Editorial
A New Kind of Freedom
Karl Marx was asked once how he could justify advocating a political system of slavery for the individual, which is what socialism is. He replied that socialism is not slavery; it is a "new kind of freedom." As all perceptive students of history know, the intellectuals of Europe bought into such Alice in Wonderland sophistry and plunged into the twentieth century nightmare of collectivist tyranny. But unfortunately, so did American intellectuals about 30 years later when the Progressives of Woodrow Wilson's era established the Creature from Jekyll Island to usher in centralized government banking and the progressive income tax to "spread the wealth around."
Socialism is not really so bad, reasoned the American intellectual community. If we think about it, it actually is a "new kind of freedom." We just have to do what the Red Queen and the Mad Hatter advocated. We have to change the meaning of the words that define the fundamental values of our lives. After all, there is no objective reality; words can mean whatever we want them to mean. All we have to do is teach Marx's new definition of freedom to the young at an early enough age that when they grow into adulthood they will not think of a government-dominated society as slavery at all. It will be a "new kind of freedom" to them.
Americans never bought into Lenin's violent revolutionary socialism but they did buy into the Fabians' democratic evolutionary socialism. Fabian ideas in Britain were readily picked up by the American progressives and liberals of the twentieth century. This redefinition of values has been consuming us now for 100 years ever since the Creature from Jekyll Island and the tax revenuers took over Washington. The progressives and liberals have even redefined their redefinitions. Fascism, being basically the same as socialism, is now acceptable in the mix.
What is horrifying is that Barack Obama's election victory is tied directly to this corruption of values. We have now elected, for a second time, a man who was raised by communists in Hawaii. Obama's mind was forged from the likes of Frank Marshall Davis, a powerful and radical communist apparatchik of the fifties, sixties, and seventies. Davis was Obama's constant companion from the age of 9 to 18 before he went off to Occidental College in Los Angeles. His worldview is thus the Marxian sophistry that socialism is a "new kind of freedom." In the mind of Obama, individuals like Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart are not entrepreneurial benefactors to their fellow man; they are evil rich people who exploit their fellow man. These evil rich need to be leveled down. And the way to do it is insidiously, governmentally, with ever-expanding redistribution of wealth programs and ever-expanding monetary inflation.
One of Ayn Rand's powerful insights in Atlas Shrugged is that dictatorships take over because the people actually approve of them. She called it the "sanction of the victim." This attitude now permeates the American electorate. Nietzsche's "slave mentalities" dominate the throngs of voters who determine what our government is to do. The great majority of Americans are demonstrating that they actually want to be enslaved.
Rand also made the following observation: When asked once why she voted Republican if she thought both parties had sold out to collectivism, she replied that both parties are headed toward the abyss, but Democrats wish to charge toward it and Republicans wish to creep toward it. She, no doubt, felt that we have more time to educate the people as to what is happening with Republicans in power.
Well, America just ran out of time this past election night. A majority of American voters indicated that they believe government owes them a living along with health care, security and self-esteem. They indicated that they are very comfortable with the Fabian march into socialist-fascism that has been taking place ever since the Creature was instituted in 1913. They indicated that they believe rich people don't earn their wealth; they steal it from the kindly masses by siphoning off the surplus productivity of their labor and reducing them to grinding poverty. (This is the fallacious "labor theory of value" that Marx perpetuated.)
Unfortunately, this fallacious reasoning is why so many Americans have become so slothful and are choosing to vote for a living rather than work for a living. It is the reason why so many productive men and women in America are poisoned with guilt and now tolerate the egregious, confiscatory taxes that are destroying the dynamism of our economy and the sanity of our lives. Justice and prosperity cannot be built by catering to slothful masses with theoretical fallacies.
The slothful masses now control America through an Orwellian czar in Washington whose mentor was a rabid communist apparatchik in the 1970s and whose close advisors (Bill Ayres, Jeremiah Wright, Valerie Jarrett, etc.) have always been radical leftist haters of America. This Orwellian czar is now a lame duck President and doesn't have to run again. All that blocks him from ravaging our rights and freedoms is a supine Senate and a timid array of House Republicans. Will these political sycophants be able to stand up to him and the new hordes of entitlement seekers that bolster him with their eager votes? Not likely. Congress will, instead, begin to reach out to the new entitlement seekers along with the pressing hordes of illegals and their comrades waiting in the wings for entrance to America.
