A Thanksgiving Message

[This year I want to express my thankfulness for the discovery of property rights. A person's property is the product of his own mind, expressed in the external world. As Ayn Rand explains,

The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave. 

Bear in mind that the right to property is a right to action, like all the others: it is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values.

[Your most important property right is your person--your nind and body. You can't separate your mind (your spirit) from your material self. So this Thanksgiving, I give thanks to the philosophers like John Locke and Ayn Rand and intellectuals like the Founding Fathers and many other Enlightenment thinkers for giving us the practical and moral knowledge and legal protections that our property rights depend upon, without which we would all be basically slaves.]

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Reprinted below are two thanksgiving messages that I think captures the true essence of Thanksgiving, a holiday practiced only in America. Regardless of how one believes he came into existence (God or nature), the reality is that man is a being of self-generated wealth based on reason who requires certain social conditions for his survival. America was the first country founded explicitly on those conditions; i.e., a country where every individual owns his own life and possesses inalienable rights to life, liberty, property, and to the pursuit of his own happiness, coupled inextricably with the obligation to accept the reality that all people are equally endowed with these rights and to treat them accordingly.

It is thus that America, born of the enlightenment ideas of individualism, reason, and republican government, achieved in the span of a mere two hundred-plus years (following centuries of stagnation) its spectacular standard of living. The ensuing excerpts are from two essays that I believe correctly recognize where the credit for America's material plenty belongs: to any man or woman, on whatever level of ability or accomplishment, who contributed in a great or small way to American greatness by doing an honest and productive day's work in pursuit of his or her own well-being.

Thanksgiving: A Most Selfish Holiday by Debi Ghate

Ah, Thanksgiving. To most of us, the word conjures up images of turkey dinner, pumpkin pie and watching football with family and friends. It kicks off the holiday season and is the biggest shopping weekend of the year. We're taught that Thanksgiving came about when pilgrims gave thanks to God for a bountiful harvest. We vaguely mumble thanks for the food on our table, the roof over our head and the loved ones around us. We casually think about how lucky we are and how much better our lives are than, say, those in Bangladesh. But surely there is something more to celebrate, something more sacred about this holiday.

What should we really be celebrating on Thanksgiving?

Ayn Rand described Thanksgiving as "a typically American holiday . . . its essential, secular meaning is a celebration of successful production. It is a producers' holiday. The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production." She was right.

What is today's version of the "bountiful harvest"? It's the affluence and success we've gained. It's the cars, houses and vacations we enjoy. It's the life-saving medicines we rely on, the stock portfolios we build, the beautiful clothes we buy and the safe, clean streets we live on. It's the good life.

How did we get this "bountiful harvest"? Ask any hard-working American; it sure wasn't by the "grace of God." It didn't grow on a fabled "money tree." We created it by working hard, by desiring the best money can buy and by wanting excellence for ourselves and our loved ones. What we don't create ourselves, we trade value for value with those who have the goods and services we need, such as our stockbrokers, hairdressers and doctors. We alone are responsible for our wealth. We are the producers and Thanksgiving is our holiday.

So, on Thanksgiving, why don't we thank ourselves and those producers who make the good life possible?

Thanksgiving is the perfect time to recognize what we are truly grateful for, to appreciate and celebrate the fruits of our labor: our wealth, health, relationships and material things--all the values we most selfishly cherish. We should thank researchers who have made certain cancers beatable, gourmet chefs at our favorite restaurants, authors whose books made us rethink our lives, financiers who developed revolutionary investment strategies and entrepreneurs who created fabulous online stores. We should thank ourselves and those individuals who make our lives more comfortable and enjoyable--those who help us live the much-coveted American dream.

As you sit down to your decadent Thanksgiving dinner served on your best china, think of all the talented individuals whose innovation and inventiveness made possible the products you are enjoying. As you look around at who you've chosen to spend your day with--those you've chosen to love--thank yourself for everything you have done to make this moment possible. It's a time to selfishly and proudly say: "I earned this."

Debi Ghate is associated with the Ayn Rand Institute.

