Thomas Paine - Common Sense - 2008 video

This is a great piece of video. Nothing earth shattering to those that have been scratching your heads over the direction of our country, but well done and to the point. Share it.

Journalism - R.I.P 2008

Orson Scott Card is a democrat, journalist, and winner of 4 Hugo and 2 Nebula Awards for his popular novels. This essay is a passionate plea to the editors of local newspapers and media to be honest, and to put the integrity of their profession above personal bias.

This article first appeared in The Rhinoceros Times of Greensboro, North Carolina, but due to the amount of traffic they have received it was moved to a static html file. It is not the only fine article they have published, and I encourage you to visit them at the link above.

I also encourage you to read the full article and send a copy or link to the editors of your local media, or email national media outlets from this Media Contact List.

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?
by Orson Scott Card

October 20, 2008
An open letter to the local daily paper -- almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor -- which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house -- along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Sen. Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" (http://snipurl.com/457to): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Fred Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign -- because that campaign had sought his advice -- you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension -- so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie -- that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad -- even bad weather -- on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth -- even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means. That's how trust is earned.

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time -- and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter -- while you ignored the story of John Edwards' own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women (NOW) threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That's where you are right now.

It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe -- and vote as if -- President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats -- including Barack Obama -- and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans -- then you are not journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a daily newspaper in our city.

The Collectivist President

At FreeColorado.com, they pose that the next president will be a collectivist, no matter which one wins! Excerpt and link below.

The Collectivist President

"Tragically, for the better part of a century, America has been moving away from the individualist ideals of the Founders and toward collectivism. Just consider the crushing tax burden we all suffer under to fuel an endless list of welfare entitlements in the name of the "public good." ... None of this is compatible with the individual's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Instead of leaders who "put country first" we need leaders who will put freedom first."

And in the spirit of photoshop-politics, check out this graphic from Titanic Deck Chairs:

Mainstream Media Contact List

The Mainstream Media has been on the sidelines watching others do their job this election season, and in some cases hoping no one else would do that job, lest it showcase for all to see just how little value they bring.

They have neglected serious and responsible investigative journalism on the background of candidate Barack Obama. Maybe he is the Messiah, but never in our history could a presidential candidate go without scrutiny of a relationship with someone (Bill Ayers) who perpetrated arguably one of the top 10 domestic terrorist acts in our nation's history. Nor a candidate who donated $800,000 to a group being investigated for voter fraud in 5 key states. Nor a candidate who was given a $300K discounted land deal through the efforts of a fundraiser (Tony Rezko) who is now convicted for inflence peddling. A $300K discount in the middle of the hottest real estate market in 30 years!

I don't blame Obama, and if you agree with his ideology, do your thing, but I'm completely disgusted with the Mainstream Media for ignoring their stated role in society. If they had done their job even a little bit at the start of the elections, Hillary would have easily won the democratic nomination. Everyone knew Obama was running a year in advance of the primaries, Oprah was doing tours with him, but the media just fell all over themselves trying not to check his background. It was left to bloggers, with no real resources, to start sharing with the American people some of who the man is. John McCain's campaign, in the final month, has been blasted for pointing out some of the information about Obama that nobody heard in January of 2008. But I would imagine his campaign was completely hung out to dry, assuming that journalists would do what they've loved doing for a century, finding the dirt, checking the backgrounds, etc. They did nothing, and it is affecting our country's future.

Here's a recent study of media bias this election season.

If you feel that the media has been negligent or incompetent on any front this election season, I implore you to let them know about it through the contacts below. I do believe they will listen if enough people are upset about it.

