I'm Always Right, Far Right

[Aside: First off, let me apologize to me readers, the people at Absolute Write, for being so totally swamped by school. I let it take over my life, so to speak, I'm an over achiever and have a hard time avoiding work. It's a personality flaw that I hope you will all over look. This is a short story, of which the details were explained to a degree in the Absolute Write Blog Chain thread, so if you are one of my political followers; I am going to disappoint with not a political word to be had. That post is coming in the next day or two (actually, maybe today, I'm undecided).

Anyhow, for those who don't know this is the September Blog Chain that includes the following people...

http://alleslinks.com/
http://raven.youareannoying.us
http://lostwanderer5.blogspot.com/
mutteringsofascribe.blogspot.com
aimeelaine.com
http://theromanticqueryletter.blogspot.com/
http://benjaminsolah.com/blog]
http://jelyzabeth.wordpress.com/
http://freshhell.wordpress.com/
http://www.randomwriterlythoughts.blogspot.com/
http://eviealextheobsessivewriter.blogspot.com/
http://kaylee-rose.blogspot.com/
http://www.hobbyeconomist.com/
http://desinfocenter.blogspot.com/
http://www.eyefeathers.blogspot.com/

Happy reading.]

Notre-Dame de Reims (Our Lady of Rheims) cannot be dismissed as a Roman Catholic cathedral located in Reims, it cannot be dismissed a pile of stones, it cannot be dismissed as a pile of superstitious nonsense. For where the kings of France were once crowned electrifying spirit still haunts the halls, the shiver up the spine as one walks into the heart of Europe's Divine Mandate is not from the chill air. The dark air does waft down, across the streets with the tenacity of the Headless Horseman, and with he piercing power of a depleted uranium round. Through coats it cuts, around doors it flanks and hats, scarves, mittens- right out. There is little hiding from this Beast, from its decentralized, casually cruel mentality that ravages the happiness of most, inconveniences the rest.

Yet it does not blow into Notre-Dame de Reims for in spite of all its chill energy, its selfless appetite for heat, the dark wind hardly reaches the first steps before imploding upon itself, dying in an attempt to evade the virtuous, vivacious energy of the church. Like a fireplace, a great exporter of heat Our Lady of Rheims uses instead of wood or material burning, the the heat of life, of history, of the souls it houses within its ancient confines.

Especially today, most especially today. For today is All Saints' Day, Hallowmas, and people are streaming in. Tall people, short people, fat people, skinny people. Red, yellow, white and black; courageous, cowardly. Intelligent and quick as lighting, possessing the mental capable of a doorknob. There sit funny looking people and there sit aesthetic angels, a few have deformities and a few contain the beauty of death. More contain the healthy vitality of life, many in the deepest throes of love, passion while a few sit silent in their sorrows, feeling the spasms of life’s inherent dread slowly pluck the last remaining hope from their system. For love is so fleeting and precious, like a flower plucked from its stem. Vibrant and strong, yet even the most simplest of children can understand that it will not last, nothing ever lasts and beauty, life and love more so then anything.

Among this crowd, sits a fellow more depressed then most and less hopeful then all. He’s crouched within himself, a slumped over and huddled body indicating to all that he is suffering internal battles to rival the best of Napoleon, the best of Wellington. For he knows that who sits across from him is none other than the devil incarnate, Olivier Besancenot. Internationalist, socialist, French and a stain upon the Glorious France’s flag, a stain that could only be purged by judicial application of French blood. More specifically, by the Bulgarian made Arcus 98DA.

The weapon is a full-size, short-recoil, locked-breech pistol with the added benefit of being cheap, reliable and fairly accessible within French Ghettos while both modern, unused, untraceable. Chambered in a 9x19 Parabellum with a frame, slide and barrel CNC machined from steel forgings the gun fits easily within his right coat pocket. The gun features stippled rubber grips that provide a very slip-resistant surface that will help prevent it from squirming out of his stressed, weeping, hand. The matte blue finish, while not fine, is evenly applied, and there were no sharp edges to give it completely away as a weapon.

