CONSERVATIVE BLINDNESS ON PRINCIPLE

by Jacob G. HornbergerFebruary 20, 2015

One of the things that totally befuddle conservatives is the unwavering commitment to principles which characterizes libertarians. Conservatives just don’t get it. When it comes to the matter of principle, conservatives have one great big blind spot.

Many years ago, when I discovered libertarianism, one of the first essays I read was entitled “Drowning in a Sea of Buts” by Leonard E. Read. Read pointed out that everyone favors freedom except for this and except for that. By the time one adds up all the buts, society has drowned in a sea of buts.

Consider the most popular mantra employed by conservatives: “Individual liberty, free enterprise, private property, and limited government.” They’ll rarely give a speech without that mantra included in it. It’s also found on their websites, in their articles, and in their books.

Now, let’s consider all the conservative buts or exceptions that come with that conservative mantra:

We conservatives believe in individual liberty, free enterprise, private property, and limited government … except for the following areas:

1. Retirement (Social Security).
2. Healthcare (Medicare, Medicaid, regulation, and licensure).
3. Education (public schooling, charter schools, licensed private schools, vouchers, grants).
4. Farm subsidies.
5. Economic activity (economic regulations).
6. Monopolies (Postal Service).
7. Foreign aid (including to foreign dictatorships, such as Egypt).
8. Corporate bailouts.
9. Monetary policy (Federal Reserve System, FDIC, fiat money, banking regulations).
10. Drug laws.
11. Immigration controls.
12. Trade restrictions.
13. Sanctions and embargoes.
14. Permanent standing military establishment.
15. Overseas empire of military bases.
16. National-security state.
17. Foreign interventionism.
18. Regime-change operations.
19. Secret surveillance.
20. Indefinite detention without trial.
21. Secret prisons.

Undoubtedly, I have missed a lot more exceptions, but do you get my point? By the time you add up all the exceptions, everyone is now living under a regime of omnipotent government, even while conservatives keep convincing telling themselves and everyone else how committed they are to “individual liberty, free enterprise, private property, and limited government.”

Needless to say, libertarians have no exceptions when it comes to the principles of individual liberty, free enterprise, private property, and limited government. We oppose all those exceptions that conservatives embrace. We would dismantle them all.

But what conservatives just don’t get is that the reason we don’t have exceptions to freedom is because of our commitment to principle.

The core principle of libertarianism is the nonaggression principle — that it’s morally wrong to initiate force against another person. Thus, we hold it’s morally wrong to murder, rob, steal, burglarize, rape, or do anything else that violates the rights of another person.

Conservative, of course believe that too. But the rub comes in the form of government. If government is doing any of these things, libertarians hold that the action continues to be morally wrong. Not so with conservatives. They say that if it’s the government doing it, it becomes holy and sacrosanct. That’s why, for example, they exalt the government’s assassination of people. Murder is wrong when it’s committed by private individuals but in the eyes of conservatives, it becomes a holy act when committed by the troops or the CIA.

Or consider welfare programs, such as Social Security, Medicare, farm subsidies, or public schooling. If a thief robs a person of $10,000 and gives it all away to seniors, the poor, people who need medical care,  or people whose children need an education, conservatives, like libertarians, would say that that’s morally wrong. The guy is a thief even if he uses the money for good.

When the government forcibly takes money from people and gives it to seniors, the poor, people who need healthcare, or public schooling districts, libertarians continue to uphold the immorality of the action. Not conservatives. They love it and believe that it has become a moral, compassionate act given that the government is doing it.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of libertarians is our unwavering commitment to principle. That confounds conservatives because they threw in the towel on principles generations ago, for the sake of popularity, credibility, votes, money, and power. Conservatives would love nothing more than to have libertarians become like them. We libertarian must never do that. We must never become like them. We must continue to hew to principle. It is the only way to achieve individual liberty, free enterprise, private property, and limited government. And it’s the right thing to do.

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This post was written by:Jacob G. Hornberger

Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News’ Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full Context. Send him email.

JACOB G. HORNBERGER

Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

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America Does Not Have A "Free Market Capitalist" Economy

America Does Not Have A "Free Market Capitalist" Economy

I say quite often that America does not have a Free Market Capitalist economic system and sometimes the befuddled looks I get from those that hear this provokes them to question what I mean by it. The answer is simple and can be broken down into two parts, the two definitions of what is being asked.

