Left, Right and Society Today

The following is a letter by contributor JV. I reply bellow with some insights of my own. Its part where we stand today, part self-criticism as a society.

FerFAL

“Socialism (literally, government) is the great fiction, whereby everybody endeavours to live off of everybody else.”

-        Frederic Bastiat, 1801-1850

David Sirota recently penned an article about the Boston Marathon bombing, while the victims were still bleeding one day after the attack, titled “Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American.” http://www.salon.com/2013/04/16/lets_hope_the_boston_marathon_bomber_is_a_white_american/

Of course, Sirota’s reason is simple – he did not want “slander” of Islam, or by extension, any other minorities.  Leaving aside the simple question of whether the Qu’ran is violent or not (I have read it twice, and indeed it is – and in fact was founded by violence), Sirota does have an initial valid point that we may perhaps all agree on: We desire all people to have basic human rights and dignity.  The question is, how do we get there?

Unfortunately the “logic” of Sirota, and others of his persuasion, breaks down in two areas. The first area is that leftists like Sirota – in their Robespierrian attempt to make everyone equal – have no problems running roughshod over other equally intrinsic rights that are also predicated on basic human rights and dignity, such as the right of free speech, or the right of self-defense, which includes the right to bear arms.

But that is not the concern of this article. Rather, the second, and key concern, of this article is the inhumanity, hypocrisy, hatred and Orwellian control that has historically and intrinsically been part and parcel of the very nature of left. Sirota’s article, written while people were still bleeding in pain, is consistent with the inhumanity of the left. And here is the key point: Is Sirota an aberration? Was this article just a “one-off?”  There are certainly people of all persuasions – left, right, centre, anarchists, monarchists, etc. – where we can find those who have engaged in violence, so even if there were ten Sirota’s writing in Salon the next day, that would not prove leftists are suspect as a group. And I don’t wish to even hint at the typical Alinsky intellectual fraud of demonizing one person, and then extending that to a full group. It is intellectually bankrupt and – on a different plane – completely irrelevant. I will leave that kind of sophistry to the left. Besides, leftists are much better at it!  And, no, I am not being hypocritical here, for my very point is that the left, with few exceptions, always engages in this type of casuistry. That is why they require their campus speech police, a compliant, “lamestream” media, a well-oiled propaganda machine, and hordes of “Yes we can” chanters.   Rather, my belief is that as the conservative and libertarian views have  an intrinsic, explanatory adequacy, we needn’t devolve into the leftist shenanigans of organizations like Moveon.org, etc. to win the day. Rather, people of good will and fair-mindedness will see the reasoning behind the conservative argument, just as even after decades of iron-fisted, propaganda filled Soviet rule, the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of socialism – the emperor with no clothes – could still be seen. Yes, it would be ideal if leftists would grant the same fairness to conservatives, but in my experience with the left, basic logic, evenhandedness and intellectual integrity such as this passes by their reasoning like “two sheeps in the night” (pun intended).  I learned this lesson the hard way on one of the very first papers I wrote while an undergrad at university, where I was clearly marked down on a  paper by a leftist professor who did not agree with a few minor observations made within the writing.

My concern is that the left, in general, is built around a philosophy that treats people as animals, has utilitarianism as its religion, and is at core one of the most blatantly hypocritical and violent movements to ever un-grace the face of the planet. The left is not so much concerned about justice as they are about their own conceit that they alone have the knowledge to control everyone and everything.  I recall a cartoon from decades ago, the author now lost to antiquity, which had one rich man stating to another “First I thought it was sex, then money… but now I know it is power.” And importantly, power without humanity equals tyranny.  This is exactly what is occurring today.

Where does our humanity – without which everything degrades into utilitarianism and depersonalized “citizens” (here I disparagingly use the term “citizens” as Robespierre did) –  derive from? Ultimately, we are left with two choices: God or man. And if the latter, then those rights may also be taken away by the same entity that “granted” them.  The most successful country and culture in the history of man, the U.S., adhered to the former, of course. Thomas Jefferson stated that our rights were endowed by our Creator in our founding document. Other writers such as CS Lewis, in his short book The Abolition of Man, have noted that ethics ultimately have no basis without the absolutes from whence they derive. Or as the Russian philosopher Nicolai Berdyaev once put it, “If there is no God, man does not exist either.” But let me not even go down the “religious” path – Albert Camus, who was no Christian – alluded to the same idea, once stating that a finite point, without an infinite reference point, has no meaning.