Mainstream Media Contact List

---

Network/Cable Television

ABC News
77 W. 66 St., New York, NY 10023
Phone: 212-456-7777
General
e-mail: netaudr@abc.com
Nightline: nightline@abcnews.com
20/20: 2020@abc.com

CBS News

524 W. 57 St., New York, NY 10019
Phone:
212-975-4321
Fax: 212-975-1893
Email forms for all CBS news programs
CBS Evening News:
evening@cbsnews.com
The Early Show:
earlyshow@cbs.com
60 Minutes II:
60minutes@cbsnews.com
48 Hours:
48hours@cbsnews.com
Face The Nation:
ftn@cbsnews.com

CNBC
900 Sylvan Avenue, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632
Phone: (201) 735-2622
Fax: (201) 583-5453
Email:
info@cnbc.com

CNN
One CNN Center, Box 105366, Atlanta, GA 30303-5366
Phone: 404-827-1500
Fax: 404-827-1784
Email forms for all CNN news programs

Fox News Channel
1211 Ave. of the Americas, New York, NY 10036
Phone: (212) 301-3000
Fax: (212) 301-4229
comments@foxnews.com

List of Email addresses for all Fox News Channel programs
Special
Report with Brit Hume:
Special@foxnews.com
FOX Report with Shepard Smith:
Foxreport@foxnews.com
The O'Reilly Factor:
Oreilly@foxnews.com
Hannity & Colmes:
Hannity@foxnews.com,
Colmes@foxnews.com
On the Record with Greta:
Ontherecord@foxnews.com
MSNBC/NBC

30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10112
Phone: (212) 664-4444

Fax: (212) 664-4426

List of Email addresses for all MSNBC/NBC news programs
Dateline
NBC: dateline@nbc.com
Hardball
with Chris Matthews: hardball@msnbc.com

MSNBC Reports with Joe Scarborough:
joe@msnbc.com
NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams:
nightly@nbc.com
NBC News Today:
today@nbc.com

PBS
2100 Crystal Drive, Arlington VA 22202
Phone:
703-739-5000
Fax: 703-739-8458

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer:
newshour@pbs.org

---

National Radio Programs

National Public Radio
635 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC
20001-3753
Phone: 202-513-3232
Fax: 202-513-3329

E-mail: Jeffrey
A. Dvorkin, Ombudsman ombudsman@npr.org

List of Email addresses for all NPR news programs

---

National Newspapers

The Los Angeles
Times
202 West First Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Phone:
800-528-4637 or 213-237-5000
Fax: 213-237-4712

L.A. Times Contact Information by Department
Letters to the Editor:
letters@latimes.com
Readers' Representative:
readers.rep@latimes.com

The New York Times
620
8th Ave., New York, NY 10018
Phone: 212-556-1234
D.C. Bureau
phone: 202-862-0300
Fax: 212-556-3690

Letters to the
Editor (for publication):
letters@nytimes.com
Write to the news editors:
news-tips@nytimes.com
Corrections:
senioreditor@nytimes.com

New York Times Contact Information by Department
How to
Contact New York Times Reporters and Editors

USA Today
7950 Jones Branch Dr., McLean, VA 22108
Phone:
703-854-3400
Fax: 703-854-2078

Letters to the Editor:
editor@usatoday.com

Give feedback to USA Today

The Wall Street Journal

200 Liberty St., New York, NY 10281
Phone: 212-416-2000
Fax:
212-416-2658

Letters to the Editor:
wsj.ltrs@wsj.com
Comment on News Articles:
wsjcontact@dowjones.com

The Washington Post
1150
15th St., NW, Washington, DC 20071
Phone: 202-334-6000
Fax:
202-334-5269

Letters to the Editor:
letters@washpost.com
Ombudsman:
ombudsman@washpost.com
Contact Washington Post
Writers and Editors

---

Magazines

Newsweek
251 W
57th Street, New York, NY 10019
Phone: 212-445-4000
Fax:
212-445-5068

Letters to the Editor:
letters@newsweek.com

Time
Time & Life Bldg.,
Rockefeller Center, 1271 6th Ave., New York, NY 10020
Phone:
212-522-1212
Fax: 212-522-0003

Letters to the Editor
letters@time.com

U.S. News & World Report
1050
Thomas Jefferson St., Washington, DC 20007
Phone: 202-955-2000

