people don't have heaters and the people who do have heaters some of them broke. There's food and drinks in the office I'm pretty sure they were donated for us but Earl went up there and asked for a Gatorade because he has diabetes and he needed some fluids and they told him no it was for the staff only which I was appalled by that. 

All my new blankets rug was ruined from the water which is still getting in but we're trying to keep it out by stapling the bottoms of our tent to the wood the pallets we have like three or four tarps over our tents it's not under control yet not even close to being under control we can't cook in our tents but we don't have no kitchen no microwave . The garbage is out of control it's overflowing. We don't have no kitchen no laundry anything no place to heat up food the over here by our 10th where your tent was in my tent and Angie's tent is flooding no donations coming in no blankets we're out of tarps and blankets. How are we supposed to wash laundry we're going to have to convert back to hustling so we can get money to go do laundry and get food and such security is sleep most the time say night. The staff really comes out of their office" 

The whistle needs blowing and these people need help before something terrible happens that can't be undone. Please help me help them and let's get the real news out there not some stuffy press release filled with lies to cover up what should be considered criminal actions by taking our homes away and putting us in a literal concentration camp reminiscent of the Holocaust. Being homeless shouldn't be a crime. That's against everything America stands for. Our founding fathers carved their homes out of the wilderness CAMPING UNTIL THEY FINALLY SETTLED AND WERE ABLE TO BUILD A LIFE FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR FAMILIES. Everyone deserves a fighting chance to not just survive but thrive in this harsh world where the system made to save us actually harms us worse in the end. 

And make no mistake, capitalism is the real enemy here. these people aren't unwilling to work, to find a better way to live. sure there's a bad element in every walk of life, every circle. Shouldn't we try to help those that are willing to help themselves? Struggling under the weight of oppression and greed's mighty heel? not everyone has all opportunity and the winning hand dealt to them. Some of us begin life with nothing and no one to show the way. If those of us with all the wealth and power could experience what these people are going through i guarantee this whole situation wouldn't even exist in the first place. What i want to know is how did this camp full of ice fishing tents cost some $800,000 for the city of Tacoma to construct as they claim? Where did that money really go and whose pulling the strings behind the scene getting rich on other peoples suffering? Solid American Peoples suffering in your neighborhood. And do you rest easy knowing that these same wealthy manipulators are running that corrupt system dictating the "laws" and "regulations" supposedly keeping you safe? Its time to wake up. Its time for a change. 

We cant sit idly by and do nothing while our fellow Americans freeze to death or starve. Right down the street from where you live! Are we now advocating for the new holocaust? Are we accepting this yoke of tyranny and greed as the mantle of truth? I tell you right now i do not. I will not sit idle as my friends and neighbors suffer. I mean to see that change. Today. Right now. Something must be done.

Sarah Beauchamp (2012)

 

IS Free Speech a Human Invention - Something We Can Choose to Redefine?

I got called out for this cartoon. My friend said, 'False analogy. Free speech is a a manmade idea that can be changed. It can be altered by people. Physics are natural laws that cannot be altered by people. If one supports all free speech that is not hate speech, laws can be written to make it so. However, physics is physics whether anyone supports it or not and no one can change it.:

I disagree with my friend. I think free speech is free speech, period. You either can or cannot speak freely.  One either has free speech or one doesn't. It doesn't matter how any human being defines it. Free speech is one of those objective truths. As soon as you try to alter it and begin defining it as something other than itself, it is no longer free speech. When speech can be hedged in by law, it is no longer speech, however vile or repugnant the words may be.

I find much of what the left says to be repugnant. I find any defense of the right to murder an unborn child repugnant. I find any defense of restriction placed upon private practice of religion which causes no physical harm to any human being to be repugnant. I find the whole idea of bigger more powerful government and socialism to be repugnant. I find attempts to abolish the second amendment to be a dangerous idea.

At the same time, whatever my feelings on the words spoken, I find any attempt to restrict the left's right to speak out freely and say they believe these things to be every bit as repugnant. I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it.  
There is a story about two men, one an American and the other a Russian living under the Soviet Union. The American brags, "We have free speech. I can go down to the steps of the Capitol and shout, 'The Congress are all idiots.'"  
The Russian replied, "I too have free speech in Soviet Union. I can go down to Red Square and shout,
 
The Politburo are all idiots!" 
 
The American was shocked. "Really. You can do that? 
 
"Of course," said the Russian with a wink. "The only difference is that in America you have freedom AFTER speech."  

This whole hate speech excuse for controlling speech is little more than a thinly veiled attempt by the left to silence conservatives. For socialism, progressivism, or Marxism to grow and prosper and seize power, the socialist revolution must make sure the only messages the "proletariat" (that's you and me) can hear are the smooth lies of Marxism. The ruling class must restrict the masses from ever hearing dissenting voices, The progressive lest must hide the horrific history of progressive socialism in the 20th and 21st centuries.

As a conservative, I am not afraid of dissenting speech. I need not silence you. I believe my ideas are strong enough to go up against yours and that's the difference. Socialists have to silence the opposition in order to maintain power over a compliant populace and to hoodwink people into allowing socialism a foothold.

That said, I do not believe in free speech without consequences. My free speech ends where the end of your nose begins. It does NOT end at the lips of the speaker. This does not mean there are not consequences if your speech is the result of criminal intent or results in crime. If you shout fire in a crowded theater and people are hurt, you are to be punished for causing injury to others and for lying about the fire.  Perjury IS a crime. Opinion is not. If you violate national security with your speech, when you have taken an oath to keep secrets, you CAN get punished for violating your oath. Free speech was merely the means by which you committed the violation. If you slander a person, by telling lies and it does damage to another. That person can sue you and the law can punish you for lying.

