National Review, of All People, Laments the Rising Popularity of Socialism in America

Recently, via a Facebook group run by The Verma Report publisher Anoop Verma, I came across this article from National Review: Too many of us have forgotten the lessons of the Cold War. The author, Dave Nammo, expresses shock and alarm at recent polls that indicate that most so-called “liberals,” and a substantial minority (40%) of Americans, “prefer socialism to capitalism.”

Nammo writes: “Americans who believe in limited government, welfare reform, and states’ rights should look over their shoulder and realize that a dangerous ideology is gaining ground.” He quotes another writer as accusing “liberals” of trying to redefine “traditional moral values” as support for gay marriage and legalized abortion among those who “want socialism to replace capitalism” (as if socialism hasn’t been slowly replacing capitalism for the last 100 years).

What is Nammo’s solution?

It is time to play both the short and the long game. Now is the time to speak out and educate all who will hear about the history of this nation and the benefits of traditional values, free markets, and capitalism, which, though not perfect, are better than all the alternatives. Those who love this nation and the ideals of our experiment in liberty must counter the gainsayers in academia and the media or they will soon find that America as “one nation under God” is no more.

I thought National Review was formed by William F. Buckley in 1955 precisely to “play both the short and the long game” is defense of capitalism and freedom in America. If not, where has it been all these years?

In fact, National Review has been leading the religiously-based conservative pushback against the Left socialists.

I find it interesting that National Review should now lament the rising popularity of socialism in America. It’s had over 70 years to reverse the socialist trend. Today, it’s obvious that National Review-style conservatism has failed miserably. Today, we’re more socialist than ever. Yet it clings to the bankrupt strategy of state’s “rights,” welfare “reform” rather than repeal, appeals to God and faith, the social authoritarianism of the religious “right,” tradition, and the like. I think Craig Biddle has good insight into why it failed. Here’s Biddle back in May—How Conservatives Begat Trump, and What to Do About It—as Donald Trump was putting the finishing touches on his upset GOP nomination:

[T]he political rise of Trump is not merely the fault of Republicans. It is also, and more so, the fault of conservatives—especially conservative leaders, both old and new.

The seminal act of conservative culpability in this regard took place in 1957, shortly after the publication of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

In the pages of her revolutionary novel, Rand had handed conservatives, and the world in general, an observation-based, demonstrably true philosophy that, in addition to providing principled guidance for choosing and pursuing life-serving values at the personal level, also provides a rock-solid foundation for supporting and defending freedom and capitalism at the political level. This book was a godsend to everyone who loves life, loves America, and wants to advance the ideal of a government dedicated to protecting individuals’ rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness.

What did conservatives do with this gift? They shat on it.

Two months after Atlas was published, William F. Buckley’s popular conservative magazine, National Review, ran a “review” of the book, penned by ex-communist Whittaker Chambers. The reason for the scare quotes around the word review in the previous sentence is that it was not a review but a lie. A big lie. Indeed, it was and remains an unsurpassed (although often aspired to) model of intellectual dishonesty, injustice, malice.

Biddle goes on to explain why that “review” is “an unsurpassed . . . model of intellectual dishonesty, injustice, malice.” (There’s also a full rebuttal to Chambers in Essays on Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged by Leonard Peikoff, Chapter 8, page 145.)

It’s not that National Review and the modern conservative movement it spawned didn’t have access to effective philosophical ammunition for challenging socialism at its root. Rather than integrate Rand’s ideas into its strategy, especially her moral ideas, National Review willingly ignored it and trashed it.

We shouldn’t follow Nammo’s advice. There’s nothing new there.

Capitalism was born amidst a political revolution that guaranteed every individual the egoistic right, based on his nature as a rational being, to the freedom to pursue his own happiness based on the idea that his life is his to live, according to his own reasoning mind, by inalienable right. Therefor, you can’t defend capitalism by reference to the tradition values of faith and altruism. National Review conservatism has had its chance and it has failed. Our only hope of restoring capitalism and the ideals of the American Founding is to adopt the radical moral revolution that implicitly underpins those ideals, and which Ayn Rand has explicitly articulated.