Fax: 202-955-2049

Letters to the Editor
letters@usnews.com

---

News Services / Wires

Associated
Press
450 West 33rd St., New York, NY 10001
Phone: 212-621-1500

Fax: 212-621-7523

General Questions and Comments:
info@ap.org
Partial
Contact Information for the Associated Press by Department and Bureau

Reuters
Three Times Square, New York, NY 10036
Telephone:
646-223-4000

Reuters
Editorial Feedback

United Press
International
1133 19th Street, NW, Suite 800, Washington, DC 20036

Telephone: 202-898-8000
FAX: 202-898-8048

Comments and Tips:
tips@upi.com

---

For more media contacts, including local contacts, visit Fairness & Accuracty in Reporting (FAIR). Portions of content on this page used per a
Creative Commons license.

Dems Lied, Economy Died

Video lays out the path of the mortgage crisis...

Obama, Acorn, and Radical Connections Website

An very visual site creates a map of Obama-ACORN-Radical connections, and lists others that are waking up to the trajectory and goals of the man.

http://justsaynodeal.com/acorn.html

Barack and the Cloward-Piven Strategy

This article explains the Cloward-Piven Strategy, how it has potentially manifested itself since its inception. Barack's career has coursed all through the same events, with key associations with the mortgage industry, ACORN, and related matters. This is a very interesting piece for those that would prevent collectivism and a drive to outright socialism. From the article:

"The Strategy was first elucidated in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation magazine by a pair of radical socialist Columbia University professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. David Horowitz summarizes it as:


The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse."

Full article from American Thinker:
Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis

The Long Term Goal of Collectivists

The longer term goal of collectivist voters, whether they've thought it through or not: If the group is more important than the individual, then groups of countries are more important than a sovereign country. Anything less than the largest possible group is an individualist (read: greedy, evil) construct. So, as they vote in collectivism, they are moving closer towards a world society where they will have no country to vote in. Just one mass of people.

How do you manage an entity the size of the entire population of the planet? With a government strong enough, and pervasive enough, to put down any rebellion, any faction. Why is this inevitable? Because there would be no alternative country/place to go. They would have to stop any discontent quickly and brutally, lest it become a movement. With separate countries and governments, they can always invite you to leave, and if you hate your current country enough you will. But when there is one world government...doomsday, or at the least every soul on the planet will give up hopes of really being free, rather than fight a system they cannot flee or defeat. Some good reading below from: http://www.kansascity.com/273/story/736969.html

www.kansascity.com | 08/06/2008 | GOLDBERG: Capitalism is the cure for what ails the world: "People ask, “Why is there poverty in the world?” It’s a silly question. Poverty is the default human condition. It is the factory preset of this mortal coil.
The interesting question isn’t “Why is there poverty?” It’s “Why is there wealth?” Or: “Why is there prosperity here but not there?”
At the end of the day, the first answer is capitalism, rightly understood. That is to say: free markets, private property, the spirit of entrepreneurialism and the conviction that the fruits of your labors are your own.
In large measure our wealth isn’t the product of capitalism, it is capitalism.
And yet we hate it. Leaving religion out of it, no idea has given more to humanity. The average working-class person today is richer, in real terms, than the average prince or potentate of 300 years ago."

Champion of the Peasants and Workers

He was champion of the peasants and workers

Brought a change of direction for his country

Denegrated the USA and called on the people to "stand up"!

I wonder if Barack will be as influential as Mao?



Of course, he did have a few extreme ideas once he was in charge, and I don't think Barack is willing to be this direct with societal changes...