So, where does the socialist un-vision lead us?  As writer and Fabian socialist G.B. Shaw once wrote, “You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught and employed, whether you liked it or not. If it were discovered that you had not the character and industry enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner.” And shouldn’t our dear leaders do as Shaw, suggests, for recall that in the left’s world, your rights are granted by the man created state, and can be revoked that same man created state.  Or, as Fyodor Dostoyevski stated , if there is no God, everything is permissible. And what is this “permissible?” This is simply answered, by taking a look at the track record of the left, which has been one consistent record of oppression, lack of compassion, murder and poverty. To wit:

          Dr. Arthur Brooks of Syracuse University, has written one of the most important books on the topic of leftist faux “compassion,” entitled Who Really Cares. This book is worthy of being a cornerstone in your personal library, with 200 pages of very heavily documented statistics noting, for example, that religious conservatives are more likely than leftists to give money away, volunteer for community concerns, and even give to secular charities. Most strikingly, if leftists gave blood at the same rate as conservatives, the blood supply for critical, life-saving medical support would increase by 45% (see page 22 in Brooks’ book)In another must-read  book, Do As I Say, Not As I Do, by Peter Schweizer, he profiles the utter hypocrisy of liberal icons such as Nancy Pelosi, who owns –  in addition to multiple other properties – a vineyard on Zinfandel Lane in St. Helena, CA, worth $25 mm in 2005. What’s the big deal about this? Pelosi, who would like a national holiday commemorating United Farm Workers’ Cesar Chavez, will not let UFW union workers pick the grapes for the Pelosi vineyard’s  $100 a bottle wine, says Schweizer. And it’s not that they don’t make a lot of dough off their vineyard – as of the book’s writing, financial disclosures showed $200k to $2 million profits on this vineyard alone in the preceding years. But, as we also see, e.g., with carbon billionaire Al Gore, profit trumps ethics and intellectual integrity.  Babs Streisand, another Hollywood Learjet leftist? Schweizer quotes Brad Meltzer worked for her for a year and half, and commented about her treatment of the working staff, stating that she was “… absolutely mean and niggardly about the salaries of the working people she hired,” and referring to some young illegal immigrants she hired for $3.50/hr to do menial work, when they asked for 25 cents/hr more for overtime work, Meltzer says “She told me to fire them and have them replaced. It killed me, but I did it.”  And let’s not forget other similar examples, such as Hilary Clinton with her miraculous cattle trades, Whitewater and her host of other get rich quick schemes.

          Hatred from the left? Here is security camera footage from the homosexual gun attack on Family Research Council, where the perpetrator intended to kill dozens of innocent people, and then wipe Chik-Fil-A sandwiches all over them in a final insult to those he murdered. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nl9BQlSv8Fg#t=2s (~2 min). I have personally witnessed similar physical threats of violence by homosexuals in a meeting of parents’ elementary school children, so this comes as no surprise to me.

