Onward and Upward to 2010!

Well, another year is in the can. I can't say that 2009 was altogether a good year -- I spent the whole year unemployed. It has, however, led me to do what I should have done a long time ago. I am a professional freelance writer at last. This is all I ever really wanted to do, anyway.

We can get lulled, by relatively good times, into trying to play it safe. But a life of doing nothing but playing it safe is really nothing more than a living death. I believe I'm now doing what I was put on this earth to do. That's the only way to truly live.

I guess, as I have finally come to realize, I am one of those rare and endangered birds known as a gay conservative. A "Goldwater" conservative, surely -- a classical liberal -- a libertarian. But that still, along with my Christian faith, sets me squarely on the Rightward end of the spectrum.

This in itself means that life will not be easy. I may never be an accepted member of the "club." But I have greater obligations to consider. I must follow my heart and stand for all I believe to be true. I will get plenty of flak for this. But as one of my heroes in the faith, Martin Luther, once proclaimed, "Here I stand, and so help me God, I can do nothing else."

No more playing it safe for me. I must answer the call of a Higher Authority. In 2010, it will be onward and upward for me.

I only hope and pray that, for the sake of this country, 2010 will bring many others onward and upward, as well.

A Long Road Traveled

There is no longer any real difference between the way Left-wing and Right-wing statists behave. Both are equally addicted to aggression. They are twins under the skin.

THIS is why I have finally realized I am a libertarian for sure.

Each side has its own convenient scapegoats, which are mindlessly accepted as villains and demonized by those who adhere to its philosophy. For the statist Right, it's gays. For the Left, it's "the rich."

When Leftists start babbling about the "evil rich," look out. They're coming after the wallets of ordinary, working-class Americans. Never, ever do actual rich people end up paying the price of these crackdowns. Though the special interest groups that really benefit from the fleecing of the working-class -- many of which DO represent rich people -- quickly pocket the proceeds.

I intend to leave up all the posts I've written along my meandering way here. Some may prove embarrassing now, but they chronicle how I got to where I am now. I have had a real process of discovery over the past couple of years. That is why I know how to proceed now. And it is instructive just to go back and read through it.

Actually, I find that my views haven't changed that much. I just wasn't sure where I belonged on the political spectrum. My religious faith has changed very little since I was in my twenties, but because the political landscape keeps shifting, it hasn't always been possible for me to be as consistent in my political affiliations. It's hard to know just who to trust. Now I know that statists, anywhere on the spectrum, cannot be trusted at all.

Some of them are genuinely good people, but they are tragically mistaken in their politics. I hope that I can help to change their minds. Reading this Blog, from its genesis to the present, would give them a lot to think about.

Learning Our Lesson

We definitely need to learn a lesson from the last nine years. But neither the statist Right nor Left seems to be learning it.

I should say that SOME on the Right do seem to be learning it, but nobody on the Left gives any indication that they've learned anything.

How hypocritical are conservatives to have suddenly rediscovered the Constitution and limited government after eight years of having given Boy Bush and his thugs free rein? Not as hypocritical as "progressives" remain for chiding them for that, while having learned nothing themselves.

At least the Right has a history of belief in limited government to which it may return. The modern Left has NEVER believed in anything but big government.

If conservatives try to return to fascism when they again get the upper electoral hand (and they will -- sooner than the Democrats want to think), will "progressives" be able to hold them accountable? Of course not. And after the way so many of them swooned over Obama, no one will believe them if they try.

Those on the Left who are critical of Doctor Utopia are angry because he's not statist ENOUGH to suit them.

The Tea Partiers have a tradition to which they now want to return. Lovers of liberty, like myself, are going to hold them to that.

Corporate piggishness will NOT be ended by the Obamabots, who only advocate even more of it. Nor can the way out of our economic nightmare be found in destroying the last, gasping vestiges of free enterprise.

The only way forward is freedom. The only way forward is ending government aggression against its own people. The only way forward is ending the civil war in which each faction of petty tyrants fights for the "right" to oppress the other.

A pox on both their statist houses.

Recently I read a book that changed my life. It didn't exactly transform my whole outlook, since I already believed many of the things it had to say. But it articulated these principles in a way so especially sharp and clear that the light-bulb really clicked on for me at last. Dr. Mary Ruwart is a libertarian's libertarian. And her book, Healing Our World In an Age of Aggression brought it all home for me as never before:

"We don't notice how our fear of selfish others creates the very world that we want to avoid. Our minds are trained by the education monopoly...We can hardly expect to learn the follies of aggression from an institution built on it." (Pg. 185)

"Even when government spends 'for a good cause,' society becomes poorer...Rich nations like Sweden can lose their ability to create wealth simply by increasing government spending. Freedom from aggression is not something that countries can 'afford' only after they become wealthy. Freedom from aggression is a necessary precondition for wealth." (Pg. 186)

Dr. Ruwart also explains why it is that companies like the one that unjustly dumped me from my position, then criminally slandered me, get away with their unconscionable deeds.

