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October 23, 2006

Notes from the Garden Journal: The Everyman

 

 

I have a confession to make. Some of my best friends are liberals and libertarians. It’s true! Sure, we disagree – and will always disagree in certain areas, but these friends of mine can be pretty reasonable, or at least they usually are.

 

In the case of liberals, this is why I try to make the distinction between the radical left and someone who describes himself a liberal, who has arrived at his opinion honestly either through much contemplation or casual perception of data accurate or not. In the same vein, the distinction can be made between a pseudo-anarchist and a garden-variety, home-spun libertarian. Such a friend generally doesn’t get bent out of shape when others hold differing views. Indeed, one key element we all have in common is the sincere curiosity about how the other has arrived at his position. Such sincere discussions often shed light on the views belonging to oneself and his companions. And it seems often to bring up a curious other phenomenon: agreement in core ideals, disagreement on strategy.

 

The danger is being naïve enough to believe that such discussions can be honestly achieved with radical liberals, anarchists, communists, Mexi-fascists, Islamo-Nazis or by any means real Nazis, since those falling into these groups openly adhere to a predatory ideology which demands all opposition be smashed and silenced.

 

A case in point would be a group like Hamas, which calls for the destruction of Israel in its charter. Now, regardless of your position on Middle Eastern matters, it is without question that Israel has good reason not to attempt negotiations with a group that has already publicly stated it will use every tactic including negotiations to bring about that component of its charter. Such groups are not honest dialoguers but war-mongering barbarians, who owe the credit for their existence somewhere upstream to an equally extremist regime that keeps the fire stoked.

 

Today Mark Levin revealed on his nationally syndicated talk show that Massachusetts Senator and lifeguard reject Ted Kennedy may have collaborated with the KGB to help the DNC leadership unseat President Reagan in 1984. Additionally, it was revealed by Christopher Andrew and KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin as well as Bill Gertz that KGB and Chinese agents have worked diligently to support the work of the radical left in the US and elsewhere. Similarly, we saw German provocateurs working behind the scenes to stir up ethnic Germans and others sympathetic to the Nazi cause to bring about policy congruent with Germany's geopolitical strategy. They likewise found support and significant funding from willing accomplices and useful idiots. Ironically, as Levin points out, it was Ted Kennedy’s father who was also a supporter of Adolf Hitler. So was Henry Ford, whose company later went on to become a huge supporter of radical left causes once what they saw as the next best thing was lost. Ford was an example of what I call the godless-industrialist, to differentiate him from the garden-variety successful and honest entrepreneur or Fortune 500 executive. Capitalism in the hands of honest men which serves the needs of the people (as it usually is and does) is far from harmful to the poor; in fact, quite the opposite. As renowned economist Hernando De Soto noted in an interview last year, “The constituency of capitalism has always been poor people that are outside the system. Capitalism is essentially a tool for poor people to prosper.” The so-called godless-industrialist quickly and without any difficulty switched from wildly praising the regime of Hitler to that of Stalin as soon as he saw which way the war would go.

What the radical movements and evil, dysfunctional personalities all share in common is one single thing (aside from oppression of the middle class and removal of all hope and help for the poor): the lust for power and a willingness to use any vehicle to deceive enough people into allowing them to attain it. It’s also why even as Lenin promised to hang the industrialist with the very rope he manufactured, the godless-industrialist enjoys the use of dysfunctional regimes that oppress their people (such as those under communism) to do the weaving with incredible profit margins.  

 

While a normal and reasonable person can discuss different ways of looking at the world, radicals stirred up by the power-hungry seek only one thing: absolute power for those upstream (though they may not realize they are carrying the water for their adored leaders or valued backers and may think the power is only for themselves).

 

This is why you can have a radical liberal Rockefeller and it’s why you can have a group like the Workers World Party that celebrates him. It’s why you find a Republican President like Nixon appeasing the Soviets and Chinese to increase trade, costing the lives of millions more dissidents in those countries, or a George W. Bush and Senate leadership seeking amnesty for illegal slave laborers and befriending anti-American communist and far-left groups in order to enhance the profits of unethical businesses at the cost of hundreds of lives of both the border crossers and US residents each year. It’s why human rights front groups can endorse people like former KKK clansman Democrat Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia and say nothing in support of Viktor Yushchenko, whom the Russian government sought to assassinate to prevent him from becoming head of Ukrainian state. It’s not about ideas or dialogue, but power. There are other examples, including The Holocaust while it was ongoing, the violent suppression of students in Tiananmen Square (many of whom were also communist party members – but somewhat more moderate), the Prague Spring, the crushing of the Hungarian uprising, the giving of bombs that looked like toys to children of Afghani freedom fighters – all done by the Soviets, and I could go on.

 

Why do communists starve to death millions of dissidents in Ethiopia, China, or Siberia? Fear for the loss of power, not the loss of an idea. Any communist with a knowledge of history and a decent intellect knows communism is bankrupt; a front-ideology for those interested in power. Power is the same reason Pinochet butchered his people, as did Hitler, though hate was a vehicle; likewise with Castro and so many others this past century alone. An idea can stand when no man does; it carries on though forsaken for generations at a time, but power must be mollycoddled like a sickly infant.

 

Communism is particularly evil due to the fact that while it’s similar to other forms of radical socialism such as Nazism in that it claims to be a movement of the people but instead silences any movement of the people, it also is better at franchising its myth among Third World elites and academics (partly thanks to the misdeeds of the godless-industrialist). The people want policies that promote their freedom, the stability that comes about from popular rule – that protects families and moral virtues, the weak and infirm, and the basic, most intrinsic worth of the human spirit. Such policies promote a stronger, not a weaker middle class, as sought by radical socialists, radical Islamists, the godless-industrialists, and their ilk.

 

The Greeks in large thanks to Cleisthenes were first to learn that democracy and its resultant policies which raise the tide of prosperity and liberty for the largest number of people requires a strong and stable middle class, as Aristotle later is famous for noting. It is why, as we’ve seen played out almost continuously prior to 1776 that countries which have a weak middle class tend to have a strong elite upper class or a weak upper class easily toppled by a strong lower class, elements from which then become the new upper class, all at the distress of middle class and the “worker bees” of the lower class.

 

When I sit and talk with my liberal and libertarian friends, as well as my conservative friends, we share a desire for the propagation of our values of honesty, integrity, healthy continuity economically and socially. Sure, we may take sporting shots around election time and sincerely disagree on certain matters, but then again, we are not sycophants. And unlike a truly fraudulent populist Arizona Senator John McCain who traipses across partisan lines for the sake of power, any consensus or synthesis here comes from a genuine, ground-level populist sense of self-preservation, which I define as the need of each person to live his life as much as possible unmolested by neurotic, power-mongering sociopathic elites and elitist “wannabes”. Most people are reasonable, but those who lust for power will never be, nor will they have your interest at heart. Being a cog in someone else’s wheel only means you get run over every time the machine moves forward.

 

While voting this November, Americans should pick the candidate who most closely supports (and has a record of supporting publicly and privately) the middle class and the human values celebrated by it. Others around the world should feel no shame in seeking to have those values reflected in their own governments also. Though people will never agree on certain issues, if reasonable people worked together instead of being pitted against each other like useful idiots, we might get a bit more done worthwhile. I say that knowing that politics around the world is a necessary (and at times fun) sport where trading barbs is occasionally actually very useful when violence or other lawlessness does not come into the picture. But let’s make sure that it’s not just a show that shuts out the rest of us. That, I suppose is just a thought.

 

 

Posted by Martin at October 23, 2006 10:58 PM

Comments

Posted by: Angel at October 24, 2006 01:26 PM