          Violence? Political Outcast.com notes that John Wilkes Booth, a Democrat, shot and killed President Lincoln; Charles Guiteau, who was a member of the communist Oneida Community, shot and killed President Garfield; Leon Czolgosz, a leftist anarchist (similar to the useful idiots in the Occupy movement) killed President McKinley. Meanwhile, some other lefties who had failed assassination attempts (whose politics we know) include Severino Di Giovanni, a leftist anarchist, tried to bomb President-elect Hoover’s train, Giuseppe Zangara, a professed anti-capitalist, tried shooting President-elect Franklin Roosevelt; Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola, two Marxists, tried killing President Truman at the Blair House; Samuel Byck, who tried joining the leftist Black Panther group, attempted to kill President Nixon. As well, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, member of the Manson Family and also a hippie environmentalist, shot at President Ford; Sara Jane Moore tried to kill Pres. Ford as well because, as she said, “the government had declared war on the Left”; Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, a leftist connected to the Occupy movement, tried getting a one-in-a-billion shot at Obama by firing a gun at the White House.As if the murder and terrors of Robespierre weren’t enough of a clue, the outcome of leftist philosophy reached its nadir a century later, starting in the USSR. When the Russians opened their archives after the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, they admitted that there were 61 – 62  million “excess deaths.” Dr. RJ Rummell of Univ. of Hawaii, in his book Death by Government,has painstakingly detailed that roughly 170 million people were murdered by their own governments in the last century, with about 99% of those deaths coming at the hands of socialist countries. Meanwhile Stephane Courtois, et al, in the highly regarded Black Book of Communism,  stated the numbers murdered by the left were around 100 million. You say tomato, I say tomahto…. but any way you slice the leftist killings (assuming knives are not yet banned), the left has murdered and oppressed more human beings than any other movement in the history of the world.

           

          Interestingly, there is one key word in the paragraph above that needs special attention: the word “excess” used by the Russians. The significance of this is that even after many decades of socialist propaganda, dehumanization, oppression, there was still a conscience in people, as well as an innate recognition that what was done was simply evil. It almost as if they couldn’t bring themselves to us the word “murdered,” and needed some Cain and Abel type euphemism to attempt to hide the blood of their murdered brothers.  And therein lies some hope for us.

While the list could go on for dozens of pages about the hypocrisy and violence of the left, what is the real point of the above? Just to mud sling? Certainly, conservatives have their own failures, and a list could be made of that, too. I, myself, could also have a list made of my own failures and hypocrisies. But this objection proves the very point: All men and women are fallible, and truly absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Which is why the basis of the American Constitution, with its separation of powers, is utterly central, and why the erosion of Constitutional principles will lead to disaster, totalitarianism, and worse. Generally speaking the core of the conservative and libertarian views is that this very recognition of fallibility is built into their guiding principles, in a way that socialism denies theoretically, or practically.  It is also the reason why conservatives and libertarians will not be shut up, as the alternative is a fate worse than if Hitler took over the world… and why this post is written.

In conclusion, returning to the Russians – who know a thing or two about the abject failure of socialism – as one observed “The future kingdom of socialism will be a terrible tyranny of criminals and murderers. It will throw humanity into a true hell of spiritual suffering and poverty.” (Fyodor Dostoyevski). But, of course, the hypocrite elite, the Learjet leftists and limousine liberals, will still be living in spendour, and as Orwell warned us, while we will all be equal in this socialist dystopia, some of us will be “more equal” than the others. Just ask leftists George Clooney with his multiple megamansions (you can google this for your own verification, and to see actual pictures), Sean Penn and his palatial digs, Mikey Moore with his NY penthouse and multi-million dollar mansion on Torch Lake, MI, Madonna, or a thousand other Hollywierd glitterati – when not even one of them will open up just one room in just one of their zillion square foot mansions. Just think of Obama supporter Tom Hanks, who in 2010 purchased a 14,500-square-foot mega mansion in Pacific  Palisades for $26 million, which was  the largest transaction for a single-family home in Los Angeles County that year. Any tent people you know of bunking there.

In conclusion, even socialists sometimes have an inkling of the inherent insufficiency of socialism. Leftist French writer Andre Gide wrote, after visiting the socialist workers paradise of Stalin, that “I doubt that in any country of the world, even Hitler’s Germany, is thought less free, more bowed down, more terrorized,” while on the opposite side of the world, Chinese philosopher Lin Yutang wrote of socialism he saw in communist China that included “making 12 year old children subject to capital punishment, sending women to work in underground coal mines, harassing workers during their lunchtime with threats of prison – or worse – if they were late returning to work.”

Friends, we have our work cut out for us. That work is non-violent in nature. But we need to speak, communicate and educate. That is the path forward. The alternative is a fate worse than if Hitler had won. 

-JV

Thanks JV for sharing your thoughts. You cover several topics here that I believe are to a great extent relevant to what we see in society today, in many ways the root cause of many of the problems we try to be better prepared for by doing what we do here.