The matter of obscenity is a fuzzier issue. Certainly, nobody on the left worries about obscenity when used by their own folks. In facts, leftists take it as a violation of their rights if we even complain when they pollute the air saying "f#@!$" every other word. Leftists in media take great pride and delight in putting that word in the face of every decent moral person. So obviously obscenity is not restricted much at all in a land of free speech. In the past, it was argued that obscenity harmed children who heard it and I think such a case could still be made if anyone worried anymore about raising clean-speaking children.

Pornography is the same deal. The left would have a fit if you restricted dirty movies, nudity and all manner of filth their allies in the entertainment field produce. The only way you can punish pornographers is if you can prove the filmed subject of that pornography is a child or an unwilling exploited person enslaved against her or his will for that purpose. I'm all for punishing the heck out of sex slavers and child traffickers. But it is the act of abusing, not the speech that is punishable and punished.

If I directly command that my followers go to a Trump rally and beat up his supporters, I am culpable if they do so. If I tell them to go to a Ben Shapiro speech and attack people attending the speech (as ANTIFA has done repeatedly), then I am responsible for the result of my speech.

Free speech is one of those pesky things that post-modernist philosophers claim is not an objective truth. In fact they claim that all things are what you say they are and that, there is therefore no objective truth. So truth is what we decide it is. My friend reflects post-modernist thought exactly. This is handy if you're attempting to make a made-up Utopia without having to worry about human nature, sin, economics, morality or any of those things that are problematic in society at large.

What the left wants to do is tell me I cannot speak lest I hurt someone's feelings, but only if it is conservative speech. There are no calls from the left for people who say things like these to be silenced. Here are some examples and certainly not the more egregious ones:

1.   Kathy Griffin held a bloodied, decapitated Donald Trump head up for cameras, as part of her comedy act. Then she complained because her career tanked.
2.    Madonna – "I've thought a lot about blowing up the White House."
3.   Snoop Dogg "Shoots" Trump in the Head in Music Video
4.   Robert De Niro: "I'd Like to Punch Him in the Face"
5.   Joss Whedon: "I Want a Rhino to [F---] Paul Ryan to Death"
6.   Shakespeare in the Park play stabs 'Trump' to death in performance of 'Julius Caesar'.
7.   Rapper YG Threatens Trump with "[F---] Donald Trump" Song
8.   Marilyn Manson Kills 'Trump' in Music Video
9.   “Trump is a half term president, at most, especially if I ever get within 10 feet of that pussy,” Rep. Scott Hamann wrote in a lengthy Facebook tirade.
10.   Maxine Waters calls supporters to "...make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. And if you see anybody from that (Trump) Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere."
11.   One month after President Trump’s inauguration, a group of young children in Chicago were filmed beating and tearing apart a President Trump pinata, while union members and leftist bullies cheered them on.
12.   Tom Arnold took to Twitter to call on fellow Democrats to threaten Barron Trump when Melania takes him to school.
13.   Peter Fonda targeted Barron Trump, saying “We should rip Barron Trump from his mother’s arms and put him in a cage with pedophiles and see if mother will stand up against the giant asshole she is married to…”
14.   Nebraska Democrat Phil Montag, a technology chairman was caught in an audio recording that was posted on YouTube, voicing how glad he was that House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., got shot. Specifically what he said was, 'I'm glad that m@#$rf#$@r [Scalise] got f@#$%ing shot, I wish he was f@#$ing dead!'
15. . Speaking of the baseball shooter, Trump-hating, Bernie Sanders supporter and domestic terrorist James T. Hodgkinson, 66, from Belleville, Illinois, was killed by Capitol Police after firing up to 100 rounds from an assault rifle at a baseball park in Alexandria, Virginia, leaving five injured including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.
16.   Ex- Obama Attorney General, Eric Holder, who was arrested in college for participating in an armed takeover of the former Columbia ROTC office, told a crowd at a rally for Black gubernatorial candidate Stacy Abrams, “Michelle [Obama] always says ‘When they go low, we go high,'” Holder told the crowd. “No. No. When they go low, we kick them…”
17.   Hillary Clinton told CNN’s Cristiane Amanpour that you can’t be civil with a party who doesn’t agree with you. “That’s why I believe if we are fortunate enough to win back the House and/or the Senate, that’s when civility can start again. But until then, the only thing that the Republicans seem to recognize and respect is strength.”
18.   "Michele (Bachmann), slit your wrist. Go ahead... or, do us all a better thing [sic]. Move that knife up about two feet. Start right at the collarbone." -- Montel Williams
19.   For real, if I met Donald Trump, I’d punch him in his f*@#$ng face. And that’s not a joke. Even if he did become president — watch out, Donald Trump, because I will punch you in your f!#@ing face if I ever meet you. Secret Service had better just f!@#$ing be on it. Don’t let me anywhere within a block.”– Rapper Everlast
20.   .I’m just saying if he (Dick Cheney) did die, other people, more people would live. That’s a fact.” — Bill Maher
21.   "....I want to spit on them, take one of their “Obama Plan White Slavery” signs and knock every racist and homophobic tooth out of their Cro-Magnon heads.” — The Washington Post’s Courtland Milloy
22.   "F*** G@# D@#$d Joe the G@# D@#$d M@#$#rf@#ing plumber! I want M@#$#rf@#ing Joe the plumber dead.” — Liberal talk show host Charles Karel Bouley on the air.
23.   "...it’s about time that we have an intifada in this country that change[s] fundamentally the political dynamics in here. And we know every – They’re gonna say some Palestinian being too radical — well, you haven’t seen radicalism yet.” U.C. Berkeley Lecturer Hatem Bazian fires up the crowd at an anti-war rally by calling for an American intifada
24.   "That Scott down there that's running for governor of Florida. Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him." -- Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa
25.   “..And then there’s Rumsfeld.....We should put this S.O.B. up against a wall and say ‘This is one of our bad days’ and pull the trigger.” — From a fund raising ad put out by the St. Petersburg Democratic Club.
26.   "Republicans, whose goal in life is to profit from disaster and who don’t give a hoot about human beings, either can’t or won’t. Which is why I personally think they should be exterminated before they cause any more harm.” — The Village Voice’s Michael Feingold, in a theater review.
27.   "Thalasinos was an anti-government, anti-Islam, pro-NRA, rabidly anti-Planned Parenthood kinda guy, who posted that it would be “Freaking Awesome” if hateful Ann Coulter was named head of Homeland Security.” — Linda Stasi, New York Daily News,on a victim murdered in the San Bernadino terrorist attack
28.   “Cheney deserves same final end he gave Saddam. Hope there are cell cams.” — Rep. Chuck Kruger (D-Thomaston)
29.   “If I had my way, I would see Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell strapped down to electric chairs and lit up like Christmas trees. The better to light the way for American Democracy and American Freedom!” — Democratic Talk Radio’s Stephen Crockett
30.   “May your children all die from debilitating, painful and incurable diseases.” — Allan Brauer, the communications chair of the Democratic Party of Sacramento County to Ted Cruz staffer Amanda Carpenter
31.   “But, you know, the NRA members are the current incarnation of the brownshirts from Germany back in the early ’30s, late ’20s, early ’30s. Now, of course, there came the Night of the Long Knives when the brownshirts were slaughtered and dumped in the nearest ditches when the power structure finally got tired of them. So I look forward to that day.” — Mike Malloy
32.   "Or pick up a baseball bat and take out every f*cking republican and independent I see. #f*cktrump, #f*cktheGOP, #f*ckstraightwhiteamerica, #f*ckyourprivilege." -- Orange is the New Black star Lea DeLaria responding to a meme about using music to deal with violence
33.   “I wish they (Republicans) were all f*@#$g dead!” — Dan Savage
34.   Azealia Banks advocates raping Sarah Palin over a fake news story (the language was too brutal to disguise).