Mao’s first political campaigns after founding the People’s Republic were land reform and the suppression of counter-revolutionaries, which centered on mass executions, often before organized crowds. These campaigns of mass repression targeted former KMT officials, businessmen, former employees of Western companies, intellectuals whose loyalty was suspect, and significant numbers of rural gentry. The U.S. State department in 1976 estimated that there may have been a million killed in the land reform, 800,000 killed in the counterrevolutionary campaign. Mao himself claimed a total of 700,000 killed during the years 1949–53. However, because there was a policy to select "at least one landlord, and usually several, in virtually every village for public execution", 1 million deaths seems to be an absolute minimum, and many authors agree on a figure of between 2 million and 5 million dead. In addition, at least 1.5 million people were sent to "reform through labour" camps. Mao’s personal role in ordering mass executions is undeniable. He defended these killings as necessary for the securing of power. -- source

David Mamet Purges 40 Years of Liberal Kool-Aid

Another marquee contributor within the arts has publicly confessed to a re-evaluation of the tenets of liberalism that he held for decades. David Mamet, author of Glengarry Glen Ross and over two dozen plays, films, and books, has an essay in the Village Voice about his catharsis. Below I've pasted a couple teaser quotes torn from his essay, but invite you to read his full article: David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'

I'm not going to offer a response here since I've posted a few key points in the comments to his article, under the byline FreeUlysses. But I do encourage you to read his article and respond here or there with thoughts on political theory, philosophy, David's views and/or the response he's received.

...

I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.

...

And, I wondered, how could I have spent decades thinking that I thought everything was always wrong at the same time that I thought I thought that people were basically good at heart? Which was it? I began to question what I actually thought and found that I do not think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years. I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit subject, but the only subject, of drama.

...

I'd observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless, people in general seem to get from day to day; and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances—that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired—in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.

...

Europeans Love Obama

A collection of European opinions on the US presidential race included a number of gems, such as:

In France, the center-left Libération says the new leader of the French Socialist Party should be someone with Obama's profile: "The French Left seeks a charismatic leader, age 46, of mixed race, to deliver a message of hope and unity. At a time when American Democrats are discovering their new hero, it would be a good time for the Socialist Party and their friends to find a Barack Obama to end their internal quarrels."

There were several in this vein, which is as creepy as the UN is incompetent:

An editorial in the Brussels-based, center-right De Standaard articulates a view shared by many Europeans: "American presidential elections are not 'home affairs'. American decisions have repercussions all over the globe…. Hence, the world should be given the right to vote."

latest installment of photoshop-politics:

Open Letter - Atlas Shrugged Good for US Students

For about 5 years now a close friend and I have asked ourselves what could be done to turn the trajectory of America from socialism to a society that lifts up individual freedoms and doesn't grow the government into an inevitable oppressor. Our most common answer is to find a way to have the majority of US citizens either read Atlas Shrugged, or discuss its underlying ideas enough to see the dangers of collectivism and the value of individualism. We dreamed of having a Bill Gates size foundation that could purchase a book for every college freshman each year. So, when I saw the letter to America's students below, I wanted to paste the whole letter here. If you are Bradley Thompson or a publisher that can claim copyright concerns for this article, let me know and I'll just use quotes. Otherwise, I want others to read this, and hope they pass it along to young people they know. --Uly

An Open Letter to America's Students
Column by C. Bradley Thompson - Feb 4, 2008

This letter is addressed to all young people who’ve read or are about to read Ayn Rand’s epic novel, Atlas Shrugged.

I’ve taught Atlas Shrugged for fifteen years during which time I’ve witnessed many remarkable things.

For example, some 95 percent of my students report that Atlas Shrugged is the best book they’ve ever read. No book that I’ve taught comes remotely close to fostering a more robust exchange of ideas in the classroom.

My students typically come to class after pulling an all-nighter debating Atlas with their friends, and then they pepper me with dozens of questions.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with Ayn Rand’s ideas, few can deny that this is what the college experience is supposed to be like.

During those few weeks each year when I teach Atlas Shrugged, I’ve seen hundreds of students become intellectually engaged in ways they weren’t before reading this extraordinary book.

The comment I hear most often from students goes something like this: “Atlas Shrugged sums up everything that I’ve always admired and believed but could never put into words.”