Related Reading:

Atlas Shrugged—Ayn Rand

National Review’s MO Regarding Ayn Rand—Craig Biddle for The Objective Standard

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal—Ayn Rand

The Virtue of Selfishness—Ayn Rand

Leaf Blowers, Rights, and Freedom

The New Jersey Star-Ledger’s Paul Mulshine has an interesting article on individual rights and libertarianism. The discussion centers around a ban on leaf blowers enacted in the NJ town of Maplewood. In Liberty and leaf-blowers; Your right to use one ends where my property begins, Mulshine writes:

Libertarianism is not so much a system of governing as it is a system of analyzing government - one that most libertarians are notoriously bad at.

Nothing proves that better than the "dust-up" over a summertime ban on leaf blowers in Maplewood.

I use that term advisedly. Leaf blowers kick a lot of dust up. Often, after I've just washed my car I will drive past some lout who is blowing crud directly at my passenger door.

But that's just a small aspect of the problem with leaf blowers. The big problem is they make a racket that intrudes on the right of those living nearby to enjoy their own property in peace.

Which right wins out?

This the sort of decision a politician must make.

And it's the sort of decision that most people who consider themselves libertarians are incapable of making - at least if the internet comments on the dispute are any indication.

Understanding rights is one of the defining challenges of our time.

I left these comments:

“Libertarian” is a good word to describe we advocates of political and economic freedom. Unfortunately, many modern libertarians don’t seem to understand freedom or rights’ role in protecting freedom. That’s why I don’t consider myself a libertarian. The term has been distorted beyond recognition.

The thing about individual rights is that it is a dual-purpose principle. First, rights sanction freedom of action in a social context. But freedom cannot mean doing whatever one feels like regardless of consequences—not if the goal is a civil society. That’s where the second function of rights comes in: Rights also define the limits of the individual’s actions. This can best be summed up as, “your right to swing your arms ends where my nose begins.” You have right to act in pursuit of your values, so long as your actions don’t violate the same rights of others.

Like with all principles, it’s often easier said than done. The boundary between where your rights end and others’ rights begin is not always easy to figure out. The leaf blower issue is one of those difficult areas, in my view. Leaf blowers are not a big deal to me. I own a leaf blower and use it for my own landscape maintenance. But I live in a large lot, semi-rural area. My lot is 2 acres, and it’s one of the smaller lots around. Even with all of the landscape maintenance companies operating all over the place, people live far enough apart so that it’s distant background noise. So in my view restrictions on leaf blowers doesn’t make sense in my area. On the other hand, maybe in a place like Maplewood, where many people live in close proximity, it is a big enough nuisance to at least warrant legal restrictions without violating the principle of individual rights. Context is important.

Once you understand the purpose of rights, and objectively establish rights’ boundaries, rights need not ever conflict. The best book on freedom and rights I have ever read—not that I claim to be a scholar or anything—is University of Texas professor Tara Smith’s “Moral Rights and Political Freedom.” Smith deals in depth with this and other aspects of freedom and rights (such as why we need rights in the first place). I found the book very helpful.

Related Reading:

Untangling the PennEast Pipeline Rights Conundrum

John Farmer's Understanding of Free Speech Rights as Non-Absolute is Dangerous and Wrong

'Religious Freedom Restoration' Laws and Tim Cook's Misunderstanding of America's Founding Principles

Choice vs. Liberty in Education

Private vs. Government Unemployment Insurance

Early in 2016, Verizon’s union workers went on strike over terms of a new contract. During the strike, the New Jersey Legislature tried to pass a bill to allow the strikers from the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers to collect unemployment benefits from the state fund.