"What is a Free Market?" and "What is Capitalism?"

The answers to these two questions together with an understanding of the current mode of economic activity gives a clear indication that the statement, "America does not have a Free Market economic system" is true.

So what is a free market economic system?
Free Market principles point to an economic system where business are unfettered by regulation, licensing, special fees and taxation, a system where all manner of salable goods are on the market without prohibition or exclusion. It is a system where the buying habits of those consumers would drive the manufacturers and distributors to produce or stock items that were valued by customers and discontinue or remove goods that have lost favor or marketability and sales numbers. This provides that customers are able to actually drive the economy by their buying habits and wants, without the interference of an outside entity.

This would of course be in contrast to the current system of high regulation, increasing taxation, special licencing, educational requirements and so on the American system is plagued by. Economists who advocate this idea of unfettered markets, also see that allowing prices and wages to form naturally and the availability and manufacture of goods to lie in the interest of those who have the capability to produce and the want to produce in trade for profit is a nearly unfailing concept in the ways of maximum efficiency of producers as well as maximum favorable market conditions for consumers.

With this some may say that the deregulation of businesses will (could/would) lead to businesses being able to skirt environmental concerns, livable wages, price gouging, and so on. In response to this one can argue on the case of environmental concerns that the information that a retailer or manufacturer was damaging the environment, the consumers voice could be heard by lowering or altogether abandoning or boycotting the product, manufacturer and retailers and distributors. When profits and sales decrease a signal is sent that certain practices are not favorable or condoned. This is the aspect of "market self regulation".

On the issue of wages. Wages should be set by employer and employee. If in the scenario an employer is offering too little pay the potential employee can ask for more or refuse. By no means should the wage of any person be determined by anyone other than the laborer and the job provider. In the system we have now wages are set by government decree, in an attempt to make a fair wage government actually provides yet another hurdle for a prospective employee to jump in order to gain employment. If the set wage is too high for the business, they will refuse to hire. Minimum wage laws also hinder the ability of these businesses to adjust wages based on experience of each employee, there is always a floor that they cannot overcome. Again a control on the level of wages offered by businesses is not a Free Market principle. It is a system of control.

Pricing controls work similar to wage controls, being that wages are prices and vice-versa, it stands that any interference in the marketable value being set by someone other than the seller negates the definition of free market practice.

So what is Capitalism?

Capitalism is defined many ways depending on the social structure lense those defining it look through. To make this easier we can go with two differing opinions, one from Wikipedia (which I use because of it's high use of editing from other editors) and then a definition from the website WorldSocialism.org (including this one because it highlights the idea that the word has different meanings depending on who you ask and how they define it).
According to Wikipedia Capitalism is "is an economic system in which trade, industry, and the means of production are largely or entirely privately owned and operated for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets and wage labor.  In a capitalist economy, the parties to a transaction typically determine the prices at which assets, goods, and services are exchanged."  This is the definition, or close to it, that most non socialists agree upon.

With this definition in mind we can see that there are a large number of businesses and services that are not privately owned, ran, or funded but are so called public services and are controlled by government, whether county, state, or federal, and are funded through taxation instead of consumerism. This leads me, to say that we may define America as a mixed economy, but definitely not a pure Capitalist economy.

According to the website WorldSocialism.org though Capitalism is something to be feared and abhorred based on their claim of worker exploitation. The definition they detail is,"Capitalism is the social system which now exists in all countries of the world. Under this system, the means for producing and distributing goods (the land, factories, technology, transport system etc) are owned by a small minority of people. We refer to this group of people as the capitalist class. The majority of people must sell their ability to work in return for a wage or salary (who we refer to as the working class.)"

They go on to say,"The working class are paid to produce goods and services which are then sold for a profit. The profit is gained by the capitalist class because they can make more money by selling what we have produced than we cost to buy on the labor market. In this sense, the working class are exploited by the capitalist class. The capitalists live off the profits they obtain from exploiting the working class whilst reinvesting some of their profits for the further accumulation of wealth."

And with this in mind we can ask the socialist this question, "isn't the worker also a capitalist, as they value their time and effort less than the wage they are paid? If they did not value the wage more than the time or effort they would not work, as in a socialist society, goods are given freely based upon need and taken based upon production, or better said by their economic muse Karl Marx, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". This proclaims that no matter how productive you are, your effort is only for the benefit for the others who wish not to work or do not perform as you do. What incentive does that leave to work hard, or even harder? What incentive does that leave to work at all? What incentive does that leave to create, to innovate, or to improve upon goods? If there is no benefit for someone to excel at a good or service it will be done at a minimum speed and quality.


