Digging Bunkers

An Alabama man spends years digging a doomsday bunker. When things go south in his life, he kills a school bus driver, kidnaps an innocent child then holds him hostage in the bunker.

Sadly, this unfolding drama is a very good analogy for the way that Republicans went about the health care debate.

The free market is better suited for providing health care than a socialized market. If a group engaged in an open conversation about free market health care, the forces of liberty would have won the day.

Instead, the conservative movement took on a bunker mentality. Republicans actively shut down all attempts at discussing alternative to PPACA, and when political dust clears, we are left with a health care system that is severely worse and unjust than the dysfunctional system we had before.

On the Conservative Methodology

The Founding of the United States brought to fruition many beautiful ideas about liberty and self rule.

The American Conservative movement came about last century as an effort to defend these ideals of liberty against the onslaught of radical progressivism.

When the Conservative movement concentrates on the beautiful ideas of the nation's founding, the conservative movement shines.

Unfortunately, pundits (left, right and center) have a tendency of confusing the method to conserve liberty with liberty itself.

Conservatism is a partisan method people have been using to defend the ideals of the American Experiment in Self Rule.

Conservatism is not the set of ideals themselves. It is a methodology used to defend the ideals of the founders.

NOTE: When one separates the ideals of the founders from conservatism, one is left with an extremely ugly and oppressive ideology.

Yesterday I mentioned the plight of Ruby Jessop who was forced to marry her cousin at age 16. As a child bride, she bred babies for a conservative group as if she were cattle. She has 6 in 10 years. I applaud her liberators and deplore the fundamentalists that forced her into a negative situation.

The conservative methodology when applied to preserving the principles of the American Founders is a great thing. The methodology itself is not.

The intelligentsia on the left understands the difference between method and ideals and is skilled at manipulating conflicts to bring out the worst of conservatism.

If people want to succeed at restoring the ideals of the US Founders, the advocates of liberty must be aware of the weaknesses of conservative methodology and avoid the mistake of confusing "conservatism" a method to preserve liberty and the ideals of the founders.

For over fifty years, people have tried to preserve liberty with conservatism. Clearly, this methodology is not working.

My radical suggestion is that, perhaps, the best way of preserving liberty is for people to discuss how liberty solves problems. For five years, I've been wanting to have an informal meeting with people wanting to preserve liberty about free market health care reform.

In five years of actively contacting every conservative group within 700 miles of Salt Lake City, I have not found a single person willing to discuss this issue. In most cases it appears that the groups are unwilling to discuss free market health care reform because my ideals of self-ownership do not fit within the group's concept of "conservative."

I find this fact that conservatives simply will not talk about the most important issue of our generation to be very troubling.

Preserving the US experiment in self rule is far too important an issue to loose on the gamble that the conservative methodology will preserve freedom. All of the evidence seems to indicate that the conservative methodology systematically loses.

Fundamentalism in Utah

I live in Utah. For the last five years I've had a single goal. of either attending or hosting a meeting that discusses free market health care reform.

The chance to repeal PPACA is past, and I am left in the darkness wondering why these people called "conservatives" failed to stand up for health freedom when it was clearly the single most important issue of our generation.

Utah is by far the most conservative state in the union.

Living in the most conservative state of the union taught me the valuable lesson that, contrary to their claims, conservatives are not the defenders of freedom. They use freedom rhetoric to gain power, but once in power they simply lock everyone out.

To understand the nature of Conservatism, I think it wise to study the most conservative of the conservatives in the most conservative of states. I am talking conservatism on steroids here.

The most conservative group of the most conservative state of Utah, of course, is the fundamentalists.

The Salt Lake Tribune has a typical life story of people living in the wonderland of Fundamentalist Conservative Utah:

At age 16, Ruby Jessop was forced to marry her cousin Harlow Barley. She pumped out 6 kids in ten years. At age 26 she escaped her captivity to a safe house run by Help The Child Brides.

Most people born in cults take to the indoctrination. Those who don't embrace the indoctrination are usually so poorly educated that they fear going out in the real world.