This Thanksgiving, Don't Say Grace, Say Justice by Craig Biddle

The religious tradition of saying grace before meals becomes especially popular around the holidays, when we all are reminded of how fortunate we are to have an abundance of life-sustaining goods and services at our disposal. But there is a grave injustice involved in this tradition.

Where do the ideas, principles, constitutions, governments, and laws that protect our rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness come from? What is the source of the meals, medicines, homes, automobiles, and fighter jets that keep us alive and enable us to flourish? Who is responsible for our freedom, prosperity, and well-being?

Since God is responsible for none of the goods on which human life and happiness depend, why thank him for any such goods? More to the point: Why not thank those who actually are responsible for them? What would a just man do?

Justice is the virtue of judging people rationally--according to what they say, do, and produce--and treating them accordingly, granting to each man that which he deserves.

To say grace is to give credit where none is due--and, worse, it is to withhold credit where it is due. To say grace is to commit an act of injustice.

Rational, productive people--whether philosophers, scientists, inventors, artists, businessmen, military strategists, friends, family, or yourself--are who deserve to be thanked for the goods on which your life, liberty, and happiness depend. ... Thank or acknowledge the people who actually provide the goods. Some of them may be sitting right there at the table with you. And if you find yourself at a table where people insist on saying grace, politely insist on saying justice when they're through. It's the right thing to do.

Craig Biddle is the Editor of The Objective Standard.

I couldn't have said it better myself. These truths are obvious. A simple rudimentary knowledge of history, coupled with basic observation and logic, are all that's required to realize it. Thank you Debi Ghate and Craig Biddle!

Have a joyous, and well earned, Thanksgiving.

Related Reading:

The Star-Ledger's Thanksgiving Tantrum

On Thanksgiving, Be Grateful for Property Rights: There’s no reason to celebrate collective ownership By John Stossel

For ‘Agree to Disagree’ to have Meaning, We Must Respect Each Others’ Rights

Every so often, someone will offer, as a “fix” for our contentious political discourse, a plea for people to “agree to disagree.” A recent New Jersey Star-Ledger letter is another example of that. In Let’s Agree to Disagree, school teacher Madelaine Riback declared herself “appalled by what I read, hear and see, whether it’s about the national scene, state, town or school board.” In advising us on how to evaluate candidates, we should resolve to “respect each others’ points of view in a respectful way, even if they are different from our own.”

We need to fact check what candidates say to see if what they say is even feasible. We need to listen to all candidates to see how they present themselves and learn about their character. I want representatives who are smart, diligent, respectful and respected. 

Four times the word “respect” is mentioned. In conclusion, “I feel as if the human race is succumbing to animalistic behaviors. Can’t we just be civil and agree to disagree?”

Certainly we must engage on the battleground of ideas in an intellectual way. Others’ viewpoints, no matter how opposed to one’s own, deserve a respectful hearing. Indeed, the only way to counter and defeat ideas one disagrees with or even abhors is to know what they are, challenge them directly, and then propose better ideas. “Animalistic behaviors”--emotional outbursts--won’t do it. But is respecting each other’s points of view in a respectful way enough? I posted these comments, edited for clarity:

“Agree to disagree” won’t fix our electoral mayhem. 

The call for people to agree to disagree must mean not just respecting others’ points of view, but more importantly honoring the rights of those who disagree to go on with their lives unmolested. Yet our political arena is full of people who want to get into office in order to use the legal machinery of the state to force their values on others in myriad ways. This tactic is increasing with each election thanks to the ongoing growth of government control over virtually all areas of our lives, and the corresponding ongoing erosion of our individual liberty. 

Consider the renewed calls for mandatory universal national service. I believe such a program is morally wrong. Yet many candidates shamelessly want to use the law-making machinery of government to force it on everyone. That means forcing my grandchildren into a year or two of involuntary servitude. Where is the “agree to disagree” if the people I disagree with want to force their values on me, my grandchildren, and anyone else who disagrees?

It’s not enough to “respect each others’ points of view.” Our appalling election culture can only get worse until we rediscover America’s Founding principles of constitutionally limited government and the inalienable individual rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Most people still profess belief in those ideals, but only superficially. Few of us would ever think of forcing our values on others in our private lives. But those moral constraints go out the window when we turn to politics. Our elections will continue to bring out “the worst of people” until we actually apply those principles in the political arena. We must realize that our government should be subordinated to the same principles most of us live by as private citizens. That’s the real promise and purpose of the U.S. Constitution. Only then will agree to disagree actually work in our elections.