I must say though, that while I agree with you on certain things I don’t agree with others. Since its more fun to talk about differences rather than the things we agree on, I’ll do just that.

A few years ago while at a Self Reliance Expo in Salt Lake city I was talking with John Silveira, editor of Backwoods Home maganize and author of Danielle Kidnapped.

We were talking about current events, politics and such, which is a topic that survivalists generally agree on more or less. At one point I told him that at the end of the day “Communism is simply a brutal form of capitalism”. He liked that quote and wrote it down somewhere. As I read JV’s letter I was reminded of that. Isnt it amazing, how many incredibly rich leftists we have? Not just the actors and other famous (and rich) people JV notices. I see it happening in my own country, Argentina, with a leftist government, “national and popular”, where the “national and popular” president wears Italian designer clothes and jewels fit for a queen, has billions in accounts, and the rest of her “national and popular” minions also live in opulent estates, located on the richest parts of Buenos Aires. What an interesting way of being leftists and “national and popular”.

Like the graphic of Y equal tangent X equation tenting to negative infinity, all of a sudden it joins somewhere with infinity, the two extremes mysteriously coming together at some point beyond rational understanding.

All these people, not only rich politicians and actors, but even more important, superrich corporation owners, why is it that they finance leftists? Because they want to be poor? No, its because they want to make an obscene amount of money, and you can only do that if you take away from other people.

Anyone remembers that Simpsons episode, where Bill Gates “acquires” Homer’s internet company?  He destroys his office while saying “I didn’t get rich signing checks, Mr. Simpson”.

That’s where the right becomes left. Rob a bank and steal 10 million dollars at gunpoint and you get 10 to 25. Steal 100 billion dollars through market manipulation causing death and misery to millions around the globe and you get to choose who gets elected as a president next year. It’s the new concept of left-right monstrosity: If they make money its their money, hey, that’s capitalism right? But if they lose money they still make money because the tax payer is left to pick up the tab. Sorry, too big to fail.

Right or Left. I don’t trust either any more. Like y=tgx, it gets to a point where the limit to the left tends to infinity and the limit to the right, ironically tends to negative infinity and it both happens at that same point.

About minorities, racism and xenophobia. I think that within the survival community we have the huge stigma of racism and it needs to be addressed. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read racist or xenophobic remarks against different nationalities, ethnic groups and religions. There’s no right group to be racist about people. Racism is racism pure and simple. We cant just paint it all with a wide brush and call it political correctness or political agenda. Those do exist, of course they do, but so does racism. It not only exists, racism, xenophobia and sectarianism are alive and better than ever, many times sponsored by the government themselves. People that don’t see it generally do so because they never suffered it themselves.

About moral values, today I watched teen mom on MTV for about 20 minutes before changing the channel, worried about suffering brain damage due to stupidity exposure.

I know these things are scripted but still, my God.

One of the “teen” couples, they must have been weighting over 300 pounds each, at the very least I kid you not. Oh, by the way, if 70% of your body weight is fat you’re not big, you’re just plain old fat dude. These two morbidly obese teenagers, they had a baby, not only did they scream and shout at each other in front of their already fat child, they lived like pigs as well. The house they lived in was a mess. Both of them were too lazy to do cleaning of any kind. The disgusting mess they lived in was accentuated by cat feces that covered any free surface of the floor that wasn’t occupied with dirty clothes or fast food wrapping trash.

 Lets not even get to the millions of people that apparently seem to be surprised that their slutty teenage daughters end up getting pregnant when sleeping around.

I’m telling you, if you watch that show for more than 30 minutes you lose all faith in human kind.

If we don’t find a way of going back to a place where people have some basic values, minimum amount of shame and self respect, we’re done. Here again, both left and right promote this same kind of society. A society that is stupid, and lazy, with no self-respect or moral compass.

The less you think, the more needy you are, the more you depend on the government, the greater the control it has over you.