And that's not but a tiny fraction of politicians, writers and celebrities.

The left has been doing this kind of hate speech for decades without the media ginning up any outrage at all. Often in fact, the media contributed to the calls for violence against conservatives. Yet right now it's suddenly imperative that conservative voices be discouraged and where possible silenced. Their reason for defining speech which challenges their opinions is that such speech hurts someone's feeling. DOES ANYBODY THINK THESE HATE-FILLED COMMENTS DIDN'T HURT SOMEONE'S FEELINGS? Ah, but these were only conservative and Republican feelings, so no harm/no foul.

Look at the Prager University videos which have been blocked from being viewed by anyone 17 or under on YouTube. The language is clean in the Prager videos. The speeches are by highly respected individuals from politics, entertainment, journalism and academia are historical, political, philosophical and journalistic commentary with references. Facebook has decided that because Prager U deviates from progressive orthodoxy, it must be censored, suppressed and demonetized.

How long after progressive politicians seize the power to silence people based on their agreement with our dear leaders before they start silencing us for our religious beliefs? Freedom is a dangerous thing. Bad people can use their freedom to hurt their fellow citizens. They can, through free speech, threaten the jobs of sitting political figures and parties in power as they did in the 2016 election. 



 

A free people are difficult for their betters to control. That was kind of the point of the Constitution. Former President Obama, lamented that the Constitution was all about what the government cannot do. Obama called it a charter of "negative" liberties. Clearly progressives such as the ex-president are far more concerned with the rights and responsibilities of government than they were about the rights of individuals.

In America people have rights. Governments are not permitted to restrict our natural rights which are outlined in the Bill of Rights. The Constitution doesn't trust government any more than I do. The Bill of Rights were written not to grant us rights as the Magna Carta and virtually every other country's founding documents do, but to forbid the government from restricting rights we already possess. Other countries' governments and sovereigns pretend to grant rights to citizens. The right to trial by jury in England is granted to Britishers by the Queen and technically may be withdrawn at her will. She doesn't have the power to do it, but if she were somehow to seize that power, the monarchy claims that your rights belong to them.

It may be that this is too nit-pickey an argument for those who would find reason to shut up people who challenge their progressive notions. The rage from the left over conservative speech is telling. It is the anger of the spoiled child over being denied something it wants.

I have something to say about that.

© 2019 by Tom King

According to Socialists, the Collapse of Venezuela is Capitalism's Fault

A Venezuelan socialist goes grocery shopping with cash....
...and leftists are trying to tell us that's capitalism's fault.

The left really does some convoluted reasoning to defend their ideology. In this article, a young progressive tries to figure out how to say America is worse off than if we'd just go ahead and turn major sectors of the economy over to socialism.  It's truly laughable that he cites healthcare as a prime example.  Premiums for health care were shrinking prior to the ACA reforms by 4.6%, and went UP 46% in the four years after. Since 2013, premiums have jumped another 60% from the inflated prices of the the first four years of Obamacare.