"Clearly, the high cost of counteracting aggression leads to its use as a tool of the rich. Only the well-to-do can afford to lobby, bribe, or threaten our elected representatives effectively." (Pg. 186)

"The illusion that this aggression benefits the poor at the expense of the rich is just that -- an illusion." (Pg. 187)

I was so angry at my former employer because of how it treated me that I began to believe the Leftist line that big government could or would crack down on corporations like it to protect "little people" like me. I forgot what I had once known -- which is that government tyranny only begets more corporate tyranny. Nothing the government can do will put a halt to the bastardy of big corporations. On the contrary, it can only make the problem worse -- and, indeed, caused it in the first place.

As long as it's made more and more difficult for businesspeople to make it, the "shit" will continue to flow "downhill" from them to us. All we can do, through government intervention, is pour more "shit" on them -- which also, inevitably, lands on us.

"Aggression, undertaken individually or undertaken collectively through government, can never create its opposite -- harmony and abundance." (Pg. 188)

"Once we accept this premise [that we can gain justice through aggression], we willingly defer to the authority figures who attack those selfish others on our behalf." (ibid.) -- Who then exploit our anger by seizing even more power, and more of our taxed wealth, for themselves.

Got it now. Won't forget it ever again.

"The loss that we experience because of our aggression is staggering." (Pg. 190)

It's exactly what's gone so wrong with our country, and our whole world, now. And we can't hope to achieve a different result by continuing the same methods. I'm not sure who said that to attempt such a thing is insanity, but he or she is as wise as Solomon.

We are, truly, now in the middle of another civil war. The statist Left and Right are tearing this country apart. The only way out of it is to depose both visions of government control. We do NOT have to choose between communism and fascism. Neither choice is acceptable for the land of the free and the home of the brave. The legions who died in our first Civil War -- and in so many foreign wars to protect our freedom -- did not give their lives to leave open to us nothing more than a "choice" like this.

This time, I have learned my lesson. I will do all I can to help other Americans learn it, too.

Why There Were Nazis

When I got sacked a year ago, from what I hope will be my last big-corporate job, I said I could at last understand why there had been Nazis. After a whole year of reflection, I'm more certain than ever.

I've come to realize that the reason I was treated so barbarically -- eliminated without warning or even an honest explanation, then slandered to the State when they sought the cause of my termination -- was not mere "corporate greed." That was, at most, a secondary reason.

I was dealt with in this degrading manner because there is no longer any distinction between the big corporate world and government. Large companies behave as incompenently and irresponsibly as government, because they and the State have become one.

Corporate-owned statism is fascism. That is part of the very definition of the term. And after the mega-bailouts of President Utopia's rescue, the link between taxpayers' support of corporate America and the subversion of our Constitution by these same corporations has become clear.

No American citizen should be treated the way I was by my last employer. The Constitution supposedly forbids it, but the corporations that feed off of our tax dollars are not bound by the supreme law of our land. They have overtaken our government without having to fire a single shot.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to make as much money as possible. Greed only becomes criminal -- from a moral standpoint, if not a legal one -- when it is protected and paid-for by our taxes and our government. My last employer was a big insurance company. That says it all right there. Companies like that one have grown fat at the tax-feeding trough, and they feel they are accountable to nobody.

We have no way of outlawing greed. Nor, since we all hope to make as much money as possible, should we legitimately wish to outlaw the profit motive. But we have fewer available jobs than we have had for decades because the hogs at the trough are crowding out the small companies that might otherwise employ us.

I will, perhaps, be reminded that private companies, in their obligations toward employees, are not bound to the same strictures as those that are supposed to apply to government entities in their treatment of citizens. That is fair as far as it goes, but it only goes so far. Once those companies begin taking taxpayer money, they have ceased to be "private." My rights as an American citizen should not be revocable by any of the pigs who feed off of my taxes.

This is NOT "capitalism." It certainly isn't free enterprise, either. And the politicians who have aided and abetted this bloodiest of all bloodless takeovers of our country -- be they Republican or Democrat -- are nothing but whores.

I am as through with Democratic whores as I am with those who are Republican. Change will not come through tinpot "messiahs" like Barack Obama. He is proving to be every bit as bad as Boy Bush, if not worse.

There are individual libertarians who don't understand the situation in this country -- who are still too childishly credulous toward big business, viewing all that's done in the name of "capitalism" as right. But as a whole, the libertarian movement does understand the problem. Libertarians are the only ones out there who can articulate a real solution: take big corporations off of the sugar-tit, and make them compete in a REAL free market, where they will either swim or sink as deserved.

As the days' news events unfold, I am more and more certain I did the right thing by finally "coming out of the closet" as a libertarian. By having joined the Libertarian Party, I have already begun moving toward becoming a part of the solution instead of the problem.

I investigated the Green Party, hoping they understood the need for real change, but I found that the Greens are not critical of the Democrats out of any understanding of how dangerous big corporations are. As long as those corporations support statism as THEY approve of it, they are all for the growing cancer of fascism in America.

It's the Libertarians, people. It's them -- or now, I may say us -- or nobody.

I will not be fooled again. And from now on, I will vigilantly warn all who will listen.

Half a Shit Sandwich is Better than None?