Jean Raspail's Camp of the Saints looms over the horizon. Congressional sycophants will begin to emulate Fox News analyst, Kirsten Powers, who gleefully reported on election night, "We are now a brown nation." They will begin to reevaluate their position on the illegals. They will reason that another 15 million illiterate anti-Americans amidst us is no problem. To paraphrase Nixon, "We're all Multiculturalists now."
Thus, Obama will push full-blown for amnesty for the illegals and Marx's redefinition of slavery into a "new kind of freedom." We will charge toward the abyss at a speed never before employed. Obama and the Creature will gobble up the last of our freedoms. America will become a giant replica of Greece.
Nelson Hultberg is a freelance writer in Dallas, Texas and the Director of Americans for a Free Republic (AFR.org). His articles have appeared in such publications as the Dallas Morning News, The American Conservative, Insight, The Freeman, and Liberty, as well as on numerous Internet sites such as The Daily Bell, Financial Sense, and Safe Haven. He is also the author of a soon to be released book on political philosophy, The Golden Mean: Libertarian Politics, Conservative Values. Email him at nelshultberg@aol.com.
l 
|
You must be a site member to submit suggested edits or post feedback. In addition to submitting edit suggestions and posting feedback, your Free Membership to The Daily Bell gives you access to our Member Zone where you will discover a plethora of other member benefits. Want to learn more? click here |
|||||
|
|
||||
 |
Posted by cantigas321 on 11/11/12 11:49 AM
Hultberg's analysis is spot on until the end when he loses all validity by viciously attacking illegal immigrants, acting as if they were alien invaders. Latinos, like all immigrants, are hard-working individuals who come here to improve their lives and they move our economy.
Amazingly conservatives attack them when they hold many traditional values and are most definitely social conservatives. Sadly, it is true, many Latinos have been duped in their countries by leaders who promise everything and can be duped again here by someone like our President. It is up to us to show them that politicians only get in the way of their work and freedom. If conservatives were to reach out to Latinos, a huge constituency would join their ranks.
Remember Ron Paul spoke to Latinos in New Mexico, and even dared to speak the truth: that some people in this country are using them as scapegoats, like the Germans did to Jews. This anti-immigrant language does not fit in with a belief in freedom. A good attack on Mr. Obama's socialist agenda ended with statements that sounded like industrial America attacks on the Irish, Poles, and Italians.
|
Posted by mava on 11/11/12 11:31 AM
@DannyB
"the work distribution is inequitable too"
LOL, so true!
The communists were seeking to abolish the "poor" class. Because such is impossible, they failed.
We, in US, do not seek to abolish the "poor" class. All we want, is merely for all the poor people to be able to afford everything the rich can afford.
|
Posted by Danny B on 11/10/12 04:59 PM
"For Marx human nature will first be reconstituted so people won't seek their own happiness any longer but pursue the collective happiness of humanity."
Marx was a fool who well represents people who've never seen the hardscrabble side of life. A blithering idiot who talks about happiness.
35,000 children under the age of 5 y.o. die every day.
100 million Westerners are soon to lose their pensions.
Happiness takes a back seat to survival. Marx would erase the personal desire to survive? Socialism is a scheme to allow the greatest number of non-producers to survive. The non-producers piss and moan that wealth distribution is inequitable.
Well gee, the work distribution is inequitable too. Same goes for brains and motivation.
 |
Posted by Szatyor39 on 11/10/12 11:16 AM
For Marx human nature will first be reconstituted so people won't seek their own happiness any longer but pursue the collective happiness of humanity. Such people will indeed be free to do just one thing, namely, serve the state but then this is what history has destined for us, according to Marx. It is all fantasy--the extrapolation of Marx's own dream of communal life to the entire world. Since pace Marx this will no come about naturally, as he predicted, the only hope for realizing it is via the likes of Stalin and Mao. Ergo, the gulags!
|
Posted by mava on 11/10/12 10:43 AM
@DannyB
Thank you.
