We take the 2nd Amendment for granted in this country, but when, and how, do you really have a right to own a gun? And when, if ever, does a local or Federal authority have the right to take that gun away from you without due process of the law? Is it an 'unalienable' right, or is it something 'granted' to us by a benevolent 'all-wise' executive branch of government that can easily decide at any moment to revoke that right? Something to think about as you watch these videos:
Katrina may seem like old news, but it is very instructive in regards to the really precarious Constitutional times we live it. It really illustrates that who you vote for does have very real consequences, intentional or not. We take the 2nd Amendment for granted in this country, but when, and how, do you really have a right to own a gun? And when, if ever, does a local or Federal authority have the right to take that gun away from you without due process of the law? Is it an 'unalienable' right, or is it something 'granted' to us by a benevolent 'all-wise' executive branch of government that can easily decide at any moment to revoke that right? Something to think about as you watch these videos: And Chuck Norris always has a great way of getting a point across....
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We hear the name-calling all the time: He's a "Left-wing radical," and "She's a Right-winger." But what if this supposed 'Left-to-Right' linear spectrum of political beliefs, is actually a very bad representation of reality, and perhaps even down right false? Has anyone come up with a better version? Well, I believe someone has. I don't know who first authored it, but the RLC is taking credit for their current incarnation of the four-sided political spectrum. In most surveys the majority of people think this new representation is far and away more helpful to political dialog. And if people can actually communicate effectively with their fellow citizens, we will all be better off for it. So here it is: I have also provided it as a higher resolution PDF download at the bottom of this post. Now, why should we junk the 'Left-Right' political spectrum that the typical media keeps referencing constantly? The reason is that this 'line' between left and right that they would have you believe goes off infinitely in each direction, is actually not flat, it's a curve, that with enough perspective is actually a circle. But yet, here I am recommending a picture that uses a square, please forgive the artist. The reality is, that if you got far enough to the right in political thought and ideology, everyone's intuition tells them that you end up with a 'Ruling King', or at least an Oligarchy of some sort. Well, whether it is an old-school king or emperor, or whether it is a small 'ruling-class' of ultra-rich generational power-brokers, the end result is the same.... you have tyranny. You have a form of Authoritarian Dictatorship. What 'fairytale' they choose in order to mask their greedy, power-hungry actions, and justify them, is really meaningless to the practical 'slavery' that the people end up living under. That is what the U.S. revolution of the 1700's was all about. (The central miracle was that we ended up with a relatively good government afterward, when most revolutions around the world have only resulted in toppling one Authoritarian regime, to be replace by another, often worse, Authoritarian regime. Well it is equally truth that, if you travel down the Left side of your classic 'linear' political spectrum, you also end up, whether your intuition tells you or not, down the same 'Statist' rabbit hole into tyranny. If you take Democratic Socialism, and increase progressively the ability of the State, to provide everything that the voting public could ever desire, then the government will need exponentially growing resources to accomplish the 'provisioning' of this ever growing appetite of the voters. To get those resources, the State will necessarily have to take it from the only resource producing element of society, the producers. In a free-market-capitalist society, the producers are private individuals who own private companies, or public companies, which are owned by private citizens. However, in a true socialist and/or communist system, the government ultimately 'owns' the companies, and all the land, so really, the people doing the work, really work directly for the government, and that government might 'generously' allow the people to keep about half of what they earn. [Like serfs for a feudal Lord.] Now most governments are NOT pure socialism, nor pure communism, nor are there any governments which really practice true free-markets, or true capitalism. All governments are some strange 'mash-up' of all four of these ideas, because they are typically trying to keep everyone happy, even though the voting public (or 'powers-that-be',) are constantly wanting the best of 'all-worlds' and/or voting for mutually contradictory things, all at the same time. It is almost enough to pity a politician, but I don't. So if that socialist leaning government wants to provide everything to the public, but can only get the resources from the productive people, they will have to figure out a way to get enough control over those productive people to be able to confiscate a large portion of their production for the use of the state in providing for the non-productive portion of society. This 'humanitarian' motive sounds great, and the people might let the government take enough power into itself to be able to confiscate up to, potentially, 100% of the production of the 'rich people'. This consolidation of power works well if it is done fast enough that the producers can not escape the unjust confiscation by moving to a different country with less confiscation (taxes) or by just closing shop and reducing your production so the government stops taking it. That is why Communist 'Revolutions' seemed