I've met women who cannot read. When conservatism reaches its absurdity, conservatives don't even teach women to read because that might disrupt the social order. Imagine the embarrassment you would face in life if you had to approach strangers to read signs because the conservative leaders who control every aspect of your life prevented you from learning to read.

If you are a conservative, then you really should spend time looking at what the fundamentalists do because fundamentalists are the most conservative of all conservatives.


How can Republicans be so completely blind. The Taliban is a conservative group. Al Qaeda is a conservative group.

Conservatism is not the path to freedom.

IMHO, the Tea Party was an authentic freedom movement. It was quickly infiltrated and captured by conservative activists. The activists stopped the wonderful discussion about freedom and immediately set about grubbing power for conservatives.

These conservatives effectively killed the Tea Party. Because of these conservatives we are forced to deal with 4 more years of a social progressive presidency.

Yes, I know. Pundits like Sean Hannity and Limbaugh play a word game in which "liberal" means "socialist" and "conservative" means "liberal." This game of sublating the term liberal was started by the an arch-conservative named Hegel (1770-1831).

Quite frankly, the argument that Hegel is the father of modern conservatism is stronger than the argument that Marx is the father of the modern liberalism.


I love the ideals of liberty that were at the heart of the American Experiment in self-rule.

Unfortunately, this experiment is coming to an end because fools like Sean Hannity and Riush Limbaugh who drown out rational discourse with the stupid little name game in which "conservative" means "liberal" and "liberal" means "socialist."

The funny thing about this system of argumentation is that "socialism" is far closer to conservative ideals than is the free market established by the US Founders.

If you study the history of ideas, you will find that modern socialism was created by royalists who were seeking to restore the ideals of the monarchy.

The Hanoverian Kings of England were from Hanover Germany. They funded the German Universities that produced Hegel and kin. These philosophers simply sifted through all of the ideals of feudalism in an attempt to reframe the ideals of feudalism as revolutionary and progressive.

The key to the classical liberal ideals of the US Founders is ownership. In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith argued that individual owners seeking to maximize the return of their personal resources would maximize the wealth of the nation.

Feudalism was a power based society. In feudalism, the lords and ladies did not actually own anything. They gained their position by ruling over the land and the landless serfs.

The serfs were just workers who were entitled to the bounties of the land, but did not own anything and were effective slaves.

The arch-conservative Hegel spewed forth with arguments that freedom is slavery and slavery freedom as his way of defending the social order of the monarchy in a time of revolutionary change. The heart of Hegel's argument was a new method of discourse called Modern Logic.

Fox News is probably the best example of Hegelian thought in action.

Karl Marx is from a generation called "The Young Hegelians."

Hegel sought to conserve the social order of the monarchy. Marx used Hegel's modern logic to argue for radical social change.

Hegel is the father of Modern Logic. Modern Conservatism came from Hegel. Modern Liberalism comes from Marx.


Both paths of this modern philosophy lead to a society with dictators and an oppressed people.


(I also need to point out that the dialectical center is also part of the problem).

If you are a conservative, I wish you would take a step back and look at the fate of the people living in the most conservative areas of the world. Ruby Jessop is an American citizen. She was forced to marry her cousin and pound out 6 babies in 10 years before she finally escaped the horrors of living in the most fundamentally conservative area in America.

The Taliban and Al Qaeda are conservative. The faith people keep placing in this stupid word "conservative" is completely misplaced. It is a bankrupt, paradoxical system of thought that leads to oppression.

We need to find a way to restore and promote the ideals of the US Founders. Conservatism leads away from this path.

Why Does a Gun Owner Need More Than One Round of Ammo?

Isn't it funny. Whenever the Left attacks the rights of the American people, the press uses the words "compromise." Likewise, if ever a Conservative seeks compromise on an issue, the press labels the effort as an attack.

Despite what the pundits claim, the press does not have the magic ability to see the intentions of the players in a political wrangle. A person who is on the attack can easily feign the image of compromise. Likewise, a person willing to compromise is likely to begin a debate with a clearly stated position.

A group that begins a debate by demanding compromise before stating a position is clearly up to no good.


The Obama Administration is beginning the legislative season with a well orchestrated campaign to frame their position as a demand for compromise.