But, why couldn't they (the uncompetitive), then just say "the hell with all of you", and simply drop back to agrarian way of living? I mean if the Capitalism is not good enough for them , then why don't they just become independent? Capitalism certainly has no problem with non-subscribers.
You see, if I was living (and when I was) under Communism, no one was ever allowed to do that and become independent from the Communism. The Communism does not tolerate anyone who wants to opt out.
Capitalism, on the other hand, allows anyone to opt out (to the extent that it is, actually, Capitalism, and is not dirtied by a however small mixture of Communism that we live under today).
This question is only to show that those uncompetitive are actually intellectually dishonest rats, and deserve the worst possible treatment we could give them, specifically because of their dishonesty.
You completely hit the bulls eye! This is exactly and the only reason that people really want socialism. Insatiable desire to steal and kill. Refusal to compete as soon as it becomes clear that they might lose. They will never or almost never voice the true reason. These people have zero integrity, zero dignity. Morally, spiritually, they are basically dogs. It is too bad that to understand that bottom line truth about the Communism, it usually takes a lifetime living under the system, and for many, more than the lifetime.
 |
Posted by amanfromMars on 11/10/12 03:54 AM
amanfromMars, What are you talking about? Just curious. I can't make heads or tales of your messages, but I keep reading them. ….. Posted by kbterry on 11/09/12 01:48 PM
Look, we need to start working on solutions together. Sure, sharing the truth, educating as many people as possible and fighting the good fight for liberty are part of the gameplan- but we need to start organizing ourselves. There are no places left on earth to conquer and renew the founding principles. How can we come together? Where? When? …. Posted by SgtBarnes on 11/09/12 12:22 PM
Talking and working on Quite Cosmic Top Secret Novel Failsafe solutions, kbterry/folks/SgtBarnes?
Astronaut uses space internet to control robot on Earth …. [[a href="Click to view link"]Click to view link[/a]] ….. ARGonauts Sublimely Internetworking Stealthy Astute Anonymous Autonomous Services in CyberSpace Power and Command Remote Control of Human IT on Earth and in so doing place Global Reality into Virtual Administration ….. for the Singularity and Plurality of Advanced IntelAIgent Machine Control Led Space Security and Protection in Live Operational Virtual Environments …. Future Prescient Brave New WWWorlds
And whenever both of these tales are true are they a Priceless Compounding Actuality which can easily Confound and Confuse the Intellectually Challenged and Merely UnderEducated, those and that which be Arrogant and Ignorant?
* Visit here for a briefing on [a href="Click to view link"]Cosmic Top Secret Cooks and their Cookies[/a]
|
Posted by Danny B on 11/09/12 07:09 PM
2 Mava, you write very well.
Everyone should read "The Bell Curve. There are smart people and stupid people.
There are lots of other dividing lines but, the smart people are more likely to make good decisions than the stupid people.
As the world gets more complex, Darwinian pressures are more likely to select for intellect rather than brawn. Every society that goes through the industrial revolution finds itself with a large cadre of people who were necessary when brawn was necessary.
This cadre is no longer necessary when machines are doing all the heavy work.
Man is competitive and MUST use the tools available to compete. We have an ever-increasing segment that are not able to utilize current tools. While they may be able to support themselves in an agrarian society, they have few niches in a techno society. The non-competitive have banded together philosophically to demand what they have NOT earned.
Socialism has great appeal to those who can't compete. Over-generous socialism has great appeal to those who might compete but, prefer to live unencumbered by labor.
"A 2008 survey found 52 percent of eastern Germans believed the free market economy was 'unsuitable' and 43 percent said they wanted socialism back."
Click to view link
The poor must remain quite poor or they they attract a cohort of would-be producers who shun labor for a free ride.
While the shared misery of socialism is odious drudgery to competitive producers, it is preferable to the Darwinian alternative that would be the fate of the non-producers in a strictly competitive society.
Marxism has great appeal to those who just can't cut it in a competitive society.
As the ongoing industrial revolution moves ever-upward in it's destruction of job niches, there will be an ever-increasing cohort calling for Marxism.
