Re: House Republicans Need To Subpoena Monica's Mom To Get To the Bottom of Benhgazi

[BeamMeUpScotty]

On 5/9/2013 2:33 PM, wien9al...@gmail.com wrote:
>> It's liberals that attack the rich with the TAX code to make them poor.
> ..... EVERYBODY is supposed to repay all levels of government all, yes ALL!, costs in full as soon as possible after the recessions have ended, so that, in theory, the debts will be close to zero at the start of the next recession.
>
Wouldn't it be good to get the welfare and food stamps to ZERO before
you close the debt to zero? You might even want to make Social
Security sustainable before you close the debt to zero, You know pay off
the promised things before you close that debt....


but first you have to close the DEFICIT to just what Bush was spending
just to get back to Obama being at a NET of ZERO.



--


*Rumination*
#24 - Business is the art of making painful choices and getting it right
often enough to stay in business.

[Winston Smith]

On Thu, 09 May 2013 14:50:01 -0400, BeamMeUpScotty
<ThenDestro...@blackhole.nebulax.com> wrote:

>but first you have to close the DEFICIT to just what Bush was spending
>just to get back to Obama being at a NET of ZERO.

But doesn't that take us from trillions to lots of billions? Perhaps 1
lonely trillion in his last year. What are we at now, something in the
tens of trillions?

[Bret Cahill]

> Wouldn't it be good to get the welfare and food stamps to ZERO before
> you close the debt to zero?

The best way to balance the budget is with tax hikes on the rich for
another high tax Clinton economic boom.

That's why the GOP has already gone tits up when it comes to Hillary
winning in 2016.

75% of voters support tax hikes on the rich, not Ken Starr conducting
a sex inquisition.


Bret Cahill

[Stormin Mormon]

Congress has a spending problem, not an income problem. As Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have demonstrated repeatedly, rasising taxes on the rich hurts the economy by discouraging the people who are the real producers of the economy. Whatever short term revenues that are generated, Congress just spends faster than the income.
.
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.
.
"Bret Cahill" <BretC...@peoplepc.com> wrote in message news:aa201903-6b41-4ec1...@z8g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...

[Bret Cahill]

As Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have demonstrated repeatedly,

So how are your gold investments workin' out for ya?

Also you to need to help with the list, Top 10 Theories on How Tire
Biters Can Be Smarter Than Warren Buffet Yet Manage To Stay Off of
Forbe's List:

10.

9.

8.

7.

6.

[Peter Franks]

On 5/10/2013 8:41 PM, Bret Cahill wrote:
> 75% of voters support tax hikes on the rich

Sure they do, because it means that they don't get their taxes raised.

Ask those same people if they support tax hikes for themselves. Uh,
bluh, blub.

Do you support across-the-board tax hikes? After all, we ALL need to
pay our fair share. And I know for a fact that those 75% are NOT paying
their fair share.

[Bert]

In news:kmm9us$rsc$1...@dont-email.me Peter Franks <no...@none.com> wrote:

> On 5/10/2013 8:41 PM, Bret Cahill wrote:
>> 75% of voters support tax hikes on the rich
>
> Sure they do, because it means that they don't get their taxes raised.

And won't they be surprised when in a few years they find that they're
now considered "rich."

--
be...@iphouse.com St. Paul, MN

[BeamMeUpScotty]

On 5/10/2013 11:41 PM, Bret Cahill wrote:
>> Wouldn't it be good to get the welfare and food stamps to ZERO before
>> you close the debt to zero?
>
> The best way to balance the budget is with tax hikes on the rich for
> another high tax Clinton economic boom.
>

This UTOPIAN tax that magically creates wealth is interesting.



How does a tax create wealth? Explain that one to me.

[Peter Franks]

Because they TOLD you it does. Now sit down and shut up!

[Bret Cahill]

> >> Wouldn't it be good to get the welfare and food stamps to ZERO before
> >> you close the debt to zero?
>
> > The best way to balance the budget is with tax hikes on the rich for
> > another high tax Clinton economic boom.
>
> This UTOPIAN tax that magically creates wealth is interesting.
>
> How does a tax create wealth?

More taxes => more freedom => more wealth

This is just basic logic -- something you can't do.

> Explain that one to me.

You need to explain how Norquist can starve the beast with Laffer's
increase in revenue.


Bret Cahill

[Stormin Mormon]

Let me know if you ever get answer?

.
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.
.

"BeamMeUpScotty" <ThenDestro...@blackhole.nebulax.com> wrote in message news:518ecba1$0$35658$862e...@ngroups.net...