With that being said we can look at the American economy as a partial capitalist economy and a partial socialist economy. There are many areas that the State has complete control over production or service. Roads, Schools, Protection Services, Old Age Insurance are a few of the largest and easiest to see. In that the capitalist is still beholden to government entities in order to start or continue in their business. We can also see THAT is in no way a "free market" system.

The Costs Post 9/11/2001

9/11/2001 around 3,000 people lost their lives in the World Trade Center buildings and the flights used as guided missiles. In the aftermath of the buildings collapsing, the total deaths were recorded at 2,996 people, including the 19 hijackers and 2,977 victims. More would succumb to illness caused by the dust and debris in the months and years afterwards, and we can only speculate on those citizens who died as a result of shock at the unfolding of the atrocities of the day. But these are not the only casualties we can add to this. we can also add in the deaths of service members and civilians from America and those of other nations.

According to the website Journalist's Resource "The Brown University project estimated that together, all countries involved have lost a total of 31,000 uniformed servicemembers and military contractors. In addition, the researchers estimated in 2011 that between 152,280 and 192,550 civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan have died as a “result of the fighting at the hands of all parties.” In March 2013, the Brown researchers revised the civilian total estimate to 200,000; and they estimated that 330,000 people had been killed overall as a result of the conflicts, accounting for all soldiers, militants, police, contractors, journalists, humanitarian workers and civilians involved."

These numbers should do enough to discourage any more operations in the areas, but sadly it does not deter those war hawkish members of the political atmosphere nor a number of citizens from the demolition and destruction of these countries, these people and these futures. 

Lives cost a lot, no one is denying that, but let's take a second to look at the economical impact the past 13 years have taken. According to the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) Total spent and obligated through FY 2014 is around 4,374.5 billion US dollars. (2014 dollars) with the Additional Cumulative Interest on Past Pentagon and State/USAID War Appropriations FY 2001‐2013 by 2054 reaching over 7,900 billion. If you are having trouble with converting that, it is 4 Trillion 374 Billion, 500 Million dollars since 2001 and an estimated 7 Trillion 900 Billion dollars. 

All of this is taken directly from increased borrowing from the US Central Bank with loans being paid back with interest by the US taxpayer. That money is being created with the future payments being ladled with interest and being sworn to your children and grand-children and so on. 

Another aspect of what has been lost since 2001.

The rights and privacy lost since 2001 have been explained by many, from Judge Andrew Napolitano to Former House Of Representative and 2008 and 2012 Presidential candidate Ron Paul, from the leaked document of the CIA, NSA, DOJ, DOD and a host of other alphabet soup agencies by the work of Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, who took personal sacrifice for the American citizens to a new level. 

All the new security you see and experience when traveling, paid for by increased taxation. All the new background checks you go through, paid for by increased taxation. The departments themselves, who have been the subject to their own leaks of inter-office behavior, are entirely funded by the same ones they are spying on. Let there be no mistake about it, the notion that you can be 100% ok with the amount of agencies and securities that have increased since 2001 and also hold a belief in the reduction of taxation is entirely erroneous. Let it also be noted that in any attempt to curb this behavior or increasing security state bubble is met with resistance by those who value their sense of safety over their sense of morality or sensibility. Hell they even used the word Patriot to pass an act of protecting themselves while spying on you; ie. Patriot Act. 

Over the years Patriots have risen, but did you even notice?

We have already gone over Snowden, Manning and Assange, all who have given their freedom for your knowledge of the facts of the government you live under. There are more examples of those who have made a stand for a belief in what is moral and right.

The Burger King Corporation recently set itself into a media firestorm. With the acquisition of a foreign (Canada) company, the BK Corp saw to move its Headquarters to Canada to escape higher corporate taxation. Now the media and those unknowingly ignorant of economic sense call this move unpatriotic. But how so? Wasn't the Boston Tea Party a patriotic act, in the same sense to avoid undue taxation, the hypocrisy is almost deafening. 

Cliven Bundy did his patriotic duty in his defiance of federal officials to turn over parts of his land to federal department control in the name of bogus claims of conservation of a certain species. He, along with other resistors in name and spirit spent days holding off Federal Department of Land Management officers as they took to try and take what they wanted of property that had no right to.