I left these comments, edited for clarity:

Government officials, especially elected officials, have a constitutional and moral responsibility to represent all people equally and without bias. It’s called equal protection of the law. This means the officials should not take sides in private contractual disputes unless fraud or physical coercion (rights violations) are evident. It’s bad enough to consider allowing striking workers to collect even though they are off the job voluntarily (Vitale’s embarrassingly rationalistic “really almost (been) forced to be off the job” comment notwithstanding). It is vulgar for the legislature to use taxpayer money to dish out special favors to one politically connected union, which is explicitly the reason for this bill. It is blatant cronyism that could enable the union to extract concessions from Verizon by legal coercion rather than legitimate voluntary agreement.

As a lifelong union member, I oppose this bill. I once participated in a 6-week strike. It’s hard. But I never considered that the taxpayers should subsidize me during the time I was out of work while we voluntarily exercised our right to strike for personal gain.

Shame on this committee. If it passes the legislature, I hope Christie vetoes it. No wonder New Jersey is considered the corruption capitol of the nation.

I got this angry reply from words4free:

What about the substantial weekly contributions these employees have made to this fund?  Does that not count?  Are they not entitled to collect that which they put in.  We can say the same about SS--those collecting today, did not put in the amount they are taking out--I along with every other working person, are paying for them to take out more then they put it--but I'm o.k. with that because they need to live to.  You, as a Union member, should be ashamed of yourself.

I guess being a union member means blindly following the Marxist line. I left this reply, edited for clarity:

Yes, it is unfair to have to contribute to the state unemployment fund and not have any control over how that money is distributed. That's how government programs work, which is why I oppose all of them, including Social Security. When you are forced to turn your money over to the government, the government sets the rules. I retired after 46 years in the plumbing and pneumatic controls trades. During my career, I collected only about half a year's worth of unemployment compensation. Surely, I "contributed" way more than I collected in benefits. Should I now be able to demand unemployment benefits in retirement, up to what I “put in?” Morally, yes. But, unlike private savings, the money I “put in” is long gone into unemployed workers’ pockets. So the only way I can collect what I “put in” is to demand that the government pick other workers’ pockets.

That’s the corrupt nature of the system.

Contrarily, during much of my working life I regularly set aside small amounts of money in a “rainy day fund” to supplement unemployment should I ever be out of work, as financial planners routinely advise. Since I rarely needed to tap it, I now can use that money for other purposes [as I choose]. Likewise, if the union set up its own unemployment fund, it could tap it any way it wished. That’s the difference between a one-size-fits-all forced government scheme and private planning. When you plan with your own money, whether individually or as a group, you set the rules.

Bottom line: The government set the rule that benefits go only to involuntarily unemployed people, and shouldn’t be altering or rigging the rules for the purpose of pure cronyism and political opportunism. The union has no right to arbitrarily change the state unemployment fund into a strike, with the politicians as its hired guns.

As to getting more out of SS than put in, that’s no longer true. I calculated how much of a nest egg I’d have if I set aside that money in my own account (or if it was set aside in a SS personal account in my name that no politician can seize and funnel into someone else’s pocket), and had it grow at a modest 6% annual rate, and compared it to the benefits I’m collecting now out of other workers’ paychecks. There’s no way I’ll ever get back what I was forced to “contribute.”

That you’re OK with your money being redistributed in this way, leaving you no way to collect your promised benefits except in the same way, is morally reprehensible, in my view. Shame on you for implying that, as a union member, I must blindly follow union dogma like a mindless sheep to the detriment of my conscientious convictions. Overall, my union membership has been a net positive for me, for which I paid heftily in dues and assessments. But the union doesn’t own me and my convictions.

I am a union man, not a union movement man.

Related reading:

Law-Favored Unions are Quasi-Criminal Organizations

Fast-Food Workers Seek Government Guns to Back Demands

End “Collective Bargaining Rights” and “Right-to-Work” Laws

Abusive Teachers Union Power Results from Government School Monopoly

Did Unions Create the Middle Class?

From Human Rights to Animal 'Rights' to Plant 'Rights' to the Obliteration of Human Rights

In reaction to a Spanish Parliament environmental committee’s resolution consideration of ‘a resolution to grant certain human rights to "our nonhuman brothers’ – great apes, gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees and orangutans,” Russell Paul La Valle, a freelance writer in New Paltz, New.York, argued forcibly Why animals shouldn't have human rights.