I wonder how Riback describes the United States of America. Does she refer to it as a democracy? If so, she should realize that democracy is tailor-made to bring out “the worst of people instead of the best”—which is why the Founding Fathers took pains to restrict the democratic process so as to protect individual rights. They created a constitutionally limited republic designed to make sure that our fundamental rights to life, liberty, and property are protected from the electorate. Today, despite our constitution and its philosophical foundation, the Declaration of Independence, our lives, liberties, and property are increasingly at risk with each passing election. Agree to disagree has no chance in America until we roll back the democratic assault on our inalienable rights.

Related Reading:

 What does it Mean to Say: "We'll Have to Agree to Disagree?"

The ‘RIGHT’ to Disagree Must Also Mean the Right Not to be Forced

On This Constitution Day, Remember the Declaration of Independence

The Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Liberty—Timothy Sandefur

The Growing Threat of Mandatory National Slavery . . . Excuse Me, ‘Service’

Linda Stamato, the collectivist Rutgers University professor, joined the rising call for universal mandatory service. No surprise there. In a New Jersey Star-Ledger guest column Should all Americans be required to serve?, Stamato declared that a universal draft would “unify” the country. Mandatory public service would be a win-win for those who receive and those who give, she asserts. Stamato lists a whole bunch of anecdotal examples of people voluntarily serving in programs like the Peace Corps and Vista, saying they represent “the best of America”.  Despite these programs, which have helped millions here and abroad, it is “not good enough.” Why she has the right to make this judgement she doesn’t say. But her motive is clear. On her way to endorsing “that the nation step up and mandate . . . universal service” she writes:

There appears to be no widely held expectation of service in the U.S., however, and no culture to nurture it.

Institutionalizing public service as a national responsibility is a productive way to think about this. It’s less about charity and more about a kind of reciprocity, providing a means for young people in particular to find paths to “earn” their citizenship, perhaps to cultivate future vocations, but certainly to see service as a way to help improve the lives of others and, by doing so, add value to their own.

And we should create a culture of service by providing encouragement for service in K-12 schools and provide frameworks to support service in the years following secondary and postsecondary school.

Incredibly, though not surprisingly given the Star-Ledger’s heavy Leftist leaning, this article was published under the label "Humanitarianism"! I posted these comments:

Tyrants of every type have fed off of the belief that the individual’s life is not his, but belongs to the collective—the tribe, society, the nation, the public. The Enlightenment swept that away under the ideal of individualism, and codified it in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes each person’s inalienable right to his own life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

A “culture” of forced service is not a humane culture. It is a resurrection of the master/slave orientation. Genuine reciprocity is built on voluntary trade, in which one person serves another in exchange for payment. Voluntary charitable service is a fine supplement. But it is only moral when it is voluntary and consistent with the server’s interests, goals, and values. It is not moral if it is some master imposing her idea of “meaning” on others. “Encouraging”—indoctrinating—schoolchildren into a “culture of service” to “the nation” is not education. It is setting the foundation for authoritarianism. It is educational malpractice. It serves power-hungry politicians and their ivory tower rationalizers at the expense of kids. 

The military draft was barbaric. Mandatory universal public service is orders of magnitude worse. It is thoroughly immoral. The “unity” of universal mandatory service is the unity of chains. Any slave plantation or totalitarian state can boast of that type of unity. Humane unity is based on shared values rooted in respect for the rights of others, including the right of those who disagree to go about their lives unmolested. It’s bad enough to steal a year or two of a person’s life. But once you establish the collectivist principle that the “nation” owns the individual, the door is wide open to ever-expanding servitude and shrinking freedom.

National service is not a new idea, of course. It has been around for a long time, and breaks into public attention from time to time. This is such a time. Given the rise of socialist politicians, it’s not surprising. 

But this time there may be a serious threat of it happening. Schools have been laying the foundation for some form of national servitude for a while, with requirements for “community service” attached to high school graduation. But I did not know that there is a National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service. Stamato claims it is a bipartisan congressional panel, and will be releasing its report soon. Many Democratic presidential candidates have endorsed it.