to work for almost a generation, until the ill affects of 'communally-own' property finally catch up with them. (Just think of the USSR collapse, and Greece's money problems.) But if it is a social-democracy that is trying to slowly evolve into a full socialist paradise, then the principle of 'running-out-of-other-people's-money' might catch up with that government and make them go bankrupt, before they can consolidate all the power they need to have authoritarian control. And they might get thrown out of office, and true free-market politicians might get voted in. That is the beauty of a true democracy. The voting public can 'wake-up' and smell the rotting flowers, and realize that even if the previous politicians did have the power to confiscate 100% of the wealth of the top 20% of the citizens of the country, they still would not have enough money to pay for all the promised 'human rights' (like free-health-care) that they promised to the other 80%. The hard truth is that ONLY the true free-market, with minimal regulations, (just enough to punish actual evil-doers, not productive people,) coupled with private ownership of industry and of land, produces the kind of wealth that provides the BEST sustainable standard of living for the MOST people. [And it does so most especially for those who want to earn their reward, not live off of government handouts, but it also, ironically, does the most good for those who can't or won't work.] Please note that this chart shown here, is from the perspective of U.S. politics only. Some of the more general concepts would apply to any country, however, the terms 'Conservative' and 'Liberal' would mean very different things in Europe than they do here. Eventually, there may be some combining of terms across the Atlantic, but for now, it just creates confusion. For example, in most places in Europe, a 'Conservative' is someone who supports the policies of the 'old-world' or of the Monarchy. And the 'Liberals' generally oppose the way things used to be under Monarchic rule, or other authoritarian constructs. However, under that definition, it would make the founding fathers of the United States to be very 'Liberal' and therefore very 'Left Wing', however, most Liberals in the U.S. see most of the crafters of the original late 1700's constitution as hopelessly 'conservative' or current defenders of the Constitution, as written, as hopeless 'Ring-Wingers'. Ironically, in today's political climate, it is the Tea-Partiers that are most 'Progressive' and most 'Liberal' in our generation. Why do I say that? Well, because a 'Liberal' by a true, scholarly, definition is anyone who wants to break with the status quo of their generation, or at least break with the status quo of the current power elite. It's obvious from the last 40 to 60 years, that the 'status quo' of the current power elite has been to spend as much government money as possible, and run the federal government with as much of a deficit as they can get away with. No combinations of Republican or Democratic incumbents have created a sustainable balanced budget in well over a generation! (And the last 4 or 5 years, puts the last 30 years to same, by the way.) Therefore, the most radical, progressive, and liberal thing to do is to support a balanced budge amendment for the U.S. federal government. That would be 'anti-conservative' in the sense that a real 'conservative' always votes to keep things they way they have been for the last generation. Or perhaps for the last election cycle anyhow. Therefore, I consider myself a 'progressive-liberal' in that I want to vote out all politicians that have been in office for longer than 3 years. Even if it means we lose a pretty good guy like Ron Paul. We need newer, and less corrupt, politicians in Washington DC all across the board! So my question to the reader would be this: Where do you see yourself on this 4 pointed spectrum of Political thought? Is this one even incomplete, or too restrictive? Do we need a 3-dimensional political spectrum to visualize various forms of political thought? If so, what other 'poles' would we need? It would be 'six degrees' of thought, instead of four, so we'd need two more. I relish your ideas. In the interest of personal transparency, I would place myself on the 'Purple-Blue' area with some leanings into the Green area on this chart. My gut instinct would almost go for the 'Anarchist/Libertarian' side of things, but my mind tells me that we need some Pragmatic authority structures in our society, and we definitely need a Constitution, to which we can hold ourselves, and our fellow countrymen to account. But our founders where dead on target when they said that there are some rights that are 'inalienable', meaning, we have those rights, and no authority figure can EVER, I mean EVER, legitimately take those away from us. We have the basic right to alter or abolish such a government, in fact we have the moral duty to alter or abolish any government over us that tries to take away those basic rights. The best way to do that is through the Ballot box, as long as we are blessed to have that method at our disposal. Exercise that right.... or you WILL lose it!! -Tim Ganstrom PS For more information, read the mini-classic book, "The Law" by Fredric Baistiat PSS Note that this PDF file is created by me, and is a modified version of the original from RLC.org
Everyone on the planet needs to see this video. It's the quickest introduction to why 'bleeding-heart' liberals really should be free-market capitalists, IF they really, really actually cared about improving the lives of the majority of people. Spread this message around!... |
AuthorTim Ganstrom is a husband, uncle, and Mechanical Engineer (professionally.) He loves skateboarding, snowboarding, mountain biking, volleyball, and surfing. Though attempts at the latter are nothing to be proud of. Archives
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