It’s a great article overall, especially this section:

Should animals have rights? The quick and only logical answer is no. A "right" is a moral principle that governs one's freedom of action in society. This concept is uniquely, and exclusively, human — man is the only being capable of grasping such an abstraction, understanding his actions within a principled framework and adjusting his behavior so as not to violate the rights of others. The source of rights is man himself, his nature and his capacity for rational thought. To give rights to creatures that are irrational, amoral and incapable of living in a rights-based environment makes a mockery of the very concept of rights and, ultimately, threatens man.

Unlike most mammals or other types of creatures, humans are not born with instinctual, inherited knowledge of how to survive. Rather, man's survival is achieved through reason, which allows him to integrate the facts of his surroundings and apply this knowledge to use and shape the natural world for his preservation and advancement.

This includes the use of animals, whether for food, shelter or other necessities.

I left these comments (no longer available):

There is a crucial difference between man and all other living species. As Mr. La Valle points out, man is the only species whose means of survival (reason) requires that he adapt his background to his needs.

The same dangerous logic that leads to “rights” for apes will be the precedent that leads to “rights” for all species. He is correct that this is a threat to man. If animals have “rights” equivalent to man, then man’s very means of survival is negated. It reduces man to existence on the same level as animals, depriving him of exploiting nature through reason and productive work, for that would violate the “rights” of other species.

That’s the real purpose of the animal rights movement, which recognizes the legitimacy of the means of survival of every living species but man. It’s not love of animals, but hatred of man, that motivates this movement. There’s no conflict between protecting animals from malicious cruelty and recognition of rights as the exclusive domain of man.

At the time I wrote those comments in 2008, I didn't envision "all species"—by which I meant animal species—could actually extend to all species, including plants. Yes, plants! But, in retrospect, it makes sense if you accept the premise that rights are not the exclusive domain of humans. A logical next step in the animal "rights" crusade is to ascribe "rights" to plants. That's exactly what's happening. Check out Rooting Out the Motive of “Plant Rights” Advocates in The Objective Standard. As Ross England writes:

Now, most readers of this argument will think that the idea of plant rights is silly—indeed, many responders to his article said so. But while Marder’s argument is ridiculous, his goal is serious, dangerous, and not to be ignored. Here we should take the advice of Ellsworth Toohey, villain of The Fountainhead: “Don’t bother to examine a folly—ask yourself only what it accomplishes.”

England observes that the not-so-veiled motive of plant "rights" advocates is to stop agricultural biotechnology, also known as genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. But he also recognizes that plant "rights" is part of a broader threat:

Though agricultural biotechnology companies such as Monsanto have enabled the vital production of greater yields of high-quality crops, allowing for cheaper and more widely available food, Marder seeks to curtail these life-promoting values through a sophistical argument for “plant rights.” In so doing, he reveals himself to be no different from scores of other environmentalists who, though they hide behind a veneer of concern for “the environment,” are actually anti-industry and, therefore, are anti-man.

Animal "rights" and Plant "rights" are tools for obfuscating the concept of rights for the purpose of obliterating human rights.

Related Reading:

The Animal "Rights" Threat to Human Rights

On This Constitution Day, Remember the Declaration of Independence

Man’s Rights—Ayn Rand

'Affordable' McMansions in NJ?

Like many states, New Jersey has an “affordable housing problem." And like other states, the problem is largely caused by government interference.

In NJ, the state requires local municipal zoning boards to “provide” for affordable housing within their borders. Not surprisingly, some towns may be gaming the system. That is the subject of a New Jersey Star-Ledger editorial. In How can some N.J. towns call McMansions affordable housing?, the Star-Ledger observed that some towns are classifying $500,000 and up homes as “affordable.” But as the Star-Ledger wryly asks, “What real estate agent is going to show a hairdresser a half million-dollar home?”