Scary developments. It’s also another example of the fact that fundamentally, the only way to fight back against collectivism requires fighting back against altruism. It’s a tough fight. But altruism, properly understood as defining moral behavior as self-sacrificially serving others, is what gives advocates of involuntary servitude the moral cover they need to justify it. It gives collectivists the moral high ground. The Founding Fathers gave us a political revolution on behalf of the common person’s right to live for his own sake. The rising tide of support for “national service” to “earn” one’s citizenship is about as clear an indication as you can get that if Americanism is to be saved, a moral revolution on behalf of the common person’s right to life and liberty is the only path forward.

Related Reading:

Books to Aid in Understanding Ayn Rand's Rational Selfishness

In Defense of Selfishness: Why the Code of Self-Sacrifice is Unjust and Destructive—Peter Schwartz

July 4, 1776: Words that Will Never Be Erased 

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle

General McChrystal’s Un-American Call for Universal National Service

The Creed of Sacrifice vs. the Land of Liberty—Craig Biddle

Democrats’ “National Service” Plans Immoral, Un-American—Ben Bayer

Pete Buttigieg's National Service Plan Is a Really Bad Idea Whose Time Might Have Come—Nick GillespieI

Presidential Candidate John Delaney Has a Plan for America's Young Adults. It's Called Forced Labor.—Scott Shackford

QUORA *: ‘Is Ayn Rand wrong about altruism?’

No, Fossil Fuels are not ‘the Cause of Wars’

Marc Rauch posted this comment on my blog article In his Book ‘The Moral Case,’ Is Epstein Attacking a Straw Man?

: 

I recently published a rebuttal to Alex Epstein's book titled "The Immorality of Arguing That There's a Moral Case for Fossil Fuels." At the same time it also rebuts a book by Kathleen Hartnett White of a similar title and proposition. 

It is preposterous to claim that there is anything moral about fossil fuels, and to claim that we owe any debt of gratitude to gasoline/diesel/coal for enhancing our lives. If a debt of gratitude is owed, it is owed to the inventions that utilize various fuels...regardless of what those fuels are. The inventions were all created without consideration to any specific fossil fuel. Internal combustion engines, for example, were created before the invention of either gasoline or diesel petroleum fuel. The steam engine was not created because coal was available.

The fact is that fossil fuels have been the cause of wars, disease, and ecological and environmental disasters. Every significant war in the past 104 years has been caused by petroleum oil. Tens of millions of people; no, make that hundreds of millions of people have been killed in these wars. To the war dead-toll we have to add the people who have died as a result of the illnesses caused by the use of petroleum oil fuels. Then there's the life-long injuries and disabilities suffered by untold millions more. There's nothing moral about any of this.

Previous attempts to rebuke Mr. Epstein and Ms. White, such as the one written by Jody Freeman, have failed because the writers have as little understanding of history, fuels, energy, and real solutions as Epstein and White do.

You can read my complete rebuttal at https://www.theautochannel.com/news/2018/02/19/511177-immorality-arguing-that-there-s-moral-case-for-fossil-fuels.html.

Marc J. Rauch

Exec. Vice President/Co-Publisher

THE AUTO CHANNEL

I replied:

Marc: 

Thanks. I read your piece. 

Right off the bat, I can confidently reject the idea that oil causes wars. True, wars have been fought over control of oil reserves. But that’s only because governments have attempted to seize economic control. In all instances of “wars over oil”—or anything else, for that matter—the problem is not oil or some other commodity, but statism. The solution is individual rights-protecting, constitutionally limited republican government and its economic corollary, free market capitalism. You don’t see conflict between the relatively free market nations of the world, which protect free global commerce, including in oil. Within the United States, you don’t see conflict between oil producing and non-oil producing states.

Even if the use of fossil fuels could be shown to cause more human and environmental harm than good, it does not follow that petroleum oil, any more than any other economic factor, can in and of itself cause wars. As long as the rights of individuals to produce and trade wherever they reside is not seriously restricted by political boundaries, how exactly could a war over oil begin? If people could gain access to oil energy by peaceful means (trade), why on Earth would they pick up arms?