I know socialism sounds like such a great idea, but it has such a giant flawed principal behind it that it never works. People aren't basically good. Nor can people be perfected from without. No combination of law or systemic organization or central planning can make people better. There is no record of a successful human created utopia in all of history. No collectivist worker’s paradises exist. The United States’ founders’ scheme of individualism, personal responsibility, limited government, local authority, free market capitalism and personal property has managed to survive 267 years of human frailty, largely because as a Christian nation, we’ve striven for personal goodness rather than collective good. If you make the people better, the government tends to be better. It never works the other way round. You can’t legislate goodness. It just never works. Even God couldn’t do it. That’s the lesson of the Old Testament. You have to start with cleaning yourself up with the help of God. When He puts a new clean heart in you, the rest takes care of itself.

When I see collectivist progressives gather around the altar of government and swear something like, “All that the collective says, we will do,” I am reminded of the Israelites gathered around Mt. Sinai when they altered the deal God was offering.  Instead they told God, “All Thou hast said, we will do.” There was no recognition  then that the law had no power to cleanse them of their sin — only to reveal it. God offered repeatedly to change their hearts, to dwell in them and make them better people, but the Israelites kept coming back with, “That’s alright, God. We’ll do it ourselves. When that didn't work they decided they needed more human effort.  "Only give us a king," they said. "We think a stronger central government is needed.” And four books of the Bible are devoted to explaining what a bad idea that was.

Satan’s old lie goes on — “Thou shalt be like gods.”

No you won't. You’ll only be a better grade of devil.

Tom King

The Myth of "The Right Kind of Ruler"

Comedy Central's John Oliver took on the disaster happening before our eyes in Venezuela and manages not to mention the word "socialism other than to specify that it's not socialism's fault". The American left never seems to associate the consequences of creating powerful collectivist/socialist states with collectivism/socialism itself. If anyone points it out, they always fall back on blaming the consequences themselves. It was "greed", "corruption", mismanagement, the "wrong people" were in charge, they didn't do it right. Always there is the assumption that it's something else that's the problem and never socialism itself.

 

The difference between socialism and an actual free market democratic republic like America is that for socialism to work you have to have "the right leaders". Where socialism fails, socialists always chalk it up to not having the right leaders. It's exactly like medieval reasoning - there are good kings and bad kings, but we must have a king!

American style republics don't depend on having a "good" king. We depend on the vote of the people and the checks and balances of our three part government. We don't have to have a "good leader" and we can survive bad leaders (see Barak Obama). The republic, because of it's structure, tamps down the depredations of bad leaders. So long as power in this nation remains diffused and decentralized, we remain safe. But if we create a great deal of political power that is housed in one individual, the corruptible will be drawn to that power like moths to a flame.

That is why socialism inevitably fails. The collective depends too heavily on the "natural goodness" of man. Man is NOT naturally good and because of this, there will always be an abundant supply of evil, power-hungry human beings to rush to seize power over their fellows and it always turns out badly at some point, despite everyone's best intentions.

The checks and balances of our democratic republic assume that too much power in any one man's or party's hands is fatal to the natural rights and liberties of our nation's people. It was an incredible piece of wisdom on the part of our founding fathers and just at the right time as the powers that ruled the Old World were busily trying to root out the sort of troublesome people that actually believed they should be able to speak, write, worship, and defend themselves without the permission of human authority. Scripture talks of a place near the end of time where the children of God might seek refuge from persecution by the powers of darkness. Well, America is it. We are a nation of refugees from religious and economic persecution, As it turns out most of that economic persecution was against people because of their faith. Nothing like America had ever been done before.

I believe the devil hates this place that God has given us and seeks to restore the authoritarian power of the Old World, here in the New. Karl Marx and Charles Darwin offered the Old World elite a justification for a revival of the ruling classes. The fittest were by right our rulers and we must serve the states represented by these smart, special people for the "good of all". 

 

I do not hold to that. As my favorite spaceship captain has said, "I aim to misbehave!"  We must not go gentle into that good night as Welsh poet Dylan Thomas advised his dying father. We must rage, rage against the dying of the light. A fight is coming if we are to hold on to the gains our country achieved. As a favorite president of mine once said, "We are a shining city on a hill."  Someone out there is trying desperately to extinguish the lights.

We know how it's going to go. Revelation is full of the dire warnings as to how badly it will go toward the end of time. We will have to fight with our backs to the wall for what is right and good. And just when we think that all is lost, it is then we will see our salvation coming in the clouds. Remember this. The Second Coming is not a conquest, but a rescue mission. Sin and evil must finally destroy itself. For the first time in history, man has the power to turn the Earth into a lake of fire and destroy himself utterly.

I don't think God will need to kindle the fires of hell. Men like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Hugo Chavez and others have shown that sinners are quite capable of wreaking fire and desolation and destroy themselves utterly all by themselves without God's help. But we shall return and upon the ashes of evil, we will rebuild this beautiful world one day, but the end must be what it is, for the wages of sin truly is death and it must come to it's own sorry end if it is never to rise again throughout eternity. The universe must see it for the lesson to sink in. It's the only way to inoculate the future against the disease that is evil.

Just sayin'.

© 2018 by Tom King

Jesus Was Never a Socialist

Jesus' reaction to confiscatory taxation.