My political thinking was influenced, to a large degree, by the Baby Boomers a half-step ahead of me on the generational ladder. That influence was profound. And it has, to a large degree, affected my thinking -- though this effect has been both positive and negative.

Because of the active efforts of many in that generation, my life is not the shit sandwich it might have otherwise been. I know what sort of a life I would have had, as a lesbian, had none of the changes initiated by the Sixties and Seventies occurred.

But I'm getting a little tired of genuflecting to these people. They never tire of reminding me -- ungrateful whippersnapper that I am -- of all they've done for me.

I'd like to ask them a question: Was it all about the ideas that surfaced in those decades -- or was it all about you?

Ideas have legs. Truth has a life all its own. The Boomers invented absolutely nothing. They discovered quite a bit (or rediscovered some of it). Many seem not to understand the difference.

Ever since the Seventies, many Boomers have tried to make it all about themselves. THEY were wonderful...THEY were wise...THEY were courageous, and enlightened, and far-thinking and heroic.

Putting the focus on them is unwise not only because it deemphasizes the very ideas for which we're supposed to be so grateful to them. It also ties the Me Generation, like a millstone, around the neck of everyone who might benefit from those ideas.

As a result of how utterly, insufferably obnoxious that generation has made itself in many ways, many people refuse to deal, today, with women's issues, gay/lesbian issues, issues of economic fairness or any other issues in any way not colored by how tired they are of Baby Boomers.

As a lesbian, I am doubly perceived by Boomers and anti-Boomers alike as one of that generation's little pets. I live on their plantation. They discovered me, so I am theirs. Some of those who dislike me, simply because of my association with the Boomers, would go so far as to say that they INVENTED me.

I'm through genuflecting. I'm off the plantation. I'm a runaway pet. Nobody invented me but God. And all of God's inventions are available for the discovery of anyone.

Thanks, Boomers, that because of you I don't have to eat a whole shit sandwich. Thanks as well, I guess, that I have to eat half of one instead of none.

My generation, and the ones that come after, must do away with the other half of the sandwich. That yours eliminated the first half was a stellar accomplishment. Be happy with that, take one last bow, and then surrender the stage to those who have to finish the work you started.

Could you have finished it yourselves? Who the hell knows. You've been too busy taking bows to try.

Just What IS a Progressive, Anyway?

I have come to realize, viewing the ungodly mess that is American politics at this time, that the word "progressive" has lost all meaning.

Those who use it really employed a sort of circular logic, anyway. "It's progress because we like it, so since we think it's progress, that's what it is." Circular reasoning subjects itself to no outside scrutiny; it simply says what it says, and that -- to those who think within that circle -- is enough to make it so.

There's a reason I haven't posted much here in quite a while, and it goes beyond the fact that I'm now establishing myself as a professional freelance writer. That takes time, it's true -- but it doesn't take THAT much time. I haven't been posting regularly because I've been taking it all in: watching, listening and learning. Doing a lot of thinking and rethinking, and coming to the conclusions that will guide this Blog from this point on.

Those on the Left are cackling about what hypocrites the conservatives are for having blindly followed Boy Bush for eight years, thereby forfeiting any right they ever had to claim they stood for limited government, low taxes or individual liberty. And they are right in this criticism -- as far as it goes.

The trouble is that it doesn't really go very far. The "progressives" haven't really learned anything from those eight nightmarish years, either. At least -- however belatedly, and with however much egg on their faces -- conservatives are now waking up. The Leftists are still cackling and crowing about what hypocrites the conservatives are -- but these sterling "progressives" are even bigger hypocrites than they are.

They haven't learned anything from it all, either.

All they want to do, now, is take over the more-gargantuan-and-monstrous-than-ever big-government apparatus Boy Bush built up and run it themselves. They talked a good libertarian game, many of them, when they were out of power. I hoped that they were sincere, but I have come to see they weren't.

If this healthcare boondoggle passes, American citizens will actually be forced by law to buy government-run health insurance -- or be penalized for resisting. Would another four years of Bush have been worse than this?

Just as bad, perhaps. But it's hard to believe it could have been worse.

Barack Obama is an unmitigated disaster as President of the United States. I'm sorry I ever voted for him. I still don't think McCain was any prize, either, but he almost certainly would have been better.

I still have my quarrels with some libertarians. But I guess I forgot for a while that my differences were with them as individuals, rather than with libertarianism itself. This cult of personality business can lead us into any number of errors.

So, all in all, I have come to realize I'm still a libertarian (small "l"). And earlier this month, I made the move official by joining the Libertarian (big "L") Party. I still can't stand the direction the Republicans have been going. They have a lot of changing to do before I'd ever consider them. Their long association with bigots and religious quacks is far too embarrassing for me to want to have anything to do with.

Anyway, this Blog is now set to sally forth. It isn't really a new direction, just a steadier one. I still consider myself (not a progressive, which has come to mean next to nothing, but) a liberal. But I suppose I can best describe myself as a Classical Liberal. Which is the same thing, really, as a Goldwater conservative.

It all still makes my head spin. But damn, it's fascinating stuff. I love politics, no matter how crazy. If you'll keep tuning in here, I can promise you'll get all the crazy politics you can handle.