The claim has been made that Moore's Law also applies to robots. That will greatly speed up the destruction of more job niches.
 |
Posted by DarbyJie on 11/09/12 05:05 PM
"One of Ayn Rand's powerful insights in Atlas Shrugged is that dictatorships take over because the people actually approve of them. She called it the "sanction of the victim." This attitude now permeates the American electorate. Nietzsche's "slave mentalities" dominate the throngs of voters who determine what our government is to do. The great majority of Americans are demonstrating that they actually want to be enslaved."
Not true. The sanction of the victim does not state that "... the people... want to be enslaved."
It refers to the phenomenon of taking on oneself an unearned guilt, as in the case of Hank Rearden, who suffered dreadully not because of his vices but because of his virtues... completely different idea.
|
Posted by mava on 11/09/12 02:56 PM
The main distinguishing characteristic of communism is the lack of private property. Nothing, I repeat, nothing that you "own" is really yours. You are simply in possession of it because the mob hasn't taken it away from you for whatever the reason. The mob has the right to take anything you own, at any time.
Once this is decided, then it becomes necessary to propose a way for the economy to work. The way it was suggested was the central planning, which as Mises proved, can not possibly work. So, it is important to understand why do communist even have to think about central planning. It is not their ideal or goal, it is simply a consequence of killing the economic calculation, as a result of removal of property rights.
Thus for me, before I even bother myself with a question if communism a new freedom or not, I have to first cope with its first principle - no private property.
And I have to say that freedom comes second. I can not accept the absence of private property, whether that results in freedom or not. I can not accept it already for what it is, regardless of its future implications.
Let us assume that I have been promised total freedom and happiness as a result of giving up my property rights. I will say no to that. It doesn't matter what will it bring, - I will not pay the price.
This is the end of the argument for me. Everything else is irrelevant.
|
Posted by kbterry on 11/09/12 01:48 PM
amanfromMars, What are you talking about? Just curious. I can't make heads or tales of your messages, but I keep reading them.
 |
Posted by SgtBarnes on 11/09/12 12:22 PM
Look, we need to start working on solutions together. Sure, sharing the truth, educating as many people as possible and fighting the good fight for liberty are part of the gameplan- but we need to start organizing ourselves. There are no places left on earth to conquer and renew the founding principles. How can we come together? Where? When?
|
Posted by bionic mosquito on 11/09/12 11:56 AM
NH: They indicated that they are very comfortable with the Fabian march into socialist-fascism that has been taking place ever since the Creature was instituted in 1913. They indicated that they believe rich people don't earn their wealth; they steal it from the kindly masses by siphoning off the surplus productivity of their labor and reducing them to grinding poverty.
BM: One could certainly say that the masses are correct in this sentiment, despite the fact that most are wrong about the solution. For whose benefit was the Creature created in 1913? It certainly wasn't for the benefit of the masses. The system is set up to take all excess from the backs of the middle class.
We can complain all we want about the welfare queens. While they receive hundreds, the direct beneficiaries of government and central banking largesse (the captains of industry and banking - and the controllers above them) receive trillions. Both the top end and the bottom end of the income scale are beneficiaries of the corrupt system, but only the bottom end is also a victim.
Sadly for the middle class, they are only victims….Even sadder (or more pathetic), most of them don't know it. Even more pathetic, they think what happened three days ago makes any difference either way.
What might have happened in 2008 if the Federal Government and the Federal Reserve just stood down? (Of course, there was zero chance of that, but this is the point.) Those making trillions from the system would have suffered immeasurably, while those at the bottom end would have been…what? Unemployed?
Well guess what. Those at the top end were rescued, saving their trillions and siphoning trillions more, while those at the bottom end are unemployed anyway.
To whose benefit is the current system?
|
Posted by dimitri on 11/09/12 11:30 AM
Who needs von Mises when we have Hultberg?
|
Posted by Danny B on 11/09/12 10:41 AM
No worries, mate. She'll be right. America will not go broke. Ried says so.
Click to view link
Here's an interesting article on communitarian law.