Have you seen all the memes lately proclaiming Jesus is a socialist? Usually, it's someone trying to make the case that Trump is the anti-Christ and that Christians ought to support the resistance against him. They state that Jesus was a socialist as if that were a foregone conclusion.

But generally such persons have no idea who Jesus was other than that he was some guy that thought we should love everybody and feed the poor. And that's what they thing socialism is all about. This reveals a massive ignorance of both Christ's teachings and the teachings of Karl Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Nicolae Ceausescu, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot and the rest of the socialists' greatest leadership hits parade.

Here's how Jesus differs with the great principles of socialism.

1.  From each according to his ability to each according to his need. On the face of it this sounds very much like what Jesus did. Actually, at no time does Jesus advocate stealing or taking forcibly from one person to give to another person. While Jesus did expect his followers to distribute their surpluses to the poor and needy, he never suggested that the government do it for them. Quite the contrary he only valued voluntary charity.
2. Collectivism, collective bargaining, minimum wage. In a parable, found in Matthew 20:1-16, Christ told the story of the vineyard owner who hired workers to harvest his grapes. He hired workers first thing in the morning. He hired more workers later in the day going back to hire more workers right up to the last hour of the day. At the end of the day, he payed each worker the same amount. The guys who came in the morning complained that the guys that only worked an hour got the same pay. Jesus said that they had no complaint since they had agreed on the amount they would work for at the beginning of the day. It was none of their business that the owner paid everyone a different amount per hour. Jesus did not advocate minimum wages or even equal pay. Jesus believed you should negotiate your own deal. Collective bargaining was not a feature of Jesus' economy. The man who owned the vineyard told the complaining workers this:  “Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I now allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?”  If you translate the last phrase literally, it read, “Is your eye evil because I am good?”
3. Government must make everything fair.  Fairness, if you are a socialist generally translates to sameness. In pure socialist economies, everyone makes the same wage whether you are a doctor or a garbage man. But Jesus demonstrates in his parables that fairness isn't about equal pay for equal work. Fairness is about receiving the pay you were promised. If an employer pays a worker what he promised to pay him, then it's fair. It doesn't mean workers are paid exactly the same amount. 
4. Public ownership of the means of production. Jesus was a capitalist. His stories take place in a world where there is private ownership of the means of production. In his parables each worker is free to make his own deal for wages. In Jesus' parables the employer must pay his employees what he promised. There is no need for government management in any of his stories.
5. Forcible redistribution of wealth through taxation. The most stunning episode that illustrates this point is when Jesus discovered a taxation scheme in the Temple itself where the Priests were collecting fees through inflated pricing at the money-changers tables where, in order to make sacrifices according to the Mosaic Law, worshipers were being forced to pay exorbitant fees. It was quite a scheme. You could only use temple coins to make offerings, so you had to trade your Roman coins for temple money at the money-changers tables and they were gouging customers. They were giving a cut to the Priests for the right to operate the money-changing franchises. Jesus responded to this attempt at government manipulation by roaring onto the Temple portico with a whip in his hand, over-turning tables and saying harsh things about the corrupt practice which basically circumvented the free market for doves, sheep, cows and pigeons 
6. The classless society. Jesus described a society in which one's pay and station depended on hard work, careful investment, and the making of a profit. The parable of the servants who were entrusted with varying amounts of gold describes nothing less than a performance review by the employer. The ones who proved dependable, trustworthy and capable were rewarded with financial reward and received advancement according to their ability.This is not an economy in which one advances merely by occupying a position for a given amount of time and unrelated to performance.

Early Christian Collectivism:

Yes, Christians gathered together when the church was being persecuted and shared resources. These were small group tactics designed to help survive and attack. As armies do, these Christian soldiers formed an organized effort so that they could spread the gospel and at the same time take care of each other when they were under attack as a group. As persecution let up and the gospel spread, Christians began moving into small communities and cities and taking up free market self-support selling purple die, building tents, fishing and other types of enterprise.  Christians like their Jewish forebears became producing members of society and, without the need of government to make it so. It can be argued that the corruption of the Christian Church began the moment they were granted state sponsorship by Constantine and descended even further when the Roman emperor handed the power of government to the papacy when Rome was divided. This was not something Jesus would have approved of. The corrupt government of Israel in his own time, received his harsh criticism during his ministry. His disciples were almost all murdered by government. 

Let's face it, socialism is based on violation of at least two of the ten commandments. The eighth says "Thou shalt not steal."  To take by force is theft. Taxation where it is beyond the willingness of those taxed is theft.  To say it is not really theft, but that government has a "right" to tax citizens could be argued to be a violation of the commandment "Thou shalt not bear false witness."  Finally, the commandment that prohibits greed, "Thou shalt not covet." 

At no time did Jesus say anything remotely like "Let the poor go unto a dot gov website and apply for food stamps that they might be fed." He expected us to take care of our responsibilities to the poor and needy and not to put it off on the government in order to (as liberal TV personality Joy Behar put it), "So that I don't have to worry about the poor."

Jesus was no socialist. He fed the poor, healed the sick, and introduced the lost to their Father who loved them and would care for them and teach them to stand on their own two feet.

Just sayin'

© by Tom King

Environmentalist to Denier: "What about stewardship?"

Who's going to have the whole world in their hands?
That's the real question and militant environmentalists
believe they have the answer - more power in fewer hands.

In expressing my skepticism as to whether human-caused (anthropomorphic) climate change, someone who knows me for a Christian asked, "What about stewardship?

Well, what about it?