FerFAL

EDC contest Story Winner

Ferfal, here is my everyday carry story.
I am a 35 year old father of 4 living in Colorado. One night last summer I took my family to the sushi restaurant located at a strip-mall near our house. We live in a nice neighborhood and could have walked to the restaurant, but our youngest child was just over one year old at the time and it was easier to drive. We met my mother-in-law and her sister at the restaurant.
We were having a fun dinner – we tried the Miso soup and had just started passing around plates of sushi when my one-year-old started making a little too much noise, and my mother-in-law decided to take him for a walk outside. We were seated by the large windows that spanned the entire front of the restaurant and I could see the two of them playing on the sidewalk outside. I was facing the front door and the windows that extended out from the front door, on either side.
Suddenly, a middle-aged women walked into view from the left of where I was seated and leaned heavily against the glass window with a loud thud. Her hair was a mess and her makeup had been spread around her face by tears and the wiping of dirty hands. She was talking on a cell phone as she leaned against the window and she looked very distraught. I noticed my mother-in-law waiving her hand in a back-and-forth motion, signaling for me to come outside. She was holding my one-year-old in her arms.
I walked outside and my mother-in-law said, I think this woman needs some help. I started to approach the woman when a young man, about 18 years old, appeared from the around the corner of the building where the woman had come from. He was wearing a t-shirt with a dark colored button-up shirt over it, only the very top button was fastened and the rest of the shirt was parted to each side, with the widest space at the bottom. He was standing at the top of three steps that the woman had descended before leaning against the window, which was presently to my left. He said, “hey man, I’m just trying to get this woman a cab.”
I ascended to his level at the top of the steps and said “hi” and shook his hand. He explained he had found this woman crying and asked if he could help. She seemed intoxicated so he called a cab. He asked me to help him get her into the cab when it arrived. I looked over at the woman and I could hear her telling the person on the other end of the phone line that she was going to kill herself. She was obviously intoxicated and very emotional, but her speech was clear because she was speaking in an elevated tone of voice.
I said, “Hey, man, I think we should probably call 911 because….” Before I could finish speaking, the young man leaned his face close to my ear and said, “If you call the cops, I’ll F***ing stab you right here.”
Time seemed to slow down as I became very aware of the cell phone in my left and the pocket-knife (a little Spyderco Dragonfly) in the front-right pocket of my jeans. When I looked down at my phone, the young man lunged for it and missed as I pulled it away, spinning counter-clockwise and pushing him away from me with my right hand. Upon missing the phone, he stumbled to an upright position on the steps and then lurched past me, back in the direction where he came from, and stopped about ten feet away.
I could sense, without seeing, the distraught lady behind me to the left and my mother-in-law with my one-year-old directly behind me about twenty feet or so. I vividly imagined, like a daydream, the young man rushing toward me, my right had drawing the knife from my pocket, unfolding it with my thumb and driving it into his chest. The thought made me cringe and my mind raced as I tried to decide what to do next. I wanted to call 911 to help the distraught woman, who I believed to be mentally ill or intoxicated or both. I did not want to have to stab the young man. I drew and unfold my knife while simultaneously raising the phone in front of me to dial 911, such that I could see the young man in front of me as I did so. I got the 911 dispatcher and announced, so that she and the young man could hear me, that I had a knife in my hand because the young man threatened to stab me if I called 911. I explained that a woman needed to be taken to the hospital because she seemed intoxicated and she threatened to kill herself. The dispatched asked for my location and I explained.
The young man looked nervous and he turned to his right and started walking away, then he moved toward the woman and said “tell your son I’m sorry.” Then he turned around and walked away across the large parking lot and across the busy four lane street in front of me. I noticed for the first time that he had a red backpack on, the type that is just a nylon bag with strings as shoulder straps.
Within minutes, several police cars and an ambulance arrived. Two female police office stepped out of their cars, and one asked me to identify myself. I explained that I had called 911 and that I had a knife in my hand, which I showed her by holding it between my thumb and forefinger with the flat of the blade and handle exposed to her for maximum visibility. She put her hand on her pistol and told me to put the knife down. I slowly set the knife in front of me on the concrete sidewalk. She carefully picked it up, folded it, and put it on top of her patrol car. She told me to sit down and asked me questions in a very demanding tone. She asked for my driver’s license and I handed it to her. She asked me to explain what happened several times and I did so, at one point she asked me to stand up and show her where the events had taken place. I felt conscious of the fact that I was wearing a t-shirt and jeans – I felt like if I was better dressed she might have treated me better.
I saw two or three more patrol cars arrive, and the young man was let out of one of them. A male officer arrived and told the female officer he would take it from here.
“You’ve probably told your story enough times,” the officer said, “there are some discrepancies in your story.”
“Well, if there are, then that’s how the human brain works because I’m trying to explain it clearly but parts of it seem like a blur,” I responded.
“That is how it works, actually,” he replied. “We caught the other guy. We found a knife in his backpack. He says he grabbed your cell phone, and that’s about the only thing I could charge him with. Do you want to press charges?”
“I don’t think he actually grabbed my phone,” I said.
“I believe you,” the officer replied.
“I don’t want to press charges. I was afraid he would rush me and didn’t want to stab him, so I showed him my knife and called 911 at the same time,” I explained.
“I asked him why he didn’t want you to call 911, and he didn’t have a reason – I don’t think you did anything wrong,” he said.
By that time, my mother-in-law and her sister had taken the kids home, and only my wife was waiting for me. We drove the short distance home and I gradually relaxed as the adrenaline worked its way out of my system.
I learned some things from this experience. I learned that I am the type of person who tries to help people. Sometimes in trying to help people, one becomes caught up in dangerous situations. I started thinking more about defensive carry. I looked into a better defensive carry knife. Interestingly, the guy who helped me at the sporting goods store said that he was a former combat medic and “you don’t want to get in a knife fight, get a gun.” I think that makes a lot of sense. I did buy what I consider to be a better defensive carry knife that day, a Buck Redpoint, which is a great defensive carry knife for the money. I took off the clip, and it fits nicely in my pocket. I also plan to take a concealed carry class, which will allow me to legally and responsibly carry a pistol. If the situation I described above had happened while I was carrying a pistol, I don’t think I would have drawn it, unless I saw that the young man was holding a weapon in his hand. I think I would have told him I was armed and that I didn’t want any trouble, but that I was going to call the police. I’m curious what you and your readers think about the situation I described above and my defensive carry philosophy. Take care,
Patrick