RELATED: https://fee.org/articles/the-roots-of-war/ [The Roots of War by Ayn Rand]

Thanks.

As to Rauch’s other charges, that “The fact is that fossil fuels have been the cause of wars, disease, and ecological and environmental disasters,” Epstein does not deny that fossil fuel use  has negative side effects. But he thoroughly exposes the biased “sloppy thinking” of fossil fuel enemies, who routinely minimize the benefits and vastly exaggerate the negatives of fossil fuels. In that regard, I’ll defer to Epstein in his book The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels* and to his October 2019 debate with Robert F. Kennedy.

* [An updated version of this book is in the works.] 

Related Reading:

The Environmentalists’ War on People—Ari Armstrong for The Objective Standard

Free Speech is about Universal Free Expression, not “Elections” vs “Policy”

New Jersey’s new so-called “Dark Money” law, which forces mandatory public disclosure of financial donors to political action committees, is under attack in the courts. In a New Jersey Star-Ledger guest column, Matthew Smith and Karen Haskin argued that “progressives [should] help fix N.J.'s dark money law. If that sounds politically suspicious, you’d be right. Note the word “fix,” rather than repeal. Here are some excerpts:

Our planet is undergoing a climate crisis. President Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord – the first serious global attempt to set us on the right course toward a healthier and livable future.

After decades of denial and incrementalism, we are now left to do our part as New Jerseyans to build a healthy and resilient future for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren. But just at the worst possible time, our lawmakers in Trenton are making it harder for us to do that work.

Furthermore, organizations like Food & Water Action and STAND Central New Jersey are supposed to have the opportunity to provide input on legislation affecting their community of grassroots advocates.

Yet that process broke down completely when the Legislature passed a disclosure bill, also known as a ‘dark money’ bill, that benefits large corporations and special interests that damage our environment and work against progressive interests, like LGBT rights and women’s reproductive freedoms.

The disclosure bill placed onerous new requirements on citizen-driven advocates working to protect the environment against polluters. Such advocates push for policies that will transform our bad energy habits into clean and renewable solutions.

At the same time, the law did nothing to increase disclosure requirements for 501c(6) trade organizations that promote business interests in Trenton, giving polluters and big corporate interests, like the Chamber of Commerce and the Petroleum Institute, an advantage in the policymaking process.

I don’t know if that last statement is true. But if the law is not balanced, it’s bad on “Equal Protection” grounds, if nothing else. That aside, if you smell the stench of political partisanship, rather than a defense of free speech, you’re political sense of “smell” is spot-on. This next excerpt is the tipoff:

We call on the Legislature to instead work with the progressive community on new legislation that protects the privacy rights of donors and treats citizen-backed groups and powerful trade associations equally.

In addition, new legislation must recognize the difference between political action committees that seek to influence our elections and citizen-backed non-profits that advocate for policy solutions in Trenton.

My emphasis. Note who are exalted as “citizens”—our beloved Left statists. Note who are not—the Left’s political opponents. I posted these comments:

“legislation must recognize the difference between political action committees that seek to influence our elections and citizen-backed non-profits that advocate for policy solutions in Trenton.”

Nonsense. There is zero distinction. Free speech to “advocate” for policy and free speech to “influence” elections are 2 sides of the same sacred free speech coin. Advocacy is influence. Influence is advocacy. Every person, whether individually or through voluntary collaboration with others, has a right to free expression for the purpose of political influence and persuasion and advocacy, whether involving policy or elections of politicians. Period. Elected politicians ARE the policy-makers.

Freedom of speech is an inalienable right of all voluntary associations, be it a Chamber of Commerce, a STAND Central New Jersey, a Petroleum Institute, or a Food & Water Action. 

Spending is integral to speech—an indispensable means to public expression—so mandatory disclosure is a violation of the First Amendment, not to mention an attack on privacy. Smith and Haskin are right to oppose the so-called “dark money” law. But what could have been a principled self-interested defense of free speech turned out to be a political hack rant for the purpose of self-aggrandizement at the expense of others’ inalienable rights to free speech. “I’m entitled to my free speech, but you’re not entitled to yours” is not a defense of free speech. Free speech for my opinions but not for your opinions is not a moral argument. It is a political diatribe.  