I left these comments, slightly edited for clarity:

We in New Jersey are all familiar with the Mount Laurel case. In 1070, Jacob’s Chapel, an African Methodist Episcopalian congregation in Mount Laurel, sought approvals to build 36 low income housing units on its own land. The town turned it down, highlighting the fundamental problem: It’s the zoning, stupid! The Mount Laurel episode led to lawsuits that resulted not in invalidating the zoning powers, but to the court ruling establishing the convoluted “affordable housing doctrine,” which requires towns to “provide ‘reasonable opportunity’ for the creation of affordable housing.” This,  in turn, led to 1985 legislation creating the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH).

How’d that work out?

In the 1980s, in my Hunterdon County hometown, a developer submitted plans to build a 2200 home project on three farms totalling over 500 acres. I thought it was a pretty darn good proposal. The homes spanned the entire price range from low income to McMansion. The main access road came off of a major highway, route 202, minimizing impact on local roads. The project was surrounded by natural buffers to soften the effect for the existing houses (mine included) bordering and facing the project. The developer even included building a school and giving it to the town, along with some open space.

The town turned it down, claiming that it had already met the COAH’s “affordable housing quotas.” The developer sued under what was then called the “builder's remedy.” The town won, and the three farms are now “preserved” at taxpayer expense. 2200 homes not built. Again, COAH and all, It’s the zoning, stupid!

Zoning is the major culprit, followed by regulations. Turn the page of this same Perspective edition of the Star-Ledger and you’ll find a Bloomberg article, What Makes Housing Too Expensive? Bloomberg reports, “The main barrier to housing construction in [coastal metropolitan areas like NJ] is local regulation -- zoning ordinances, environmental requirements, even affordable-housing rules.” These restrictions limit not only affordable home building, but all home building, driving up the cost of all housing, including older housing on the low price end.

Zoning is not the only cause of high housing costs. But it is an elephant in the room. Until local zoning power is vastly reigned in—I think zoning should be eliminated—so market forces can be allowed to work and property rights are protected as Jacob’s Chapel’s should have been, the problem can not begin to go away.

In reply to one correspondent who challenged me on my opposition to zoning, I answered:

No zoning doesn’t have to mean no protection for existing property owners from disruptive new development. I lived in Cranford, in a residential zone sandwiched between two commercial zones. The commercial zones came after we moved in. On one side, the boundary cut my block in half, so that my backyard bordered on factories. Two blocks the other way was a long-existing city dump, which was converted into a commercial/industrial park. Guess what? No problem coexisting with industry. The test should be whether new development violates existing property owners’ rights by physically disruptive consequences, not central planners’ trying to mold the “character” of the town to existing residents’ liking. Neither of the developments I cited above should have been blocked unless it could be proven that neighbor’s property rights would have been violated, which was definitely not the case. The burden of proof should be on those who want to block the developments.

Related Reading:

NJ's "Affordable Housing Crisis" - It's the Zoning, Stupid!

COAH, ‘Affordable Housing,’ and Zoning in NJ

Private Property Rights versus ‘the Power to Govern Land Use’

More Freedom, not More Government, Will Solve New Jersey's "Housing Crisis"

The NJ Star-Ledger's Barbaric Smear of Charles Koch

Charles G. Koch’s early 2016 ABC interview statement that Hillary Clinton may make a better president than Donald Trump—and that he may actually vote for her—triggered a vicious smear editorial by the New Jersey Star-Ledger. I won’t address all of the falsehoods in the editorial, which are really just rehashed Leftist sound bites. But here are a few excerpts from Billionaires Behaving Badly: Trump has Koch flummoxed:

Charles Koch symbolizes the vulgar power of money in the post-Citizens United world, where he advances the careers of candidates who protect his interests with legislation and misinformation. But he seems to have arrived at two gut-seizing conclusions that must feel like the branch is creaking.

First, Donald Trump – closer than ever to the Republican nomination after his five-state sweep Tuesday - has blowtorched the ideological purity of Koch's GOP and turned it into something unrecognizable to many conservatives.