So on this Patriots day let's remember those that gave their lives, their freedoms and their blood, sweat and tears for what is morally right, what can be more patriotic than a man who fights a tyrannous, overbearing, overreaching, overburdening Government? 

Hayek’s “Rejuvenating Event” by B.K. Marcus

Swedish socialist Gunnar Myrdal was not happy about sharing his Nobel Prize with that Austrian "reactionary," F.A. Hayek. The so-called Nobel for economics, established by the central bank of the world's leading welfare state, was only five years old in 1974. It had already become meaningless — according to Myrdal — if they were going to bestow it on this apologist for capitalism.

Forty years ago today, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that the "Prize in Economic Science in Memory of Alfred Nobel" would be awarded to both Myrdal and Hayek. It would be hard to find a less compatible pair of economic thinkers.

Myrdal was Keynesian before Lord Keynes himself. His biographer would later write, "If his contribution had been available to readers of English before 1936, it is interesting to speculate whether the ‘revolution’ in macroeconomic theory … would be referred to as ‘Myrdalian’ as much as ‘Keynesian.’" By contrast, Hayek was the foremost opponent of the Keynesian revolution.

Myrdal had helped found the Econometric Society, whose original motto was "science is prediction." Hayek and his fellows in the Austrian School insisted that economics wasn't a quantitative science, that prediction was impossible, and that econometrics was at best a form of history. Where Myrdal wanted the State to use economic science to plan for a more humane tomorrow, the Austrians claimed the future was constantly being renegotiated by entrepreneurs in a dynamic dance with consumers. Not only did the Austrians oppose central planning; they claimed it was impossible!

While Myrdal worked to modernize Western left-liberalism and to strengthen the hand of an enlightened State in the pursuit of progress and social justice, Hayek denied that the idea of social justice had any meaning. He adhered to a more individualist understanding of liberalism, according to which the market needs no external regulation.

As Myrdal saw it, if such a backward thinker as Friedrich August von Hayek could be awarded the highest honor in economics, then the whole institution needed to be abolished.

He was not the only one to object to the prize. Peter Nobel, a great-grandnephew of Alfred, insists that no member of his family ever wanted an economics prize in the first place.

Technically, what is commonly called the Nobel Prize for Economics isn't a Nobel Prize at all. The will of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish armament manufacturer and the inventor of dynamite, established the official Nobel Prizes in 1895. The categories were physics, chemistry, medicine, peace, and literature. There was no prize for economics — until 1968, when Sweden's central bank created and endowed a new prize "in memory of Alfred Nobel."

Hayek himself, while grateful for the recognition, said he would "have decidedly advised against it," had anyone consulted him on whether or not such a prestigious award should be given. "The Nobel Prize confers on an individual an authority which in economics no man ought to possess," Hayek explained in his speech at the Nobel banquet.

This does not matter in the natural sciences. Here the influence exercised by an individual is chiefly an influence on his fellow experts; and they will soon cut him down to size if he exceeds his competence. But the influence of the economist that mainly matters is an influence over laymen: politicians, journalists, civil servants and the public generally.

Hayek was clearly onto something, as we can see when an interventionist like Paul Krugman wins the prize. But as Samuel Brittan of the Financial Times wrote in 2003, the soi-disant Nobel "has not … in the least increased the willingness of policy makers to accept international free trade or reject the 'lump of labour' fallacy — matters on which most academic theorists are agreed."

When a free-market economist wins a Nobel Prize, the public does not suddenly embrace laissez-faire capitalism, but the Swedish socialist may have been prescient if he worried that honoring the Austrian would somehow hurt economic science as he conceived it. Hayek’s work, then as now, is used as the antidote to Myrdal’s conception of economics — that is, economics as interventionism.

One biographer describes Hayek's Nobel as "the great rejuvenating event in his life." It rescued him from obscurity — and apparently brought him out of a long emotional depression.

After his bestselling 1944 book The Road to Serfdom, Hayek had been unable to repeat the success. No other book of his would attract a popular readership, and scholars, even those who generally shared his political philosophy, saw Hayek's economic work as obsolete. He had, indeed, left economic theory largely behind to pursue a broader understanding of history, social theory, philosophy, and law.