If we had been taught logic in school, we would know that one does not begin a debate with compromise. One begins a debate by stating positions. Beginning a debate with a demand for compromise is a bully technique. That the press frames the starting position of gun control advocates as "compromise" is base propaganda.


Anyway, the gun control forces are beginning their attack on gun rights with the question:  "Why do people seeking to defend themselves need guns with multiple rounds?"

The obvious reason is that people who are seeking to defend are defending themselves and are not necessarily seeking to kill their attacker. I would rather the attacker runs away than deal with the trauma of having shot someone.

If I were defending myself with a gun, I would fire multiple warning shots before ever considering actually aiming the gun at another human being.

Don't you see? If your goal is to make people run away, you need more fire power than if your goal is to kill them.

Personally, I prefer non-lethal weapons like the Taser. The problem with the Taser is that you have to actually aim at and hit the person who is threatening your family. A loud gun does a better job of scaring people away. BTW: If I were charged with defending an elementary school, I would actually want the teachers trained to use tasers.

The Second Amendment mentions a "well regulated militia." Such a militia is a group of volunteers seeking to defend a local community from groups attacking the community.


Now, think of a group of people protecting your community. You will want them to have sufficient fire power to keep your community from being a target of attack.

The unfortunate condition of man is that people seeking to defend themselves must hold a stronger position than those who are attacking. A bank spends far more defending the bank than the robber seeking to rob it.

Which brings us back to the current shrill debate. The fact that the debate is beginning with claims that those starting the debate are just seeking compromise leads me to believe that this is not a legitimate debate at all.

I fear that the whole purpose of this currently political show is to associate the right with Sandy Hook.

Alinsky taught his followers how to gain power over a community by creating division and stoking animosities.

Sadly, the Alinsky techniques work. The right is likely to burn itself out on the gun control issue while ignoring the more important issue of defending health freedom.

Is There A Spending Problem?

From antiquity to American Revolution, the economy was structured in a top-down vertical hierarchy.

The economy flowed down from emperors and kings through feudal lords to the people.

When the king was good and benevolent, life was bearable. When the king was stingy and cruel, the people suffered miserably.

During the Renaissance and Enlightenment, people began questioning this top-down social order. Theorists applied their classical education to the concept of liberty and came up with a structure for society that could best be called "Classical Liberalism."

The classical liberal realized that individuals seeking to optimize their personal resources would effectively optimize the resources of the state. So, they sought a society with a limited government and an unlimited people.

Classical liberalism led to widespread prosperity.

The Classical Liberal created a new social structure in which the wealth of the nation flowed among the people. The government was limited to the few functions necessary to maintain civil order.

The American Experiment in Self Rule is among the most notable manifestations of this new idea.

So, there are two distinctive ways to organize an economy. The classical conservative view organizes society from the top down. Classical liberals created a structure in which the wealth of the nation is created by the activities of the people. Central authorities should be limited.

The title of this post is "Is There a Spending Problem?"

The answer to the question depends on the structure of the economy.

If the economy is structured in a top down fashion so that economic activity flows through a political hierarchy to the people, then the society needs an expansive government; otherwise things would become stagnant.

If the economy is organized on classical liberal principles with widespread ownership and wealth created by interactions between free people, then government spending is a negative force.

If you held the classical liberal views of America's founders, you would say that the Obama administration has a terrible spending problem.

If you held the classical conservative view that wealth is created by the central authority and flows through the people, then you would say there is not a spending problem. The answer to the question depends on the socio-economic structure of the nation.

As a libertarian, I happen to believe that the classical liberal structure for an economy leads to a better outcome than the centralized conservative structure of the ancient regime. I believe there is ample proof that economic liberalization leads to prosperity. But my personal beliefs don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world of ours.

Apologies for the Terminology

Some people might find my terminology strange. The problem is that the meanings of terms changed between the Revolution and today.

As you see the proponents of the ancient regime did not just lay down and die after the US Revolution. They were down, but not out.

In the early 1800s, the proponents of feudalism were diminishing so they sought to reframe their arguments. This process is quite clear in the ramblings of Hegel. Yes, I know Hegel, like the kings of England was German. How could a German philosopher express the views of the English monarchy (unless of course the German University system was funded by the Hanoverian Kings of England, which it was).