In his mind the whole act was already accomplished, in his mind he calmly takes out his gun, shoots Besancenot in the back of the head, in front of the nation in front of his family in front of God before slowly turning the trigger to his own temple while he utters a final prayer before pulling the trigger once more. Effectively turning himself into a martyr, a True Believer and an assured spot in God’s Holy Kingdom, if not that then at the very least the history books which was – he admitted to himself – just as good. Yet he can’t, he just can’t. He thought he was ready, he knew he was ready, it was all coming according to the master plan; he paid off a guard to skip the search of his baggy pockets, implying to honorable worker that he planned to do no worse then pull out some silly string in some sort of militant atheistic defiance. He had left a stash of goodbye cards, shoutouts, to everyone in his life at his apartment. He had taken a sampling of the finest food, the best cars, the greatest wines and yet – here he sat, not petrified but merely unable. He saw no comfort in suicide, he saw no happiness in his actions nor greatness because he felt nothing. He had turned off his emotion perceptions because, frankly, those perceptions were repeatedly overwhelmed by the mass expulsion of pure humanity every time he considered ending a life, before ending his own.

The problem was, and he was startled to realize this, was that he couldn’t stop thinking of his girl, that wonder. He never thought of himself as the sentimental type, instead he had always had both eyes on the future, on fame, fortune and the rest. Yet here he was, about to enter the history books, about to fulfill one of the last obstacles to France’s inevitable triumph back to the universe’s cherished denizens. Yet he was completely unable to move. “Ah, well, that’s life.” He mumbled to himself as he steeled himself once more to take the plunge into the abyss, regardless of life; everything. With one last glance at his watch he realized that he was dramatically late and was about to have his decision yanked from his sweaty palms by Time, the cruelest mistress. Any second now, something would change and this chance would be lost forever.

With a creeping sensation that there existed beyond him a world not entirely his own, that beyond The Man With the Gun's struggled breathing. There was another noise, just noticed. The intake, the gasping intake, of the man across the aisle. A disheveled individual who was even now crying in great heaping, choking, sobs as he pulled out the largest knife in the world. Well, obviously not the biggest, likely not even ranked but to the round, innocent eyes of The Man With the Gun, it was massive. More interesting still, this new threat was merely a few steps from the bowed visage of his truly, Besancenot. Who was either fast asleep, always a probability, or so deeply enthralled with God that he did not yet realize the threat to his personage; of course he could be pretending which would be much worse. Attempting to not hear, see or feel the world around one’s self was much worse than not having the temporary ability through a religious epiphany of the highest order.

With no little satisfaction, the silently weeping man snakes down the few feet to the French “anti-capitalist,” the French “anti-imperialist,” the French “stain.” He can see the situation so crystal clear, so devilishly insightful for he has thought through all the angles, he sees through all the forgery and deception. This man is here to make sure the job gets done, the people who see him believe he is merely overcome by religious feelings – embarrassing, surely, but that merely aggravates the ease in which he slips by. Embarrassing people are so easily dismissed, it takes true will to stare at someone so unabashedly out of his mind. The killer stopped and put a hand to his forehead where he leaned a aisle away from Besancenot, seemingly deep in an complete mental breakdown. “Tu me casses les coquilles,” The Man with the Gun whispered ever so slightly, indecipherably silent, across the way.

Sighing, he stood up. Discreetly, he found no need to bring attention to himself as surely as he found no need to want to watch this façade anymore. God's Will would be done, with or without him, so as he walked slowly out of the chapel hearing the first screams – two gunshots – his heart touched the sterile edges of the calm certainty that he did right. He wouldn’t kill to kill, wouldn’t kill to fulfill some demented madman’s aspirations, he just wanted to go home to his girl; sit down in front of a movie for two and half glorious hours, then fuck her brains out. Not a lot to ask, all things considered.

There sits a cocaine addict, there sits an alcoholic and there sits a hopeless gambler. They three, in their own way, have abused vices to excess. They are most or less shunned by society, hapless to their own body's urges they can do little to stop. They would give up a limb for every new bag, every new bottle, every new bank account as they sink ever deeper into their own moral sinkhole. It is a sad sight, but do we go up to those people and say "you're a cocaine addict, well, here's another pound?" With a slap on the back, do we go up to the alcoholic and say "here's a quart of whiskey, go crazy?" Is the gambler provided with a checking account only valid within a casino's walls? No, no and most especially: no.