But after sharing the self-styled Nobel with Myrdal, Hayek's star began to rise again, not just in the West — where he would later receive honors from the British and American governments, and meet with Pope John Paul II to discuss the pressing concerns of political economy — but, much more importantly, in the Eastern Bloc countries.

Milton Friedman (another "reactionary" Nobel laureate, according to Myrdal), wrote:

There is no figure who had more of an influence on the intellectuals behind the Iron Curtain than Friedrich Hayek. His books were translated and published by the underground and black market … read widely, and undoubtedly influenced the climate of opinion that ultimately brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Hayek became infamous with the socialists of all parties, and he is considered an extremist even by many moderates. But he was no purist. He made so many concessions to the welfare state that some are uncomfortable with his prominence within the freedom movement. In a letter to Rose Wilder Lane, Ayn Rand offered Hayek as "an example of our most pernicious enemy." She also described him as “the kind who do more good to the communist cause than ours.”

In that second assessment, at least, she was obviously wrong. The history of ideas — and the impact of those ideas on actual freedoms in the real world — is complex, nonlinear, and thoroughly unpredictable. And the Austrians are clearly right about the nature of prediction: Who could have foreseen that the central bank of the world's leading welfare state would pilfer the name of an arms dealer and end up resurrecting the career of the leading opponent of socialism and central banking?

Today Hayek is remembered more for his lifelong opposition to all top-down attempts to manage the economy than for his compromises in 20th-century politics. He is remembered for concepts such as local knowledge and spontaneous order — ideas that are more readily evident to a generation that has grown accustomed to the disruptive innovation of distributed networks, digital currency, and the sharing economy.

But we don't need the developments of the last 40 years to vindicate Hayek’s life’s work. Myrdal's outrage in 1974 should have been evidence enough of the Austrian’s importance to the cause of liberty.

ABOUT

B.K. MARCUS

B.K. Marcus is managing editor of The Freeman.

Wage Slavery is a false term.

I think "Wage Slavery" is a false term.
Wages are what employees gain from their service and labor to their employer. It is an act of voluntary exchange on the part of both parties. If wages were not gained by this service then slavery would exist, in the presence of wages though it is merely employment by mutual terms.


Slavery, historically, is the position of a person who through compulsion is held against their will and forced (by threat of violence)to work for the gain of the "slaveholder or slave master".


Using the word wages in conjunction with the word slavery does two things. One it lowers the definition of wages to the negative connotation of being forced to work for the benefit of another without ANY reimbursement. Secondly it tends to negate the real horrors of real slavery that has happened and is still happening around the world.


The term "wage slavery" defined deals with those wages that are so low that a person who is employed relies on them just for basic survival. Of course wages should be used in the pursuit of survival and any wants left to be pursued, if that is the want of the wage earner. One cannot force a person to use their own property in any other way that they do not wish.


Hereto we must interject on the reverse side of this issue. Mandatory wage and Minimum wage laws handed down from government bureaus and departments. These laws force businesses and businesses owners to provide wages beyond that of market value or personal labor value. These laws almost always lead to higher prices in market goods as the mandatory minimum wages are offset in the businessman's pursuit to maintain certain levels of profit.


Wage Slavery is a false point being made by those that wish to direct the affairs of businesses that do not affect them in the personal way.

Tahmooressi and the Border Issue

The latest battle between political parties and their followers and pundits is the issue of Borders, Securing those borders, Immigration and Amnesty. It has in the past few months become the most visible topic by candidates, commentators and political junkies alike. The story of ex-US Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi has reignited this issue and has left myself with more than enough questions to the idea of borders and the sincerity of either political party and their adherents to the motives of their stances. The idea of borders, definable lines arbitrarily drawn on maps and fought over, has consumed the airwaves.

As always, the issue is made to be seen as only two options. Pro Immigration and Anti Immigration or Pro-Amnesty and Anti-Amnesty. The first option is to allow amnesty to persons already in the country "illegally" and the second is to continue deportation and criminal charges against those living in the United States borders without having gone through the immigration process, the "legal" way as they call it. The line these two beliefs draws is apparent and approachable by yet other paths. The history of immigration into the United States is riddled with laws, regulation, restrictions, hate, fear, death and hypocrisy. Beginning the Idea of America on the act of Immigration, Genocide and Conquest doesn't lend well to the history of immigration into this country and the resulting years and decades since the first Illegal Alien stepped foot on American soil. If we were to respect borders of any countries our military armaments would rust and its soldiers be taken back to private employment. If one reduces this issue down to its base it is a belief that one person may have say over the movement of another, this is to say that one person holds rule over another, or that any government have the right to restrict travel in any way.