Anyway, the reactionary forces to US Revolution sought to reframe the philosophy of the ancient regime. Hegel did this by creating a thing called "modern logic." (NOTE, the term "modern" is quite old. In philosophy it refers the the new philosophical systems created at the turn of the 1800s.)

Hegel's modern logic promotes a process called "sublation" in which pundits manipulate discourse by changing the meanings of terms. Sublation is just a fancy word for systematic equivocation.

The Modern Conservatives of the 1800s sought to undermine the experiment in self rule by changing the meanings of basic terms such as "liberal." Conservatives of the day set to attack the concepts of liberty by heaping every invective known to man on "liberalism." Hegel himself created multiple exercises in which he framed slavery as freedom and freedom slavery.

The best example of Hegelism in practice today is Fox News. Fox presents news as conflict (dialectics) with the aim of dominating the news. They continue the process of sublation by projecting every false image they can on the term "liberalism."

Things were made more confusing when the Young Hegelians began manipulating discourse with modern logic. Karl Marx is the most notable of the Young Hegelians.

Marx realized that the best path to revolution is to define the opposition into a corner. Marx wrote a large tome called "Das Kapital." In this book, Marx claimed that the experiment in free market economics would devolve into a system in which large pools of capital would matter more than people.

When this happens the economy would become stagnant and oppressive and that the workers would rise up in revolution. The revolution would lead to a utopia called Communism. Marx defined "capitalism" in great detail but only alluded to "communism" is vague utopian imagery.

Don't you see the great irony. Karl Marx is the father of Capitalism. The term "capitalism" did not come into common usage until after the publication of Das Kapital.

Hegelian Conservatives (who support economic centralization) took to promoting Marx's definition of "capitalism" and promote the equivocation of Marx's Capitalism with the free market ideas of Adam Smith and the US Founders.

By accepting Marx's "Capitalism" as the foundation of our economic system, Conservatives completed the sublation of the term "liberal."

Our bloviating pundits have created a new language in which up is down so that answering basic questions such as "Is there a spending problem?" becomes hopeless.

America has a spending problem if our economy is organized along classical liberal principles in the wealth of the nation is the people and that the wealth of the nation increases as free people seek to optimize their personal resources.

We actually need more spending if our society is organized along classical conservative principles in which the wealth of the nation flows through the king to the people, or if it organized along the principles of capitalism as set forth in Marx's Das Kapital (the foundational document of capitalism).

The sublated terminology of Marxist/Hagelian tradition creates paradoxical views. Conservatives believe strongly in a top-down economic view in which the people are reduced to mere labor toiling away for massive centralized economic views. However, since Conservatives love the imagery of the Founders they support Marx's definition of capitalism. This leads conservatives to favor a top-down social structure with the masses cut off from benefits of the society.

New Years Post

I confess. I had really been looking forward to 2012.

I bought into the idea that it would be a year of renewal.

But the Conservative movement turned bizarre.

The Republican primary process was all my nightmares come true.

To think. People were so dimwitted as to nominate the father of RomneyCare to defeat ObamaCare.

I wanted to write a New Yeats Post today. While doing so. I realized that this is the first time in my life I really believe there is no hope for our nation.

The problem in our nation is not "Liberalism." It is the perversion of Liberalism.

If we want to get down to brass tacks. The restoration of America would in actuality be a restoration of true liberalism.

Unfortunately, both conservatives and progressives are fully invested in the perversion of liberty. The political pundits have created a trap for our culture with no way out.

It would be possible to save America. But it would involve people talking to each other. It would entail the impossible. It would entail leftists realizing that economic and political centralization does not lead to liberty. Even worse, it would involve Conservatives engaged in introspection and realizing that the Modern Conservative movement itself is Hegelian in origin and has engaged in all of the underhanded tricks practiced one the left.

It is possible for a group that rejects the false dichotomies created by pundits to come up with answers.

But I do not know a single person on this planet who is willing to talk earnestly with others and I feel we are in a helpless mess with no way out.