I believe in stewardship. I do. I think therefore that all of us should clean up our own messes. That doesn't mean we all have to become one giant Marxist collective and give up our freedom to decide for ourselves whether we want to drive a car or use public transportation, live in the city or the country, or start a business or work for a corporation or the government. 

What it's really all about is who makes the decisions. I believe decision-making should happen as close to the individual and his community as possible. I don't believe collectives are good for individuals or, for that matter, the Earth. We err when we place the kind of power a socialist government needs into the hands of the central planners who run it. And trust me when I tell you, the bulk of the environmentalist movement are died-in-the-wool progressive socialists who believe that the solution to the threat to the planet is collectivist global government and a massive reduction in population, mostly in Western nations for some reason. 

To save the planet we are told we must give up power to those who are smarter than we are and obey their directives as to where to live, what to eat, how to get around and how to educate our kids. In other words just grant them power and they will save us from a threat I frankly do not believe is so great we should bow to their golden ideological image.  The lust for power to, as the serpent in the Garden of Eden put it, "...be like gods" is dangerous. While most of those trying to put into place a kindly and benevolent powerful government may actually have the best of intentions, we must remember that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Karl Marx truly believed that the rich were evil and that workers, if placed in charge of everything, would be good and benevolent. Turns out power attracts the corruptible and the finest most trusted leader in the world must one day hand off power to another, if someone doesn't stick a knife in him first and seize that power for himself. Do you see the danger?

The idea that some giant collectivist government can "save the planet" is merely propaganda designed to convince people to give up their freedom in exchange for the illusion of safety. It's all been tried before. The death toll was horrific and the destruction to the environment appalling. All at the hands of what was to have been a worker's paradise. Putting power in the hands of corruptible humans for whatever ostensible reason (saving the planet, saving the poor, saving the peace) is always a mistake. As CS Lewis put it:

Just sayin'

© 2016 by Tom King

Danish Girl Fights off Rapist; Gets Charged With Crime

© Yahoo News

You know that wonderful socialist Denmark that Bernie Sanders loves so much? Yahoo News carried a revealing story of a 17 year old Danish girl who was attacked, knocked down and almost raped while walking near a Muslim refugee center in Denmark. Fortunately for her, she was able to get to her handy bottle of pepper spray and gave the would-be rapist an eyeful, driving him away and allowing her to escape. 

Apparently Danish girls, who defend themselves when attacked, are guilty of a crime for driving off their attackers. The young woman who was attacked by a would-be rapist, it seems, drove off her attacker with illegal pepper spray. In "socialist" Denmark, it's a crime for girls under 18 to own pepper spray. So, now the 17 year old young lady, not only has the trauma of an attempted rape to deal with, she's being charged with a crime and fined. 

So in this socialist utopia of Sanders', you can be old enough to be raped but too young to own a defensive weapon?

So, let me get this straight. Young girls, if attacked, are to do what? Submit if they are under 18? Try to run away and hope the rapist doesn't stumble and hurt himself? Or should they follow the University of Colorado's advice and pee or vomit on yourself to discourage a rapist. How screwed up is a system that floods itself with angry individuals who feel that because they dislike your decadent culture, that raping your women is somehow appropriate behavior and then discourages women from owning defensive weapons? 

To give them credit, the Danes are moving away from the old socialist system in an effort to save their country's economic and social system. Many Danes have offered to pay the girl's fine and there has been a real uproar from right-thinking Danish people over the incident.

While that's all well and good, it still leaves young girls vulnerable if they are "walking while female" near refugee centers in Denmark.

This point up one of the issues with socialist systems. In order to make the collectivist system work, the government needs a relatively high level of control. To do that, they have to restrict access to any means by which the citizenry could rise up and cause the government trouble. They restrict guns in other words. Apparently, they also restrict pepper spray. Wouldn't want the secret police to get their eyes all stingish, I suppose.

The trouble is, that in protecting itself from law-abiding citizens, socialist governments leave the proletariat defenseless against those who are not law-abiding citizens. You see there are laws against rape too, but the law can't find the rapist. The only one who could be charged with a crime was the victim of the crime itself.

And then there's the problem with collectivism. It doesn't work unless everyone obeys the government and the only way to make sure everyone obeys the government is to disarm them and once you do that, the citizenry can be marched into the gas chambers and the gulags at the whim of the government. The rape victim being treated as a criminal is just the tip of the iceberg - a warning of a much deeper problem beneath.

Are we sure we want to go full socialist with Bernie Sanders or even socialist lite with Hillary or worse crony socialist with Donald Trump? 
 
I don't think so, but then, that's just me. 

Just one man's opinion,

Tom King
© 2016

Should American Children Learn the Principles of Islam in History Class?

Even a fan of big brain central
planning like Isaac Asimov,
recognized the dangers of a
big bully wrecking the carefully
crafted central planning of society's
well-meaning mental superiors in
his "Foundation" sci-fi series. 

Todd Starnes over at Fox News has sparked a debate over the issue of whether kids should study Islam in public school, when he wrote a piece that documented parental outrage over their children being "forced" to learn the principles of Islam in a Tennessee public school. The Huffington Post shot back with a piece that pretty much distorted what Starnes actually said and glossed over the fact that the teacher in question had decided to "put off" the chapter on Christianity till the end of the school year as one parent claimed or told another parent that it was "against school policy" to discuss Christianity in school.