We have seen wars fought over land, deaths in foreign countries in the name of this land and a new breed of bigots and hypocrites arise from the simple act of movement and travel around the globe. The mainstream accepted idea on immigration is to subject other human beings to tests and health restrictions, to perform up to certain levels, to curtail freedom and to allow themselves to be robbed of wealth in the process. Every year hundreds of people die in an effort to reach "The Most Free and Most Prosperous Country in the World". They die in their attempt to reach a land that promises freedom and prosperity, they die for a lack of freedom to enjoy a better life, they die for a lack of freedom to move about the earth unhindered and uninhibited. The act of Legalized Immigration is an act of barbarity and exclusivity.


To say you believe in the closing of borders, demarcations of land used in exclusion by one government entity, You have not only barred any entering of outside persons but have also confined oneself to the same rule. You have created your own prison.

The economic theory behind the want of closed borders is this. As more and more immigrants come into this country they will, without fail, turn and send these American dollars outside of our borders. In a proper understanding of Economics this isn't seen as a negative as any country that bars it's currency from foreign circulation fails to have that currency to buy products from the foreign markets. If this theory were to hold water, countries would have difficulty acquiring goods from foreign markets for lack of foreign funds. Now one might say to convert these currencies would be the answer and to reduce trade to currency exchanges and money manipulation. There is also the prohibition of allowing workers into trades within a country. Lower skilled workers who enter into a foreign marker make much lower wages, while this is seen on its surface as a negative, is actually a positive. Lower wages equal out to lower costs and in effect lead to lower prices. "Let's look at the problem of immigration from another angle. There exists a market demand for low-skilled cheap labor. Part of this demand is being met by outsourcing of jobs overseas. The rest is met by vast numbers of immigrants coming to this country. Illegal immigration is the market supplying a demand. A demand is being met and satisfied. When viewed this way, how is this a problem? This triumph of the market is not in itself a problem." says Wade A. Mitchell

Now to the Hypocrisy Part.

Ex-US Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi sits in a jail cell in Mexico for this very act, and the hypocrites on every side of the political aisle are in fervor for his release and an escape from the very laws they seek to impose on their own borders. The Marine, who had been visiting friends had supposedly come upon a border crossing station and checkpoint run by the Mexican Federal Government. Tahmooressi alledges to have informed the guards that he had registered weapons in the vehicle and had just made a wrong turn. Enforcing their own laws the border agents arrested Tahmooressi and the ensuing battle over his release has brought a new wave of nationalistic border builders and wall wishers. Whether Tahmooressi had or had not meant to cross into Mexico and whether or not he informed them of his weaponry, the Mexican Border Agents did the job of upholding their national law. This law may not be agreeable to me but it is to those that wish to "secure" the US's borders in the same fashion. It is hypocritical to say that a man from America should be released from custody yet scream and push for the same actions from your own border agents and administration. This is the real gap in reasoning I see in the issue.

The gap in this is the face of the issue, subjective value and nationalism. Nationalism, to believe that the nation of your residence is befitting a higher status and therefore more rule over any other. The Subjective Value to reduce a mans worth and the worth of all others to the geographical location of their birth. The happenstance of birth in any place of the world does not predispose one to a higher place in the world or a higher rule over others. It should not be seen as a benefit or hindrance where one is placed on the earth and it should not be restricted or inhibited in any way to any place he wishes to travel.

The issue of borders can best be seen from afar. Space. In the pictures of earth from above there are no borders, there is only earth, all of us together, all of us combined in this experience.

How Conservative can you be?

The typical conservative claims to believe in smaller government, reduced spending and reduced taxation, but their actions go against this supposed belief. Recently I have been hearing Republicans and self-proclaimed conservatives railing against these very stances in opposition to political opponents.

In Florida the governor’s race is seemingly between Incumbent Republican Governor Rick Scott and former Governor Charlie Crist, who while governor was in the Republican party but later switched to an Independent and finally settling with his current party affiliation in the Democrat Party. The campaign ads against Charlie Crist are easy fallacies and half-truths; they are simply hit and run ads trying to come across as something meaningful and worthwhile. The first issue the Republican Party and conservatives are harping on is that under the current Governor the State is spending MORE on education than ever before and calling the Charlie Crist era the worst decrease in educational spending.

