Thursday, February 4, 2016

Bedrock principles of post-constitutional America.

The West never came close to proletarian revolution. The Left likes to believe that it did. They like to argue that "Franklin Roosevelt saved capitalism from itself." This is another way of saying that John Maynard Keynes saved capitalism from itself. Both arguments are incorrect. Roosevelt and Keynes met only once. Roosevelt correctly assessed Keynes as a mathematician, not an economist. This was true. Keynes got his degree in mathematics, not economics. Roosevelt was the source of what we call Keynesianism, 1933-36, not Keynes, whose General Theory appeared in 1936. But scholars like to believe that academic arguments shape the world. They don't. They conform what has already begun to take root in the thinking and practices of the general public.

When men decided that "thou shalt not steal" means "thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote," the Keynesian worldview was born. This view is dominant today. Marxism is dead. So is cultural Marxism.

To win this battle, we must persuade men that "thou shalt not steal" means this: it is immoral to steal, with or without majority vote.[1]

This immoral approach to government is true at all levels of government in the U.S. and throughout the West. In the U.S., a vital corollary of this theft is that if any proposed federal spending – the most profligate of all government spending – isn't in aid of one of the enumerated powers of Congress in Art. Sect. 8 it doesn't matter.

Thus, (1) Theft is ok and (2) the use of the money is ok, regardless of any constitutional limitation.

Notes
[1] "Cultural Marxism Is an Oxymoron." By Gary North , Gary North 's Specific Answers, - 7/1/14.

2 comments:

Reg T said...

For that to work, Col., a belief in morality would have to be returned to the value system of most of the populace. Not merely because it should, nor because it would take a majority of those involved to effect it, but because the citizens of this country have lost - or had washed from their brains in our schools and universities, and our social justice churches of pretty much _all_ denominations - the understanding that the right of the individual should be sacrosanct. That the theft of his property - especially his _self_ - will not be countenanced.

Just as it is wrong for the Left (I include government, appropriately, I believe) to steal from us to provide charity, much of it to people who don't deserve it or even need it (get a job, damn it!), it is wrong for government to steal from all of us (who don't have enough deductions) to use our money for so many senseless things we would never want nor ask for - like war. Against Syria, for example, or Libya via cruise missile, or - well, I know you get the point.

Without a moral base that is integral to the people involved, we get the government with which we find ourselves. Corrupt, immoral, venal, tyrannical. And you really don't have to be religious to understand that, although having been exposed to the Judeo-Christian code at some time in your life certainly helps. But it isn't a part of Common Core, that's for sure.

Col. B. Bunny said...

Madison long ago said he could not undertake to put his finger on that portion of the Constitution that authorized the payment of any federal money to some fellow's widow. The Supreme Court was the institution that was best suited to protect that principle but after Wickard the rout of constitutionalists was complete.