Click to view link
It has a link to a pdf about;
"On the way to the new serfdom in America, a new house stealing strategy has emerged over the past several months. With many homeowners presently underwater, the five megabanks are conducting reappraisals and billing the difference between the loan amount and the current appraised value of the house. When the homeowner cannot find the cash to pay the difference, usually within a 30 day window, the bank forecloses."
30 DAY WINDOW
The banks will reel in all the houses and sub the loans to the GSEs.
Did Ayn Rand say anything about galloping towards socialism?
I spent 10 years driving around Mexico, up to 5 months a year. I work with Latinos.
Here is a saying;
Un trabajo que no tiene la posibilidad de robar no es un buen trabajo.
A job without the possibility of stealing is not a good job.
It's not considered stealing though. It's just sharing.
Survival trumps morality and the poor will always break the bank given the opportunity. It's not limited to any racial group.
California has 10% of the U.S. population and and 35% of the welfare recipients.
What has that gotten us?
Click to view link
|
Posted by Libertarian Jerry on 11/09/12 09:24 AM
Excellent article... ..I think the collectivist conquering of America could,to a large extent,be blamed on the onslaught of Cultural Marxism. Although the Fabians and Progressives played an important part in taking down tthe American Constitution and its implied liberties,it was the changing of the Culture through Public Education,Academia,the Main Stream Media,Hollywood,TV and other venues that,like a hypodermic syringe filled with socialist bacteria,was allowed to permeate and infect the American Society and consciousness. Therefore,the ground work and intellectual foundation was being laid down alongside with the creation of the tools that were to be used to enslave productive Americans. So that as the Central Bank,Fiat Currency and Income Tax systems were being set up,the ideals of socialism were,at the same time,being put into place. In the final analysis we have,after about 100 years,a voting majority of American's who think that a seat on the government gravy train is not only "economic justice" but is also what every American is "entitled" to whether they earned that seat or not. Trying to fight this red tidal wave is next to impossible. For most people who believe in liberty,small government and self responsibility the only answer is to become self reliant and protect those things that are near and dear to you. In the end,like Rome,the laws of economics will play out and America will be totally bankrupt. When there is nothing left to loot is when we may be able to rebuild our Republic.
 |
Posted by rossbcan on 11/09/12 07:59 AM
A "new kind of freedom" equates to "change in dominent imposed perspective, definitions", since REAL freedom equals uncoerced, unbullied.
A statist tyrant whom is able to bully / coerce everyone else is FREE, in posession of self-determination, a "good thing", by their perspective, which denies (and preys upon) the REAL "right to life" of other perspectives.
The TRUTH will provide the tools for YOU, to be free, should you CHOOSE to assert courage and personal responsibility:
Click to view link
... as did our far wiser ancestors whom created western civilization, based on the "rule of law", as opposed to "rule of man" sophistry, false rationalizations:
Click to view link
|
Posted by amanfromMars on 11/09/12 01:22 AM
"They indicated that they believe rich people don't earn their wealth; they steal it from the kindly masses by siphoning off the surplus productivity of their labor and reducing them to grinding poverty. (This is the fallacious "labor theory of value" that Marx perpetuated.)" ... ... Nelson Hultberg, Friday, November 09, 2012
You do not see that as the truth as perceived by the masses in a capitalist fiat currency society/admininstration/power elite model, Nelson, and as is being evidenced in present austerity impositions/currency flow blockages/QE funding takeovers/thefts/gifts to bankers/banksters? How very odd and politically stupid and naive. It is no wonder that such a system is in such rapid terminal decline.
Please can we have a mutually beneficial meritocracy where constructive and benign intelligence delivers and drivers future programs and scripts for puppets and muppets to follow and enjoy themselves in. For the change that is constantly promised by hope but hindered/blockaded by ignorance and arrogance and vested status quo interests in things remaining the same ... . which is totally alien and fundamentally at odds with the concept and reality of growth and evolution and big bangs of creative invention.
Get with the NEUKlearer HyperRadioProActive IT ProgramMING, Nelson, and do yourself and everyone else a great favour, if you care dare for to win win. The alternative is to be left behind and identified as a dinosaur and relic and apologist for an easily corrupted system ... or worse.