Yet when it comes to our country, to our way of life, what do we do? We're addicted to debt, a drug more potent and addicting than the most powerful hard drug in existence. This drug, this addiction, has poisoned so many aspects of our society that we now hardly notice the declining value of our savings account, the bankrupting of our social safety nets, the slow abdication of fiscal conservatism, the death spiral of our jobs, lives, homes and families. Yet what does our current batch of politicians do? Do they consider that we need to be weaned off our addiction, that we must understand the idea and the concept: you only get what we can pay for? No, they try to beat our addiction to cheap debt by, you guessed it, giving us more debt! We're a few trillion dollars in debt? Well, here's another trillion or so. Have a great day! I find such tactics not merely intellectually dishonest but morally reprehensible. This country deserves better, you deserve better; we deserve better today, tomorrow, we deserve better forever.

It clearly does not take someone with a PhD in Economics to understand that enabling an addiction is not a intelligible response to our current problems. Which is why, no doubt, most people don't believe their dully (that's right, dully) elected representatives are worth the powder to blow them off the face of the Earth. Albeit, if not that extreme, then they believe them to be worse than someone randomly pulled from a phone book [1] and to the majority of Americans. The country would be infinitely better off if the entire bunch would be kicked out for good. [2]

With such widespread incompetence and ignorance from Washington, being traded with Main Street's goods of antipathy and disillusionment. Even the small steps, even the one's considered 'quasi' successful, have a knack for being upheld as victories – that is, if victories ever had a habit of falling on their face. One such, great, example could be best explained by two source's (pulled from Left Coast Rebel, a delightful chap everyone should say 'hello too') from two local news sources seeming to indicate that the widely 'acclaimed' Cash-For-Clunkers deal has hit a few snags. Which is government speak for this is not the deal some dealers were hoping for. For they, ironically enough, thought that if they, dealers in Chicago [3] and South Dakota [4], followed the governments stated intentions then money would result. Ah, too bad, apparently they are getting ready for a massive disappoint because as expected the timetable for reimbursement is gradually extending to the point one cannot help but give a sad shake of their head. If one still believes the government will truly pay back – at all!

Surely it doesn't help that for the largest and most ideologically prominent issue, health-care, most people assume they know more then the aforementioned delegates. [5]

Against this delightful background, cannot the question "what can liberty do," resound?

For too long it has been held that we must 'socialize the means of production, because people are entirely too poor.' After refutation built upon refutation, that general principle was changed to 'we must social the ends of production, because people are entirely too rich.' This also has but been refuted every step of the way. For that I believe we shall stop seeing the world as the subjective view of two opposing ideologies: the ‘left’ and the ‘right.‘ Yet instead as a division between those who would appropriate our sweat for the benefit of paper-pushers and those who place their honor in the noble system of social cooperation based on the virtue of the contract and voluntary coordination. We shall see the world as those who have accepted the moral authority endowed to us by the Almighty and on the other the sickly sweet call of the authoritarian promising us money we have not earned, responsibility we do not deserve and morality without meaning.

In short, I hope we shall find that these timid arguments about budget size shall be replaced by a larger concern. That is, a focus away from the simplistic issue of a budget deficit 'too large' but but instead to the consideration how such a government could ever hope to create such shortfalls without overstepping its constitutional bounds. Instead of a race between the GOP’s creeping socialism and the Democrat’s gallop to government interventionism - we shall plan for freedom. We shall plan for the optimal government, one envisioned by not merely a deluge of philosophers but economists, revolutionaries, physicists, biologists, businessmen and untold thousands - millions, if not billions - of people. That is, the general standard upon which good governance is counted will be to improve the material well being of society through the ability too (in the words of Ludwig von Mises) “establish and to preserve an institutional setting in which there are no obstacles to the progressive accumulation of new capital and it utilization for the improvement of technical methods of production.”

Which is more or less a more detailed delve into the memorable Locke's statement:

Government has no other end than the preservation of property.

Sincerely I believe that this statement was not uttered by a man to be written off as a “royalist,” or an “elitist,” or from the ‘Party of No.’ Because, frankly, he is by and far smarter then every political theorist alive.

To continue this line of thinking, let me share with you an except from Cato’s Letters. A series of pamphlets published in support of liberty during the formative years of our country.