Ayn Rand’s novel speaks to many students’ deepest values and aspirations: it appeals to their sense of justice, integrity, honesty, and independence, and it appeals to their desire to live in a world where achievement and heroism are rewarded.

To enter the world of Atlas Shrugged is to experience a world radically different from today’s. Many of you will find this world exhilarating, and it just might change your life forever.

I know many other professors who teach Atlas Shrugged, and their experiences with students mirror my own. Sadly, though, some of your professors may react rather differently when they learn that you’re reading Atlas Shrugged. They may condescendingly sneer and say something like this: “Oh yes, Atlas Shrugged is for teenagers. Don’t worry, you’ll get over it.”

Occasionally the reaction is worse. Over the years, I have personally witnessed both liberal and conservative professors become psychologically unbuttoned when they learn that students are reading Ayn Rand in my classes. A few professors even attempted to bully my students to prevent them from discussing Rand’s ideas.

Amusingly, one conservative colleague sent his students into my class to try and intimidate me, as young communists once did against their professors in Mao’s China.

Why do these professors become viscerally angry at the mention of Ayn Rand’s name? Why do they slander and smear her without actually engaging her ideas? Clearly, there is something they fear in Rand’s philosophy, something they don’t want you to read.

What is it?

That many liberals fear the influence of Ayn Rand’s ideas is not surprising. Atlas Shrugged is, arguably, the most powerful critique of socialism ever written. But why would a conservative professor fear the prospect that Rand might be taught in a college classroom?

Religious conservatives don’t like Ayn Rand because she chose Athens over Jerusalem, reason over revelation, and pragmatic conservatives don’t like her because she was a moral absolutist. But there’s usually something more that bothers conservatives.

Ayn Rand believed that the United States was the most moral society in history, but she also believed that its founding principles had never been properly defended. She therefore set out to secure America’s basic values and principles — e.g., rugged individualism, limited government and capitalism.

Unlike many conservatives, Rand didn’t rely on faith, tradition, or folksy speeches to defend America. Instead, she thought those principles philosophically demonstrable.

The reason that some conservatives fear Ayn Rand is that, ultimately, they can’t defend America philosophically.

Conservatives don’t like the fact that Rand defends reason, objectivity, and certainty — and they won’t; they don’t like the fact that she defends rational self-interest, moral absolutism, and rationally grounded virtues — and they won’t; they don’t like the fact that she defends individual rights and capitalism — and they won’t.

And because they won’t defend these philosophical principles, they can’t defend America. That is conservatism’s dirty little secret.

Finally, these conservative professors hate Ayn Rand precisely because her novels appeal to the ideals of the young. Like you, Rand took ideas seriously.

She said that it’s critically important to live your life according to rationally demonstrable principles and that it’s important to be moral not just in theory but also in practice. Ayn Rand appeals to the young because her novels are full of productive heroes who accomplish great things against great odds.

It’s good to be young and to care about ideas and moral principles.

If you are a high school or a college student reading Atlas Shrugged for the first time, I hope you will do just one thing:

Don’t base your judgment of Atlas Shrugged on what your professors or I say or think — positively or negatively.

Instead, ask yourself — repeatedly — one question as you read Atlas Shrugged: Are Ayn Rand’s ideas true or not? And there is only one person who can answer this question: YOU!

Communist Faithful for Obama

Okay, this one's for those thinking, "Hey Ulysses, what's with all these posters pairing Obama with socialism/communism?" Well, the central reason I did it was because of his stated platform promises, and what direction those will take the US in, but here's a clue that I'm not off base:

Hat tip to the Glenn Beck website. They featured a video from a Houston local newscast. A straigtforward piece about the campaign and the doings of the candidates. In the beginning of it, they show a new Obama office being opened up in Houston. The screen shot below is from their office, with a small picture of Barack on the wall, and a huge flag glorifying Marxist rebel and authoritarian, Che Guevara.



