Showing posts with label Collectivism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Collectivism. Show all posts

Monday, June 3, 2013

Counterfeits


I propose that, for every principle that leads to Spherical Model northern hemisphere freedom, prosperity, and thriving civilization, there is a counterfeit southern hemisphere claim. Here are just a couple of examples.
Rights
Our Constitution does a good job of spelling out many of our God-given natural rights relating to life, liberty, and property: freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom to defend self and others with arms, freedom to feel secure in our persons and papers, and more. The counterfeit was put forward by FDR, using the word rights that we were used to recognizing as a positive part of our free country. But he skewed it.
In our day certain economic proofs have become accepted as self-evident: a second bill of rights, under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all, regardless of station or race or creed. Among these are:
·         the right to a useful and remunerative job, the right to earn enough to provide food and clothing and recreation;
·         the right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return that will give him and his family a decent living;
·         the right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom—freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
·         the right of every family to a decent home; the right to adequate medical care, and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
·         the right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age—sickness, medicine, and unemployment;
·         the right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won, we must be prepared to move forward in the implementation of these rights to new goals of happiness and well being. For unless there is security here and home, there cannot be lasting peace in the world.


 
What is a right? Something you are entitled to just by virtue of being born a human. God has granted it to you. Others are required to respect your rights, but not to provide them out of thin air. So when Roosevelt uses the term, what does he mean? Something that we’d all like to have. And if you assume these things are rights—must be given to everyone—then government takes the place of God as the provider of rights. Government gets its power—and its money—from the governed. So, what FDR is saying is, you are required to give up whatever portion of your life’s work the government confiscates so that the government can grant that as a gift to someone else, in order to claim it is a better provider than God.

You do have the right to seek a good job; but if you have a right to a good job, regardless of your efforts or abilities, that means someone is required to hire you regardless of your efforts or abilities. That doesn’t square with the business freedom “right” he lists just below. You have the right to purchase a good home or a good education, but if you must be given those purchasable things, someone must be enslaved to pay for them.

Family
Family is the basic unit of society. It is the way we get a new generation, and pass along the values and principles required for civilization to that new generation. It is based on, and bound by, love for one another.
If there’s going to be a southern hemisphere counterfeit, it is going to appeal to the sense of belonging we crave. But instead of feeling the sense of belonging to parents, ancestors, siblings, and posterity, the counterfeit version is belonging to the collective—the state in the southeast quadrant, or the gang, mob, mafia, or other cabal in the southwest quadrant. The principle is the same: the collective wants/needs override the individual wants/needs.
I saw the latest Star Trek movie this past weekend, always fun. They re-enacted in a different way a scene from an earlier movie (that is set in a later time), where Spock had sacrificed himself by entering the hot nuclear reactor. He had said, “It is logical. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.” But what has happened here? An individual sacrifices himself, because his love for the many he can save is greater than his love for his own life. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,” John 15:13 (King James Bible). That is the northern hemisphere version. Our soldiers do this for us. Our police take this risk. Last week we tragically lost four Houston firefighters who were acting on this honorable premise.

 
The southern hemisphere counterfeit takes the choice of sacrifice away from the individual, and replaces it with, “Because the collective is more important than the few or the one, the rights/wants/needs of the few or the one can be overridden at the will of those in control for the benefit of the collective.” This shows up in health care. If the collective is paying for health care, a costly and limited resource, then it is to the benefit of the collective to refuse care to whomever it deems less likely to benefit the collective: the elderly, the handicapped, the mentally impaired, the seriously ill. Everywhere in the world there has been state-run health care, there has been rationing, poorer service, loss of service to the elderly and seriously ill, and enforced euthanasia. There is no sacrifice involved; there is imposed punishment for being ill or elderly.
I’m in the middle of yet another youth novel, with the enemy being some entity trying to take over the world, ostensibly to “help” mankind (while incidentally giving unlimited power to the controlling bad guys). This one is Michael Vey, by Richard Paul Evans. The bad guy says things like, “Want is a thing of the past…. It’s a brave new world… with endless opportunities.” There’s a collection of young people with special electrical powers. They’ve been kidnapped and manipulated, and are essentially imprisoned. But the collection of them is called the family. If they don’t use their powers as required, to harm people and even murder, then the young person is punished and imprisoned. Most of them have succumbed, and the ones found at earlier ages were more easily manipulated. They’re made to feel “special,” told that they are eagles, among the chickens, and shouldn’t choose to act like chickens, or even worry about the chickens—because eagles eat chickens, after all.
When confronted with the discomfort of being asked to do something harmful, one who had been there from a young age said, “You get over it. At first you might hate it but before you know it, you’ll volunteer to do it…. Why do you care? We’re better than them.”
Ah, the old “we’re the important people and the others are subhuman” ploy, found in all savage tyrannies, wherever there is mass murder, genocide, or halocaust.
Belonging to a real family is something we’re designed by our Creator to respect and enjoy—where we can develop loving relationships that will help us in everything we do. The counterfeit is belonging to some replacement collective, with controllers that either tell us why we can disregard the rights of those supposedly beneath us, or why we are too insignificant to have our rights respected. There may be an inculcation of adoration for the collective. But real love—giving and receiving love—is missing.
Find something good in a society of freedom, free enterprise, and civilization, and there will be a correlative counterfeit in a society of controlled behavior, controlled economy, and savage disregard of the value of human life.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Collectivism vs. Capitalism