[Peter Franks]

On 5/11/2013 10:00 PM, Bret Cahill wrote:
>>>> Wouldn't it be good to get the welfare and food stamps to ZERO before
>>>> you close the debt to zero?
>>
>>> The best way to balance the budget is with tax hikes on the rich for
>>> another high tax Clinton economic boom.
>>
>> This UTOPIAN tax that magically creates wealth is interesting.
>>
>> How does a tax create wealth?
>
> More taxes => more freedom => more wealth

Are you *serious*?

[Peter Franks]

On 5/12/2013 5:47 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
> Let me know if you ever get answer?

Somehow they think that more taxes leads to more freedom.

As I've said elsewhere, everything a liberal thinks is 100% wrong.

Anyone with two working brain cells knows that more taxes leads to LESS
freedom.

[BeamMeUpScotty]

What and who does a tax create a freedom for?

[Gunner Asch]

On Sun, 12 May 2013 10:49:44 -0700, Peter Franks <no...@none.com>
wrote:

Looks like the rot runs deep in the Left, doesnt it?


--
"You guess the truth hurts?

Really?

"Hurt" aint the word.

For Liberals, the truth is like salt to a slug.
Sunlight to a vampire.
Raid� to a cockroach.
Sheriff Brody to a shark
Bush to a Liberal

The truth doesn't just hurt. It's painful, like a red hot poker shoved
up their ass. Like sliding down a hundred foot razor blade using their
dick as a brake.

They HATE the truth."

[Bret Cahill]

You need to explain how Norquist can starve the beast with Laffer's
increase in revenue.

Until you stop dodgin' 'n dodgin' that issue 75% of voters will think
you aren't serious.

[Bret Cahill]

> > Let me know if you ever get answer?
>
> Somehow they think that more taxes leads to more freedom.

That what the framers thought after they read _Spirit of Laws_ by the
"celebrated Montesquieu."

[Peter Franks]

100% of the 75% will vote themselves more money which is exactly what
they are doing.

You need to explain how rich me paying more taxes means I have increased
freedom.

[Peter Franks]

I don't care who thought what.

Explain to me how me paying MORE taxes increases my freedom.

[Bret Cahill]

> >>> Let me know if you ever get answer?
>
> >> Somehow they think that more taxes leads to more freedom.
>
> > That what the framers thought after they read _Spirit of Laws_ by the
> > "celebrated Montesquieu."
>
> I don't care who thought what.

Not surprising as thinking isn't something you can do.

> Explain to me how me paying MORE taxes increases my freedom.

Milton Friedman explained it.

There is no free lunch on liberty.

Freedom ain't free.

Taxes are the price of freedom.


Bret Cahill

[Peter Franks]

So 100% taxes equates to 100% free.

Interesting. Explain how that works.

[BeamMeUpScotty]

Freedom from the burden of spending your own money from all your own work.


Socialism a a wonderfully freeing thing.

--


*Rumination*
#39 - Genius is finite, while stupid "is" infinite.

[Stormin Mormon]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeit_macht_frei

The slogan "Arbeit macht frei" was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. The slogan's use in this instance was ordered by SS General Theodor Eicke, inspector of concentration camps and second commandant of Dachau Concentration Camp.

(Revised for liberalism. Taxes make free.)

.
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.
.

"Peter Franks" <no...@none.com> wrote in message news:kmrkbi$780$1...@dont-email.me...

>>>> Somehow they think that more taxes leads to more freedom.
>>
>

>> Explain to me how me paying MORE taxes increases my freedom.
>
>

[Bret Cahill]

> >>>>> Let me know if you ever get answer?
>
> >>>> Somehow they think that more taxes leads to more freedom.
>
> >>> That what the framers thought after they read _Spirit of Laws_ by the
> >>> "celebrated Montesquieu."
>
> >> I don't care who thought what.
>
> > Not surprising as thinking isn't something you can do.
>
> >> Explain to me how me paying MORE taxes increases my freedom.
>
> > Milton Friedman explained it.
>
> > There is no free lunch on liberty.
>
> > Freedom ain't free.
>
> > Taxes are the price of freedom.
>
> So 100% taxes equates to 100% free.

Only if you think paying 100% of your income for food is the only way
to satisfy your appetite.

There is an optimum and it's about 80 - 90%.

The Dutch pay about 80% marginal rate and they have no Patriot Act, no
drones flying over head spying on the public.

Why?

Because they know there is no free lunch on liberty.


Bret Cahill

[BeamMeUpScotty]

And they'd be saluting Hitler if low tax America hadn't saved their ass
and kept them free of the USSR after.