Yes you read that correctly, they are saying that reduced spending is bad and increased spending is good.

To Charlie Crist’s benefit I can say this, his time is office was during the greatest recession (some calling it a depression) in our lifetime, so far anyways...

So why does this matter? The Republican Party would like you to believe that what transpired under Crist was solely on his hands, reduced spending on education, high unemployment, record numbers of foreclosures in the state and the number of businesses dropping was not an isolated incident only in the State of Florida, but a result of a National Recession, Housing Market Crash and Wall Street Problems. Another thing to remember in this is that everything the Republican Party of Florida is using for cannon fodder in these ads was passed under a Republican led state legislature. Now that those conditions have cleared up, or have been covered over, whichever you believe, the current Governor, Scott can seem a better alternative to Crist. But anyone who looks at the issue from the stance of the conservatives should clearly see the hypocrisy in the campaign against Crist.



Though not endorsing anyone for this race, if you live in Florida please be aware there are other options, and also consider abstaining from voting at all.



This trend of saying you believe in one thing and acting another way isn't confined to the State of Florida. This mentality is nationwide. It seems to be just the nature of politics and the want for power and control. Republicans and Conservatives will champion a policy of reduced spending, except in key areas mainly Military and National Security. These two areas in particular are the holiest of holies in terms of non-negotiable items to be reformed or reduced. The annual spending in these two areas have been increased in the last few years with many Republicans voting in favor of the increases. Adding to these costs is the added departments and bureaus being introduced and bolstered by increased funding. All of this flies in the face of the stated stance of Conservatives and yet they see no problem with it. Florida isn't the only state where this is happening either, it is a widespread issue.



Now the call for the Border Fence comes in.
In the past few weeks an increase of people coming to the American-Mexican border has increased. This increase has rekindled the debate for immigration reform and adding more funding to building a border security fence, adding border patrol agents, buildings and in the most extreme cases using military troops to repel immigrants by force if necessary. But all of this costs. It costs money and the only way the government sees to gain this money is to increase taxes to the citizens. This again goes against their stance on reducing spending and lowering taxes.

According to the US Immigration office "It is estimated that between 2000 and 2010, U.S. taxpayers spent $90 billion on securing the U.S.-Mexico border. This includes various expenses such as the cost of deploying 1,200 National Guard troops to the border, which is $110 million per year, the average salary of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent, which is $75,000—in 2010, there were 20,000 CBP agents deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border, the cost of an X-ray machine to peer into cargo trains and trucks, each costs $1.75 million—of which the U.S. uses 165. There is also the cost of building fences, employing drug-sniffing dogs, the use of predator drones, and various other incendiaries."




Foreign Aid
Foreign Aid costs the American Taxpayers around $23 billion in 2013, or a total of $37 billion if you include assistance to foreign militaries. This is approximately 1% of the total US Budget. Even this being only 1% of total budget it is still such a large portion of money coming out of the paychecks and purses of every American Citizen. This is another one of those areas where so called conservatives are anything but. The issue facing Foreign aid is the idea of taking money from the people of one country and handing it over to another.


Intervention costs money
The Neoconservative War Hawks and Pro Interventionists will fail to grasp that their intervention into affairs of other countries and governments will have an economic impact. Any intervention that is proposed costs money to implement. Whether they wish to send humanitarian aid, food, training, military weapons, to impose sanctions or even blockades, this will always costs taxpayers in the end. Just the intervention in Crimea cost the American people $896 Million.


The War on Drugs and the War on Terror are two more examples of a reluctance to curb spending and instead cast themselves headlong into hypocritical action over their beliefs. These two programs have been dismal failures and have cost not only billions of dollars annually but have also cost the lives of countless people.
The War on Drugs has created a situation that the US is facing now in Mexico where the drug cartels are pushing people towards the borders and have taken over as warring monopolies.
The War on Terror is the Combination of wasteful spending, increasing budgets and the creation of new and expanding departments. Spending billions in an attempt to "Make Peace by War", it is something that never was, and never will be.


How Conservative can you be when you support these programs and ideas? How conservative can you really call yourself if you tend to spend more money year after year, raise taxes, build a bigger and more intrusive government? These are just a few of the many ways that conservatives have lost their definition and have went full steam in the opposite direction.