From The Cult of Che, posted on Slate:

The cult of Ernesto Che Guevara is an episode in the moral callousness of our time. Che was a totalitarian. He achieved nothing but disaster. Many of the early leaders of the Cuban Revolution favored a democratic or democratic-socialist direction for the new Cuba. But Che was a mainstay of the hardline pro-Soviet faction, and his faction won. Che presided over the Cuban Revolution's first firing squads. He founded Cuba's "labor camp" system—the system that was eventually employed to incarcerate gays, dissidents, and AIDS victims. To get himself killed, and to get a lot of other people killed, was central to Che's imagination. In the famous essay in which he issued his ringing call for "two, three, many Vietnams," he also spoke about martyrdom and managed to compose a number of chilling phrases: "Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine. This is what our soldiers must become …"— and so on.

Remember, everyone says Obama isn't just a candidate, he's now a movement. A movement to what? Socialism, Collectivism, Nationalized industries, class envy and an assault on individual freedoms?

California Taxes Chase Away Wealth

Here's a good story from San Fran. California's taxes keep rising, and the wealthy have had enough and are establishing residence in lower tax states. What's the key lesson? Well, liberals in America often want more social programs funded by increased taxes on the rich. Even if you raise taxes across the board, liberals are upset that the rich weren't taxed at a higher rate. It's class envy, and incredibly stupid economics. Why? Because by and large people who have built wealth aren't that stupid. Higher taxes will drive them away, especially if they continue to see more and more freebies given out on their dime.

This story is a great example, and as taxes go up in the nation, we'll see more and more wealthy finding ways to shield their assets outside of the US. So, those liberals that figured they'd pay for socialized medicine, or free college for all, by taxing the rich, aren't going to get anything but put the country in a worse state. It's simple economics. Intelligent people will do what is in the best interest. Even highly charitable ones know that they can't contribute to the cause they care about if Uncle Sam is taking it all and wasting 50% on bureaucracy.

Millionaires cashing out of Bay Area - San Francisco Business Times:: "'You can still make a lot of money in California. The problem is, then you have to pay taxes on that money,' said Kennedy, who recently helped a California client with annual income of about $1 million save $96,000 annually by making their home in Jackson Hole, Wyo., their primary residence.
'Effectively, you have the state of California subsidizing their relocation through the tax savings,' Kennedy said. 'You can still tap into California's resources -- which includes a large, educated population -- while extricating yourself from the California tax system.'"

fifth installment...

When Socialism Comes to America - HUMAN EVENTS

When Socialism Comes to America - HUMAN EVENTS:

"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day, America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened.' -- Norman Thomas, American socialist"

The quote and article it came from serve as timely intros to the 5th installment of my political-photoshop gallery. Joseph Farah points out some of the indicators that support the quote above. You can hear his frustration in lines such as:

"Americans may simply be too far gone spiritually, morally and intellectually to reject the temptations of socialism."

I understand what Joseph is seeing when he writes a line like that, but I will not give up the fight. There was never a country founded with a better mix of economic freedom, political freedom, and the rule of law than the US. It is unique, and has been a light in a vast cavern of darkness. When it goes out, it won't be woe to the US, it will be woe to mankind. It's worth the fight. Humanity is worth the fight. The fight of reason, individualism, and objectivity over sentimentalism, corruption, and collectivism.

Objectivism meets Video Gaming in BioShock

Objectivism meets 18 year olds in an award-winning BioShock video game. The game can surely be seen as an attack on Ayn Rand's philosophy, but Brian Crecente has written a good article on the positives of bringing the philosophy to a mass audience in a new way. And it's not just any game, it's one a slew of Game of the Year and Best Story categories.