By Liberty I understand the Power which every Man has over his own Actions, and
his Right to enjoy the Fruits of his Labour, Art, and Industry, as far as by it
he hurts not the Society, or any Members of it, by taking from any Member, or by
hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys. The Fruits of a Man's honest
Industry are the just Rewards of it, ascertained to him by natural and eternal
Equity, as is his Title to use them in the Manner which he thinks fit: And thus,
with the above Limitations, every Man is sole Lord and Arbitrer of his own
private Actions and Property.

With that in mind, please - plan for freedom. Let Free Markets "Work."

[1] Ramussen Reports

[2] Rasmussen Reports II

[3] CBS News Chicago

[4] Keloland TV

[5] Gallup Polling

Capitalist calculation of the various intricacies through which the economic system works is based, alone, on monetary calculation. The execution of that ideal is widely acclaimed because the prices of all goods and services in the market can then be easily expressed, homogenously, through a common denominator thus enabling essentially disparate elements of society to interact on a personal level, without letting their personal value systems intertwining as to cause undue discomfort to the two parties. For between two (or more) willing parties one need not to worry about anything other than the other's ability to purchase (or sell) the prerequisite amount of goods that were decided upon. That simple realization is the beauty of the capitalistic society, for as you walk down to the grocery store you do not care what religion, what race, what eye color, what music, what height the person who packaged that good was. You do not wonder if the person who drove the truck to the back of the store was blind, deaf, or dumb – there is only the simplistic, fair, logical and above all else: moral, system of fulfilling a need through the exchange of a common denominator. The picture of Lincoln, 5's in every corner, with a little note from the Federal Reserve on them remarking that this piece of green paper is "Legal Tender" instantly erases bigotry through the humble acknowledgement that everyone's Federal Reserve Notes spend the same way.

This benefit cannot be stressed enough and that a truly capitalistic, free, economy is at its heart blind to all the old, tired, clichés. That it neither cares nor needs to care for the various eccentric behaviors of individuals insofar as they are able to conduct their affairs with competency within one of the most beautiful, eloquently simple and well executed institutions man has ever created. Not only does it provide the most random elements of society the goods they require yet it also enables true, in the best sense of the word, equality. One cannot tell that the money being dropped into your bank account was first held by the hands of a Muslim, a illegal immigrant, or even a WASP. It's clean, it's precise and it is equal. Yet, nonetheless, we have our 'esteemable' Federal Government extending its groping hands into the market for the explicit purpose of creating a truly 'color, sex, orientation – blind' workforce by establishing criteria that only readily acknowledges those differences. Even the most casual observer cannot help but notice that in a truly unhampered free market that is all of an inconsequential nature for the simple reason equality has already been taken care of.

Equality? Why yes, true equality and not the equality we are used too – not the equality of the leftist demagogues nor in the sense of the flippant, socialist, punch line. We have heard for so long that we must have equality of production, because people are so poor. We later heard that we must have equality of outcomes, because people are so rich. With both grievous deeds enabled by the hoodlum's mask of socialism, interventionism and Keynesian. Yet this true equality has nothing to do with the basterdized version heckled by the statism most see as identity politics, instead it is the equality one receives as an inherent prize in participating within capitalist society – in a truly and innocently just society. The degrading sense of equality that was propagated by statists in the world who, in the word's of Ludwig von Mises, "sought to justify it with religious, psychological and philosophical arguments; but all these proved to be untenable." Proven such because they forgot the simple empirical point "that men are endowed differently by nature; thus the demand that all should be equally treated cannot rest on any theory that all are equal." (von Mises) In essence, today's common darkly tyrannical and obsessively Orwellian sense of 'equality' rests on facts that can not exist while the equality of liberty rests on the simple idea of equality of neither production nor outcome yet instead the simplicity of the 'level playing field.' Before law, before each other's eyes and before Christ. Not through force, but through calm acceptance of each other's individuality.

Personally, I object to this interventionism out of the abject horror equality has come to mean to me, to statists and to the wider world. While there is large disagreements, on several grounds, for the sake of this post's brevity I will try to keep the objections into two of the most broadest categories. The economic impracticality of any and all interventionism with special regards to constraints on the sanctity of the relationship between the employee and employer. While secondly setting my humble sights on the moral bankruptcy one must achieve before deciding that race does, indeed, matter above all else and with the full understanding that even if it is for the benefit of the subject race, identity politics has no place in this society.