ALL political advocacy organizations are associations of citizens, and ALL citizens regardless of political opinions deserve protection of their free speech rights, equally and at all times. 

* [Matthew Smith is New Jersey state director for Food & Water Action. Karen Haskin is president of STAND Central New Jersey, a grassroots organization.]

Related Reading:

N.J. AG Confirms: State’s Disclosure Law is about Stifling Political Accountability

Why Free Speech and Spending on Speech are Inextricably Linked

Murphy’s Veto of NJ’s ‘Dark Money’ Ban Should Be Unconditional

Kill New Jersey’s ‘Dark Money’ Ban

NJ’s ‘Dark Money’ Bill an Attack on Intellectual Freedom

NJ’s ‘Dark Money’ Bill is an Assault on Free Speech

The Anti-Free Speech Fallacy of ‘Dark Money’

‘Dark Money’ is Free Speech. Protect It

The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech--by Kimberley Strassel, especially Chapter 2, “Publius & Co.”

Campaign Finance: Free Speech, Not Disclosure, is the Main Issue

Making Private Donations Anonymously is a Right

On This Veterans Day, Remember the Productive Americans Who Support the Greatest Military in History

This is the time of year that America rightly salutes, and gives thanks to, our military veterans who have protected this nation from foreign enemies for more than two centuries. I join in that celebration. My thoughts about them are conveyed in my Memorial Day tribute, and need no restatement here, except to reiterate the essence of that post:

The highest tribute I can pay to those who perished in that cause is to say that they were cut from the mold of the Founding Fathers; that they did not set out to die for their country but rather that they set out to fight, often at great personal risk, for the only values under which they desired to live—that radical set of ideals that is the United States of America. [See Related Viewing link]

But America’s veterans are not the whole story. So, I’d like to use this Veterans Day post to acknowledge the unsung hero of America’s military prowess, the productive American citizen. No military as strong and as competent as America’s can exist in a vacuum. It requires something else - something indispensable – a great economy.

America's economy, historically the most productive the world has ever seen, is the foundation that supports our military personnel. American taxpayers pay trillions of dollars in defense taxes. American defense contractors invest in and produce the most advanced weaponry in the world, weaponry that American soldiers rely upon to do their jobs, stay alive, and defeat the enemy. American technology produces the high tech means for our intelligence community to gather the information our soldiers need to keep track of the enemy.

What enabled the creation of the economic powerhouse that enabled the creation of our military powerhouse? What is the foundation of that foundation?

In 1776, the Founders of this nation signed the Declaration of Independence, which sanctioned the individual to egoistically pursue his happiness in support of his life, by guaranteeing him a government that protected his unalienable individual rights – his liberty – to act upon his own reasoning mind. That short document unleashed the power of the human mind, possessed individually by every person. The result was an unprecedented explosion of productiveness leading to exploding general prosperity and a standard of living unimaginable by the wealthiest noblemen of centuries past. The cause of that progress is simple: the unleashing of every individual to self-interestedly strive to make his own life the best it can be, by his own effort, in voluntary trade with others, free from the coercive interference of his fellow man, including the government. Another name for this social statement—free market capitalism. America was built not by sacrifice, as it is fashionable to assume, but by personal achievement unleashed by individual liberty.

America’s response to the threat of the Axis powers at the onset of World War II demonstrates this incredible power behind America’s military power—American free, private enterprise. If you’ve ever visited the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, you’d be struck—I know I was—by the section that displays the array of private, profit-seeking companies that rose to meet the threat posed by Germany, Italy, and Japan. Companies from Boeing and Caterpillar to Harley Davidson and the Mars Candy Company converted their consumer-oriented production facilities to produce for the war to defend America. Dozens of household names are profiled in the display, and undoubtedly far more smaller companies labored anonymously in support of the war effort.