And second, Trump makes the conservative establishment almost as irrelevant as Koch's wallet now seems to be.

Koch is hairless-cat-stroking ogre out of central casting, a former John Bircher who believes that minimum wage creates a "culture of dependency," whose legislative arm (ALEC) that has crafted thousands of corporate-friendly bills, who has waged perpetual war on solar energy, unions, voting rights and entitlements, and whose toxic empire is among the country's top polluters of water, air, and land.

He wanted a candidate who can help him shape the world to suit his agenda, but he has learned something unsettling: Conservatism isn't as important to the GOP base that has made Trump a dominant frontrunner.

Generally, conservatism is about free trade, limited government and budget discipline.

And Republican voters care less about conservative orthodoxy than Trump does: Nearly two-thirds of them want to preserve Social Security and Medicare at its current levels; more than half are bothered "a lot" that corporations don't pay their fare share of taxes.

The result is a fractured party, an opportunist who has turned hucksterism into a political movement, and a billionaire on the verge of surrender.

Apparently, the Star-Ledger is too blinded by its hateful rage to notice the contradiction: How can Koch simultaneously symbolize the vulgar power of money in the post-Citizens United world, and be irrelevant to the political direction of the party?

I left these comments, slightly edited:

There is something barbaric and evil about demonizing true American heroes like Charles Koch. Koch, like most American billionaires, is not a saint. Saints are lauded for their sacrifices for the poor. Billionaires like Koch—the kind that build market fortunes—are infinitely better than saints: They are creators of life-lifting wealth.

Charles Koch (along with his brother David) inherited a company worth $21 million—a successful company in its own right—and grew it into a $100 billion plus company, a growth rate 27 times the S&P 500. Along the way, Koch created tens of thousands of remunerative jobs and millions upon millions of satisfied polluters ......, oops, excuse me, consumers (If Koch Industries is a “toxic empire,” then every consumer that uses its products is a polluter—no escaping personal responsibility here). Best of all, Koch earned a well-deserved fortune worth $billions—a noble achievement because built on trade, the win-win voluntary exchange of value for value that benefits all and harms none. Yet the Koch fortune, like all capitalist fortunes, pales in comparison to the economic value and activity spread around in the process of building that fortune.

Worst of all for the poverty worshipping, achievement-suppressing statist Left, Koch is willing to spend some of his fortune on the battleground of ideas. In advocating for liberty and rights-protecting government, against cronyism, for freedom of production and trade, for a just society where people are free to rise as far as their ability, ambition, and personal circumstances will carry them, Koch speaks not just for himself—He speaks for millions who share his vision. The Left wants to smear, and ultimately legally silence, Charles Koch because it wants to silence the millions of ordinary people who don’t share in its state-supremacist designs.

Much of what the Star-Ledger says about Koch’s advocacy is true, and much is false. And yes, the Republican Party is intellectually comatose: It is not fascist. It certainly isn't capitalist. It is nothing. The Democrats, at least, are passionately open fascists, demagogues, and nationalist socialists. But the smear on Koch for his achievements just because he is an industrialist who is also an intellectual activist—”behaving badly”—is quite simply beneath anyone who values life and prosperity.

------------------------------------------

And, I would add to the last sentence, freedom of speech.

As an aside, a correspondent replied to my comments with a quote that dates back at least to the early 19th Century and attributed to the Frenchman Honore de Balzac, "Behind every great fortune is a great crime." It has been repeated by many to this day. I answered, “Until the rise of Capitalist fortunes by entrepreneurship, production, and trade—about which there is still a lot of superstition and ignorance.”

Related Reading:

Good Profit—Charles G. Koch

Linda Stamato Smears (and Fears?) the Koch Brothers

Why Are Anti-Capitalists so Obsessed with Mandatory Campaign Finance "Disclosure"?

The Koch Brothers and the Nature of Government Regulation

Citizens United and the Battle for Free Speech in America—Steve Simpson