Taking the economic invalidity of enforcing a misguided sense of equality could require the assessments of several different strings of theory yet a substantial amount of good can be accomplished through merely seeing how wages work in a optimal state, and how poorly managed legislative actions can intervene in causing unforeseen, always of poor quality, events that too the educated – are all too foreseeable.

The best way to describe the foundations of the argument, is to take another look at one of the centuries best economic structuralists, theorists, once again. As von Mises explains, "labor is a scarce factor of production." This neat definition falls into the wider explanation of how individuals try, succeed and fail, at establishing under various circumstances the attainment of various wants, ends, while avoiding undesired (i.e. Bad) conclusions. See how he defines labor, not as a social necessity or as a duty, nor even as a way of giving back to 'the greater good.' Instead, he uses the definition which has seen such countries as our very own, America, and states such as Texas succeed, prosper, grow.

Establishing wages for labor, is as essentially simplistic as all market prices are established; supply and demand. An entrepreneur appraises the services rendered according to the principles he applies to all the other goods he purchases to produce the service he provides. This is established through only one way, market wage rates. There is no such thing as nonmarket wage rates, just as there nonmarket prices. Any attempt to establish a nonmarket wage, will ultimately provide you with the same failure of the imagination that attacked those that sought to establish nonmarket prices. It's undoubtedly a callous, unfeeling business – wages and the whatnot – yet that is how it is. The wages upper and lower limits are similarly established through the mere exchange of the required information. The upper limit of his offerings is established by anticipating the price the business owner can obtain for the increment in 'salable goods' he expects to be produced by his honorable employee. The lower limit is determined by the bids of the competing entrepreneurs who themselves are guided by analogous considerings.

Now obviously there is much room to ruin these intricate, yet essentially simple, workings. Yet without going in depth to the various ways corruption can eliminate the productivity of the system, merely establishing that the empirical evidence points to the fact that corporations, states, entities that all follow this sort of thinking – that labor and wages is merely business, that it does not need any more morality then the simple morality of working for your own good. Do better by and far above their competitors who believe that there is something inherently immoral about claiming the sweat off your own brow, for yourself and your family. If that is understood to be established, and there is little if any reason not to acknowledge such an existence, then there is no argument.

Yet to spell it out in fairly straightforward catallactic austerity: any change in the relationship on the market between that of the employer and the employee immediately causes instabilities that mean decreased quality for one group of individuals: the consumer. Now while this can take the form of various quantities, the best analogy is that of a small business owner who is forced to balance out his workforce so that it looks more 'like America.' Now, obviously, such a bumper sticker argument is so clearly a falsehood but I am fastidious about combating such ignorance. The point is, the market process is "coherent and indivisible... An undissoluble intertwinement of actions and reactions, of moves and countermoves." (Mises) The small act of forcing the owner to hire more individuals then he ever wanted too, or the marginal productivity he loses by paying a less skilled wage earner more then the going price for him. Then the only possible result is that either prices must move up, or more likely – the owner is forced to do some instance of cost cutting. Either hurting his other employees, the service to his customers or even going out of business completely.

This is, of course, all done in the name of humanity.

Which is where my moral indignation cannot help but come out.

How is it anything but immoral for requesting an entrepreneur to look a man's skin color, before anything else? I have outlined my reservations for Applied Tolerance in a previous post (scroll down, if you are feeling so inclined) and I cannot help too see express the highest contempt at such a Orwellian doublethink practice in which morality is superimposed with a horrific image created by those either too tired or too constrained by their own dogma to answer the underlying, vexing questions. Instead, they have merely decided to give the mob, a few vocal minorities, their bread and circuses at the expense of the wider incredulous majority. Of which, I am happy too say that I stand with. Where our history's true liberals stand – Locke, with Jefferson and with Washington the Incredulous Majority requires only a solemn oath. Not too any institution, but merely too ourselves. For the line is drawn and the line, I am happy to say, is that on one side there is those who are in favor for the tyranny of those living in an America that never existed, that can never exist, and does not exist. They are for equality in the sense they feel no moral compunctions about imposing racial quotas, no moral compunctions with destroying the very meaning of the word 'equality.' While on the other it is for a true America embodied with the simple and beautiful austerity of Lady Liberty to throw down the gauntlet at those statist elitists. To be independent from government interference today, tomorrow, for ever.