The game isn't a 'serious' look at objectivism, but the philosophy is a strong thematic element. The president of the Ayn Rand Institute, Yaron Brook, has some positive analysis of the issue in the Crecente article. I'm pleased that my son has been assigned both Anthem and The Fountainhead in his high school, and I look forward to further discussion with him after he 'experiences' the game. Here's a quote from the article:

"The sunken city of Rapture, a world of art deco aesthetics, neon sales pitches and looming architecture, is home to more than just murderous splicers and lumbering Big Daddys, it's also a surprising breeding ground for introspection.

BioShock may have been conceived as a study in nuance, a place for gamers to discover and explore at their own pace, but its dip into the ethical morass of Ayn Rand's objectivist philosophies has brought her beliefs back into the mainstream spotlight and even piqued the interest of the Ayn Rand Institute's president, Yaron Brook."

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And here's the 4th installment of the political-photoshopping fun:

Collective Punishment vs Fairness

Szandor Blestman points out the 'unfairness' of collective punishment in schools. I remember those situations as happening at least weekly, sometimes daily, during elementary and middle school. Szander also talks about the misguided attempts to create fairness through the use of government force, and how individualism has time and again proven to be the system that offers the most opportunity to all participants.

American Chronicle Fairness and Life, Collectivism and Freedom: "Collective punishment is always going to be unfair to someone. If some person or group of people commit a crime, only those directly involved in the crime, those who knew what was happening and/or intended harm, should be punished. If everyone associated with them, no matter how innocuously, is punished, then innocent people end up being punished."

And here's my third installment of getting the political point across through the wonder of photoshop:

Hillary as Comrade in Chief

I have no idea what the original Russian says on this poster, but I thought it was a good fit for the expression Hillary has. (If you know what it says, I'm all ears.) I don't think Hillary is a Stalin by a long shot, but when leaders embrace socialism and collectivism, they are leading us down the path that will bring us a Stalin eventually. The fact that they should know this gives them culpability. Maybe they didn't hang us from the tree, but they plant and water the seed of the hanging-tree.

Barack - Leader of the USSA

This will be the first in a series. Photoshopping is just a pasttime, but pictures do get the point across quickly. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are promising all sorts of new entitlement plans, and want to expand existing ones. They want to move us significantly down the path towards becoming the United Socialist States of America. The fact that thousands show up to listen to them promise free gifts for all is a testament to the need for the public to be educated on the hopelessness of collectivism, and where it inevitably leads in the end.

Freedom: Struggle for Individualism

Below is a blurb from an article that promotes Individualism and explains why Ron Paul is their man for US President in '08. I'm not promoting Paul, but I thought the article expained some core truths well...

Freedom: Struggle for Individualism:

Voluntary altruism is moral.
The threat to individual human liberty occurs when altruism is institutionalized in the form of government. Institutionalized altruism is the tipping point when the needs or wants of the masses supersede rights of the individual. When the earned rewards of individual labors are involuntarily taken, and redistributed to those who claim to have the greatest need.

Compulsory altruism is unjust.
Compulsory altruism is called socialism, communism, or fascism. Collectivism. Every form of collectivism requires a hierarchy of leaders who determine how collective wealth is redistributed as welfare, or subsidies. Those leaders form an oligarchy — whether appointed or elected — and the circle is complete: the will of the few once again controls the behavior of the masses. This oligarchy seeks both foreign and domestic control.

Earl Pearson: Collectivism is a nice idea that simply doesn't work - Monday, Jan. 28, 2008

Any government big enough to give you everything you need, is big enough to take it all away, right Earl? Quote below from Earl Pearson's article speaking out against the danger of collectivism...

Union Leader - Earl Pearson: Collectivism is a nice idea that simply doesn't work - Monday, Jan. 28, 2008: "ECENTLY THERE was a political ad on TV in which a number of children appear consecutively pleading for politicians to tell the truth and not to make promises they cannot keep. The final battle cry was, 'Health care and financial security for all.'
'Financial security for all' sounds great -- if you know nothing about the consequences. What would happen to the incentive to work, to productivity, creativity, competition and all the other factors necessary to support a thriving economy and a decent standard of living if we all had financial security provided by the government?"