A Beginning

This blog is intended to articulate what made this country great, and why and how that greatness is disintegrating. In the broadest of strokes, this country became great by doing what no country had done, and no country has done since - setting out to defend the rights of the individual (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness) as SUPERSEDING the rights or demands of government, or society as a whole. Based on a Christian worldview, the founders of the United States created a government that saw each man and woman as AN END IN THEMSELVES, and NOT as the means to the ends of society or government. They conceived the government as a policeman, protecting the products of each man and woman's minds and efforts from the clutches of other men, other groups, government, and most importantly from the community as a whole. Men and women were NOT to be slaves. This was historic in the most awesome sense. It led to the greatest period of economic growth, increase in living standard, wealth creation, and technological innovation the world has ever seen. Sadly, the idea, once started, was soon infected and poisoned by the philosophies of collectivism. The painful story of this country's turning back on its vow to protect the individual can be traced through government entrance into railroad markets, non-objective anti-trust laws, the elimination of the gold standard, the establishment of the federal reserve system, law upon law establishing the welfare state, the social security system, the medicare/aid system, the income tax system, etc., etc., In each of these cases, the life of the individual is step-wise, taken from him or her. In each case, by either direct action or through more complicated steps of money exchange, the product of individual thought and labor is confiscated from some men, and given to others, by NO right, but that of force, of a gun (for this is the nature of all government action - if you don't believe me, stop paying your income tax, and then continue to refuse; refuse to go to jail; you will see the gun.) In each case, YOUR property - the product of your effort and mind - your LIFE, is taken from you by force. When the individual elects a representative, by the nature of the relationship, protection of the individual's rights is foremost. But it hasn't been. For the past 100 years, the betrayals have been perpetrated ever more brazenly, and for at least the last 50 years, criticism of this practice of forced enslavement has dwindled in the face of collectivist forces exerted in the media, the compulsory education system, and confused pop-culture. As a result of this deterioration and obfuscation, we have reached a state in which the latest government caused economic disaster can not only occur, but be BLAMED on the people who were coerced into poor business practices by the government, and worse, paid for by the individual taxpayer. During the Clinton administration, collectivism in the form of 'politically correct' criteria were forced on the lending institutions of this country. This was not corrected by the Bush administration. Lending institutions were, by law, PENALIZED for following tried and true lending practices like denying loans to those without sufficient assets. Lending institutions were rewarded with financial incentives for making risky loans to marginal and even outright poor candidates, particularly if they were to a "minority group." The result was a housing and investment BOOM since capital could be had by nearly ANYONE. (Think back now to the 1920's when there was an investment BOOM following the institution of federal reserve practices to make investment capital readily available purely on the backing of congressional taxing ability, since the gold standard was gone.) Now look at the result today when the government infuses essentially 'free' money into the market, not by MARKET forces, but by "let us 'do good' by giving loans to the minority and 'unable to pay' groups." When those who could obviously not pay, don't pay, the market trembles, then halts, then values fall, and the panic begins, as the loans - those "IOU's" become worthless. Think back to when the same thing happened in the late 1920's, when all that easy federal reserve investment money was poured into countless risky investment schemes, poorly run businesses, and unwise loans. Recall the crash of 1929 when REALITY was realized by the forefathers of today's foolish collectivists. Recall the response of the government to try to infuse TAXPAYER money into first the failing British economy and then our own. This response made it worse, by taking a problem that would have financially ruined SOME, and spread that misery to the entire country (and the world). The government created the problem by making tax payer money the backer for run away loaning practices in BOTH cases (and designed the loaning practices in this case). Then, when values fell, what was the collectivist response? It was to take MORE of the taxpayer money (the effort and labor of you and me) and, in essence, give it to the institutions which made the poor decisions. Today's evil is worse, in that it was the government's policies which coerced the financial institutions into following such insane (but pc) lending practices. Now, instead of learning from policies of the US government after the '29 crash, policies which for years worsened the Depression, we, in the same collectivist spirit, are doing the EXACT SAME THING -- throwing good taxpayer money (your effort and my effort) after bad. It is not possible to expect a better result. Now, businesses can not get necessary and well secured loans. Thank you, Bill Clinton, for making the United State's lending practices **fair** for all. It is sickening that not one of the supposedly "conservative," or republican, or even libertarian parties can stand up and clearly articulate and denounce this crime, and more importantly the evil philosophy behind it - the philosophy that the rights of the individual are superseded by the interests of the collective, of society--- which only means in the end that the rights of SOME men are superseded by the interests of others. And so we have the men who legislated poor business practices in the name of political correctness, causing a financial disaster, then increasing the harm by forcing the American taxpayer to cover the losses of the companies crippled by their legislation, and THEN - then to BLAME the **FREE** market and the supposed 'greed' of that system for the problem!! What the HELL was free about the movements of lending institutions pressured by legislation? Free men running successful lending institutions DO NOT make insanely risky loans out of *greed* freely -- They didn't become successful by being freely STUPID. They did it because legislation rewarded them for doing so, made it financially harmful to do otherwise, and reassured them that the government’s taxing power would back them up. And the collectivists, the "liberals", have the audacity to blame "the greed of the *free* market?" It is nauseating. Does no one see that this collectivist, liberal attempt to redistribute wealth did just that? – take from the group creating the bulk of government confiscated revenue, the so-called middle class, and give to whom? – to the very lending institutions which were legislatively coerced into insane policy, to the same lending institutions tacitly ‘backed’ by the actions of the legislature, a legislature which is LOBBIED BY these institutions (notably our new president), to, in fact many of whom the liberals would (and did) loudly denounce on TV as ‘the rich.”

This sort of evil must be fought in every way possible. That is the purpose of this blog, to be one more (admittedly small) voice of the people - the American individual, who was and still is the suffering, condemned, abused, motive power for this country and the world, shackled by the collectivist looters, and bled by apathetic parasites. This individual deserves a defense.

(For a real life example of this individual, read this letter.)