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.