Starnes' point was that the teacher in question had a double standard where teaching about religions in a history class was concerned, not as HuffPo accused the Fox commentator, that Christianity should be taught in public schools and not Islam. Starnes, in his column, wasn't calling for Bible classes down at Thomas Jefferson Junior High School. As usual, liberals muddy up the issue, call conservative hypocrites and then declare themselves a moral victory, thus claiming an unearned moral high ground for themselves. Speaking of junior high school, does anyone else think that sounds suspiciously like "Nanny, nanny, boo, boo." I don't know about you, but the Huffing and Puffington Post piece feels just like one of those playground bully that used to smack down the littler kids and claim the kingship of the playground for himself on the basis of his being genetically larger than everyone else.

Look, as to the issue of teaching about Islam in a high school or junior high school history class, I've got no problem with that. I think an examination of Islam's fundamental beliefs by school children would be quite useful - at least as part of history class. 

"Know thy enemy," I always say. In reading T.H. Lawrence's (yes THAT Lawrence; the one from Arabia) "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" I came to an understanding of Islam that further convinced me that my "nutty" conservative political beliefs were dead on. Knowing the cultural background of Islam and the principles taught by Mohammed has made the Middle East all too frighteningly understandable. 

We have been trained to wonder after power and pomp.

Were I a teacher again, I would definitely introduce Islam's tenets to my students, in hopes that, with all else they know about history and their own culture, they might at least put up a token resistance to the "fundamental change" that's being foisted upon America. A thorough understanding not only of Islam, but also of Roman Catholicism, the Protestant Revolution and the doctrine of the divine right of kings, just might open young eyes to see the Euro-Marxist invaders who have co-opted our government and somehow convinced the citizens of the greatest nation in the world so far, that it should be ashamed of itself. 

A clear understanding of where this whole collectivism disease is all coming from, would, I hope, convince young Americans that we should NOT quietly recede from the world stage and join a homogeneous socialist proletariat under the rule of our mythical European/African/Asian/Latin American betters. As regular readers of my blog know, I blame Walt Disney. I love Uncle Walt as an entrepreneur, but he is also responsible for teaching generations of kids that hereditary princes and princesses are better suited to governing nations than the people themselves. 

They don't mean the Hapsburgs, those European wastrel monarchs that decimated Europe for generations with their wars and taxes and castle-building when the collectivists talk about the special class of rulers. They mean Darwin's smart, strong people - those who made it big and have joined the social elite by virtue of their genetic superiority. The leftist actors, politicians, corporate elites, wealthy billionaires and academicians are busily teaching us that we are all not equal but the same and should submit to central planning and guidance. The guidence, of course, they mean to come from themselves, since, of course, they, being smarter, know what is best for us after all.

Islamists have a similar system in place. It's best that our kids know that and recognize the danger, if those of us who believe, not in collectivism, but in individualism are going to put up any useful resistance. In America, the government draws its power from the people. In most of the rest of the world, people believe they draw their rights from the government - the ancient European way. Brits draw their rights, they believe, from the queen. 

Check out any "People's" republic or democratic-republic you care to name and the principle is the same, and it is the same in Islamic countries. Sir Robert Filmer, an opponent of John Locke whose philosophy guided the foundation of the United States, stated quite clearly the monarchist's philosophy or the so-called "divine right of kings". Filmer said flatly, that we are all born slaves and designed by God to serve that special few whom God ordained should be our sovereigns. Locke took apart Filmer's argument block by block through logic, reason and scripture. Locke was a notable theologian in his own right as it turns out, hammering Filmer's theory from Scripture. 

When Locke's principles were inculcated into the US Constitution, monarchy and the idea of a divinely appointed hereditary "nobility" took a heavy blow. America appeared to enjoy the blessings of the Almighty rather than his curses. Meanwhile the divine kings and princes back in Europe were "governing" themselves into an inevitable decline thanks to their unceasing wars and wasteful spending. 

But thanks to Charles Darwin and the idea of evolution by natural selection or "Survival of the Fittest" as it came to be known, the ruling class found a new ally that supported the divine right of elites to rule.  According to Darwin, those who had clawed their way to the top of society, were, the simplistic argument went, the hereditary "fittest" and therefore, an elite class of humans fit to meddle in the affairs of "the lower classes" or as Marx called the unwashed rabble - the proletariat. 

Under Marx's vision, the world should return to a two-class system and the troublesome bourgeouise middle class would be conveniently absorbed into harmlessness as part of the new collectivism. There they would serve the state - meaning those who are already running things, instead of selfishly looking out for themselves and their families. The only problem (and the fat cats, for some reason, never see it coming), there's always some megalomaniac lunatic out there ready to seize the machinery of collectivism and proceed to exploit the "everybody serves the state" mentality that's been created by the well-meaning social elites. Then said strongman merely redefines the state to mean "myself" and then robs, rapes and murders the intelligentsia that gave him his power in the first place. 

Individualists do not last long under the "divine right" of the elites system at whatever stage it happens to be at. That said, there is also the law of unintended consequences at play here. The argument is always made that socialism or communism or monarchism or whatever it calls itself, didn't work before because "we didn't have the right leader". They assure us with great fanfare and lots of symbols and logos that this latest version of the "Dear Leader" will give us the hope and change utopia we all long for. The trouble is that if you give any state that much power over the so-called masses, it is inevitably run by some class of bully. 