Germany’s Hitler was said to have ridiculed America as soft, because America was good at making consumer goods like razor blades and washing machines, but not military hardware like aircraft. This was mentioned in a fantastic film narrated by Tom Hanks titled Beyond All Boundaries, presented by the museum. Indeed, charts on display at the museum showed that, in 1939, America’s military was utterly dwarfed not only by the commulative size of the Axis powers Germany, Italy, and Japan, but in comparison to those countries individually as well. But just a few short years later, America’s military dwarfed all three combined, as America’s industrial might turned its focus from producing consumer goods to producing for the American military. Hitler obviously underestimated what can happen when a free enterprise nation, which only wants to live in peace, freedom and prosperity, is threatened by tyrannical aggression.

Tyranny, as the history of WW II demonstrates—and as Germany, Italy, and Japan learned the hard way— is no match for a free market capitalist nation when that nation is aroused to turn its industrial might to self-defense. America won not only because of the bravery and skill of its soldiers, but in no small measure because America simply out-produced—in quantity and technological might—the enemy. Not only did America rearm amazingly fast, it did so even while rearming Britain and supplying arms to Russia, China, and other nations battling against the Axis powers. As the museum’s website explains:

Total war meant that all levels of the economy and all segments of society dedicated themselves to victory. FDR urged Americans to join the war effort by “out-producing and overwhelming the enemy.” While scarcity, rationing, and shortages became regular topics of conversation, so too did talk of duty, patriotism, unity, and victory. The United States, which had the world’s 18th largest military in 1939, mobilized itself for total war production almost overnight once the nation entered the war. The immediate conversion of peacetime industries into war production facilities involved companies of all sizes and types. Toy companies began to manufacture compasses. Typewriter companies made rifles and piano factories produced airplane motors. The Ford Motor Company ceased producing cars and began turning out tanks and bombers. And behind each soldier stood hundreds of civilian workers making everything an army needs to fight around the globe. The Depression was over. Full employment was a reality and confidence in victory was strong.

From 1940 until the Japanese surrender, the United States produced more than 300,000 aircraft, 86,000 tanks, and 12.5 million rifles. Its shipyards were just as productive, building 107 aircraft carriers, 352 destroyers, and 35 million tons of merchant shipping. The US also supplied a majority of war materials for its Allied partners. By 1945, the U.S. had produced more than twice the war supplies of Germany, Italy, and Japan combined.

If Hitler underestimated America, some in Japan, it seems, were more prescient. As Japan’s political leadership confidently prepared for war with America, Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto soberly warned:

Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it would not be enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. To make victory certain, we would have to march into Washington and dictate the terms of peace in the White House. I wonder if our politicians (who speak so lightly of a Japanese-American war) have confidence as to the final outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices.

After his nation's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto was said to have uttered, “I fear all we have done today is to awaken a great, sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

Indeed, from a starting point of 18th largest military, America had, as FDR envisioned and as Yamamoto feared, out-produced and overwhelmed the enemy. So, let’s celebrate, along with the brave contributions of our vets, the productive American of all income levels—the CEOs, entrepreneurs, innovators, scientists and inventors, workers, investors—and the resultant industrial powerhouse upon whose shoulders our military might stands. Let’s celebrate the individual pursuit of happiness that is the fuel for that American strength. Let’s celebrate his willingness to pay for, build, and support the military whose job it is to protect his pursuit of the good life.

Today, the foundation of America’s economic and military might is under intense attack by those who would “fundamentally change America”—a change that, in actuality, has been going on for decades. Let’s stand up and reject that slow-motion “change” from liberty to tyranny, and instead renew our allegiance to the Founding Fathers, who engineered a change from tyranny to liberty. The best tribute one can give to our military veterans is to vow to fight for the rediscovery and reinstatement of the ideals that this country stands for: the supreme value of the individual human being, his freedom, and a government whose sole duty is to protect his right to live and prosper for his own sake.

Margaret Thatcher correctly observed: "Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy." That philosophy--the inalienable individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--is what the American veteran fought to defend, for herself and for us all. That is the fight that we all--we, as private citizens who value freedom, with freedom's most potent weapon, our individual voices--should continue at home.

Happy Veterans Day!!

-Mike LaFerrara

Related Reading:

Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II -- Arthur Herman

Atlas Shrugged – America's Second Declaration of Independence

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Why a Free Man Fights—Lt. Col. Scott McDonald, USMC

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