Back in late March to early April of 2011, just a month into writing this blog, I wrote a series called “Anything Evil about Capitalism” parts I, II, III, and IV. (The first two define the terms wealth and capital, to prepare for making moral judgments in the third. The fourth is to additionally address inherited wealth. These ideas review portions of the Economic Sphere portion of the Spherical Model.) Over the weekend I watched last Friday’s episode of the Glenn Beck TV show that supported the assertion that capitalism is moral. Rabbi Daniel Lapin was the guest teacher wielding the chalkboard. So much of it was clear and sensible, I wanted to share it. [To see the video requires a paid subscription, but it's the first hour of Friday, April 26, 2013.]
Rabbi Daniel Lapin on Glenn Beck show, 4-26-2013
(note: erasing "freedom" and replacing with "$" was part of
the discussion, not the actual formula)

He also starts with defining terms, specifically defining collectivism and materialism, to prepare for making a comparison with their opposite. Here’s a part of the conversation:
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: We’ve been talking about collectivism, a whole lot. It’s one of the favorite words of the left side of the political spectrum. And I thought it would be helpful if we identify, first of all, what they say it is, and then what it really is.
Collectivism is, as it’s usually defined, as any kind of political, or social or economic philosophy that stresses our interdependence with one another. You and I agree with that. We couldn’t live without each other. We know that; we understand that.
Glenn Beck: Yeah, no man is an island.
Rabbi Lapin: We get it. That’s not what collectivism really is. What collectivism really is is a formalized, deliberate structure…deliberate attempt to create a moral matrix to legitimize taking things from one group of people and giving it to another. That’s what collectivism is all about. It’s essentially finding a framework of virtue about stealing.
He goes on to say that the “manure” that fertilizes the idea of collectivism is materialism, “the fundamental conviction that nothing that isn’t material matters in the world.”
Then there’s a need for more definition:
Glenn Beck: Define materialism. Because in my own head I was thinking it was about having all this great stuff. But you’re talking about that there is no spiritual part of the world, that it is only the material make-up.
Rabbi Lapin: Well, I can actually call upon an expert from the left to define materialism, no less an authority than, you might remember, Willie Brown, former mayor of San Francisco, speaker of the California State Assembly. Now, I'll give you in almost exact terms how he defined materialism.… What he said is, “If I cannot eat it, wear it, drive it, or make love to it, I’m not interested in it.” That’s a pretty good definition of materialism. If I can’t actually see it, touch it, make use of it, exploit it, benefit from it in some way, it doesn’t exist. In other words, there is no such thing as love. There’s no such thing as loyalty. There is no such thing as awe. There’s no such thing as staring at the heavens in wonder or biting into an apple and just wanting to thank somebody for giving that to you. None of that is true, because it’s all just firing of neurons in your cortex and your spinal column. There’s no mystery in life; it is all thoroughly basic and scientific.
This discussion of materialism clicked a lot of understanding of the enemy mind, connections I hadn’t made before. I expect some of that will come up in future posts. But this post we’re mainly limiting to the morality of making money. The definition discussion prepares us for the blackboard instruction. It contains this chart, which he then explains:

 

While he’s discussing that first line, he gives one of the best definitions of capitalism I’ve heard, and that’s what caught my attention.
Rabbi Lapin: If materialism and collectivism encourages competition about being a bigger victim, what does this [making money] philosophy engender? Competition to provide service. How beautiful is that! It’s figuring out, to recognize that you will succeed best at making money if you are obsessively preoccupied with supplying the needs of your fellow human beings.
In referring to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, and the technological products they’ve provided, Rabbi Lapin says, “The money they make is testament to how many of God’s children they pleased.”
Which is better? Making wealth for your use by providing service to others, or requiring wealth from service providers to provide goods and services to someone who did not earn it? Clearly, the answer is making wealth through service is more moral.
But what about those who can’t provide for themselves? The best answer is for those whose love makes them feel responsible for the weaker members of society to provide for them willingly. And where those closest can’t do enough, then the caring larger public of service providers will offer help. I’m more willing to trust that goodness to a people whose goal is to find ways to serve than I am to trust a people who look for ways to take wealth from service providers.