Hi Patrick,
Nice story man, you won!
Several things to point out:
1)The use of the cellphone to call for backup and having it with you, even when going out for a quick bite.
2) The knife being used, and this person clealry thinking better about what he as doing (and not wanting to get stabbed!)
3)Realizing you need more of a fighting oriented EDC knife instead. I would recommmend a Cold Steel Voyager rather the Buck Redpoint though.
4)Finally concluding that yup, carrying a gun is a good idea.
5)Bad things happen when least expected, close to home, when doing "normal" stuff.
6) One last comment, next time remember to put away the weapon (knife or gun) before cops get there. That's how people get shot.
Thanks for sharing your story!
FerFAL

Why People Like "Bin Laden" 500 Euro Notes

The Secret World Of Gold

Very interesting documentary about gold, highly recommended!
FerFAL

EDC Story Contest/ Giveway

Do you have an interesting EDC related story to tell? Here’s your chance to win a fancy Exotac FireStarter!

I’m interesting in learning about the ways in which your Everyday Carry gear (gun, knife, flashlight, cellphone, cash, etc, etc) has saved the day or somehow come in handy during emergencies or even just solving normal day to day problems. The best story wins a black Exotac nanoSTRIKER XL Ferrocerium Fire Starter donated by our sponsor campingsurvival.com

 

The steps and conditions are very simple:

1)Write your story in 500-1000 words. This is just a general guideline, you can use more or less if that’s what you need to tell your story.

2)You have until Sunday, April 28th to submit your story (my email can be found on the right column, in red) That will give you the weekend to sit and write a bit.  I’ll read them all and announce a winner on Tuesday, April 30th.

3)This time the contest is for USA only. Don’t worry, the next one will include everyone world wide ;-)

The contest starts as of right now so if you have something in mind start writing!

FerFAL