Those who represent the bully state may, in-fact be well-meaning bullies, but any time bullies demand that everybody submit their will to themselves, the all-powerful state thus created is always vulnerable to the rise of a bigger, more dangerous bully. Isaac Asimov, who was actually a fan of letting the smart guys plan everyone's future, recognized that an unforeseen big bully might wreck even the carefully laid plans of well-meaning smart people when he introduced "The Mule" character into his "Foundation" series. He recognized that vast centralized power can be a dangerous thing, even in the hands of nice guys and that the best-laid plans, as Scots poet Robert Burns aptly put it, "Oft-times gang agley."  They can, and probably will, given the lust for power that runs in the human race

That's why, I think that learning about how a bully like Mohamed took over the Arab culture via the drumming of a set of fundamental beliefs into the minds of his people, is a useful educational exercise. I think an honest study of comparative religions could be a very instructive for what Rush Limbaugh calls "young skulls full of mush".  Don't get me wrong, I also think that comparative study should be America-centric. I don't mind investigating where Christianity went wrong while you're at it. The governmentalization of faith under the Roman church was a huge mistake and one that seems it is trying to repeat. There were good reasons for the Protestant rebellion. Those should be studied too, because the inform the history that followed, from the Spanish Armada, the bloody history of South and Central America to the reasons for the American Revolution. All these help us understand why the rise of the United States became the most earth-shaking thing to hit history since the Flood.

The brilliance of our founding fathers was in their structuring of the government of the new nation into three equal branches, each of which acts as a balance to the other, preventing any one branch from getting too big for its britches. It makes for a woefully inefficient system of government with a whole set of problems all its own, but if you paid any attention in history class when you were a kid, you realize that an "efficient" government is usually most efficient at murdering dissenters among the people it "serves".  

And when I talk about history class, I don't mean the revisionist double-think version of history our leftist academia has foisted upon an unsuspecting generation of young Americans. I mean history - the kind you dig out of books written by those that history actually happened to. History unvarnished and uninterpreted for you. That's the sort of dangerous thing Huffpo and other liberal pundits would like to see eliminated. It's dangerous to allow kids to learn from source material. It requires them to learn to think for themselves. And that threatens the Progressive movement to no end, for without the proper interpretation of history by those in authority, kids might not realize that they are naturally born to slavery and to serve their betters as part of a collectivist state.

And we wouldn't want them to be squeamish about shooting individualists when the revolution comes, would we?*

Tom King - © 2015
* That was sarcasm by the way - for those of you from San Francisco, Rio Linda and any writers at the Huffington Post.

Ghosts of 1933 - Nationalists, Isolationists and Socialists, oh my!

Finally, my neo-anarchist Ron Paul lovin' buddies have come out of the closet. This morning I got another breathless post from my Paulista buddy with a copy of a Robert Sheer article praising Obama's policy in Iraq and flogging poor old George Bush yet again.

Well at least the Paulistas are expressing their love for Obama openly now. I've always thought these conspiracy devotees were neo-anarchists in disguise. Historically, anarchists always were the partners of socialists in revolutions and have always worked side by side with them to bring down nations.

Sheer asks when has nation-building ever worked?

How about post WWII Germany, Japan and Italy?


On the other hand I can cite you plenty of evidence that failure to nation build has failed?

Post WWI Germany, for instance!

So why did is it failing in Iraq?  It failed because Obama abandoned Iraq in the midst of the process. What I really can't believe is the attempt by Sheer to turn Saddam Hussein into our best buddy. The man was a megalomaniac, a butcher and he DID have weapons of mass destruction! Where the hell do you think Syria got all those chemical weapons? Where do you think Saddam got the stuff to nerve gas tens of thousands of Shiites in his own country. Did he wave a friggin' magic wand and suddenly their lungs were all burned our and their eyes roasted in their sockets?  Even if it was magic and he really didn't have chemical weapons, his magical powers would qualify as a WMD in and of themselves and the man needed to be put down. Ghaddafi fell because he over-reached. He was quiet all those years because he was afraid. Reagan blew up his house for attacking Americans. It made him appear weak.


Of course, in Arab countries a show of weakness will almost always get you killed. That's been going on in the Barbary States for more than a millenium. It's how leadership works in most Islamic countries. Only strong men willing to do horrific things to their enemies tend to survive long at the top in the Arab world - at least long enough to die peacefully in their beds, although you should probably do a toxicology screening as part of the autopsy.

Neo-anarchists and their willing allies on the left, think that if you repeat "Saddam has no WMD's" and "power vacuum" enough times that it will make sense to people with a modicum of native intelligence. Why not? It worked for another famous nationalist/socialist - Joseph Goebbels. In 1939, these idealogues would have been fretting about a power vacuum in Europe if we removed Mr. Hitler. They were, in fact, carving Mussolini's ugly mug on the walls of New York public building in tribute to his visionary leadership. They were isolationists, pounding their tubs and insisting that the world would sort itself out on its own without our interference.

I want to scream I really do. We are so doomed! Between the unicorn/rainbow/sex/drugs/rock n' roll left and the isolationist/anarchist/conspiracy-obsessed fringe right, we're in the hands of a generation of spoiled brats who hate America and everything that they can't have or control.

God give us strength because the American ship is sinking fast and the passengers aren't bailing anymore. They're pouring water in to make us sink faster.


And I just realized something scary. The fringe right are nationalist, America only fanatics. The hard left are socialists.  Nationalists? Socialists? Working together? Sharing goals? Anybody remember the last time nationalists and socialists got together on something during a big economic downturn?


All we need is some determined fringe radical with a fanatic following.................................uh-oh.


© 2014 by Tom King