> Why?
>
> Because they know there is no free lunch on liberty.
>

And we bought the Lunch with our LOW tax economy that "is" efficient.



>
> Bret Cahill
>
>

[Peter Franks]

On 5/13/2013 9:58 PM, Bret Cahill wrote:
>>>>>>> Let me know if you ever get answer?
>>
>>>>>> Somehow they think that more taxes leads to more freedom.
>>
>>>>> That what the framers thought after they read _Spirit of Laws_ by the
>>>>> "celebrated Montesquieu."
>>
>>>> I don't care who thought what.
>>
>>> Not surprising as thinking isn't something you can do.
>>
>>>> Explain to me how me paying MORE taxes increases my freedom.
>>
>>> Milton Friedman explained it.
>>
>>> There is no free lunch on liberty.
>>
>>> Freedom ain't free.
>>
>>> Taxes are the price of freedom.
>>
>> So 100% taxes equates to 100% free.
>
> Only if you think paying 100% of your income for food is the only way
> to satisfy your appetite.
>
> There is an optimum and it's about 80 - 90%.

So exactly how does paying 90% of my income make me 100% free?

> The Dutch pay about 80% marginal rate and they have no Patriot Act, no
> drones flying over head spying on the public.
>
> Why?

Because no one cares about the Dutch.

[BeamMeUpScotty]

The Swedes had a realized tax in the 1970s that was at 105% and I
believe that they have had their economy/currency collapse at least
twice since then. I had to look it up I couldn't remember and it was 102%

["...."Pomperipossa in Monismania" (also called Pomperipossa in the
World Of Money) is a satirical story written by the Swedish children's
book author Astrid Lindgren in response to the 102% marginal tax rate
that she incurred in 1976. It was published starting on 3 March 1976 in
the Stockholm evening tabloid Expressen and created a major debate about
the Swedish tax system.

The marginal tax rate above 100%, dubbed the 'Pomperipossa effect', was
due to tax legislation that required self-employed individuals to pay
both regular income tax and employer's fees...."]


*Rumination*
#14 - If more Government, solves all the problems, prison must be a
Socialists Utopia.... and a Club Med vacation for Liberals.

[Peter Franks]

On 5/14/2013 7:39 AM, BeamMeUpScotty wrote:
> On 5/14/2013 9:45 AM, Peter Franks wrote:
>> On 5/13/2013 9:58 PM, Bret Cahill wrote:
>>>>>>>>> Let me know if you ever get answer?
>>>>
>>>>>>>> Somehow they think that more taxes leads to more freedom.
>>>>
>>>>>>> That what the framers thought after they read _Spirit of Laws_ by the
>>>>>>> "celebrated Montesquieu."
>>>>
>>>>>> I don't care who thought what.
>>>>
>>>>> Not surprising as thinking isn't something you can do.
>>>>
>>>>>> Explain to me how me paying MORE taxes increases my freedom.
>>>>
>>>>> Milton Friedman explained it.
>>>>
>>>>> There is no free lunch on liberty.
>>>>
>>>>> Freedom ain't free.
>>>>
>>>>> Taxes are the price of freedom.
>>>>
>>>> So 100% taxes equates to 100% free.
>>>
>>> Only if you think paying 100% of your income for food is the only way
>>> to satisfy your appetite.
>>>
>>> There is an optimum and it's about 80 - 90%.
>>
>> So exactly how does paying 90% of my income make me 100% free?
>>
>>> The Dutch pay about 80% marginal rate and they have no Patriot Act, no
>>> drones flying over head spying on the public.
>
> The Swedes had a realized tax in the 1970s that was at 105% and I
> believe that they have had their economy/currency collapse at least
> twice since then. I had to look it up I couldn't remember and it was 102%

I guess that they had super freedom at that point.

The collapse was due to GW Bush.

[BeamMeUpScotty]

That's the way I read it. ;)


How much more freedom can you stand, it only costs you an additional 2%
to get out of bed and do something.....

>
>> ["...."Pomperipossa in Monismania" (also called Pomperipossa in the
>> World Of Money) is a satirical story written by the Swedish children's
>> book author Astrid Lindgren in response to the 102% marginal tax rate
>> that she incurred in 1976. It was published starting on 3 March 1976 in
>> the Stockholm evening tabloid Expressen and created a major debate about
>> the Swedish tax system.
>>
>> The marginal tax rate above 100%, dubbed the 'Pomperipossa effect', was
>> due to tax legislation that required self-employed individuals to pay
>> both regular income tax and employer's fees...."]
>>
>>
>> *Rumination*
>> #14 - If more Government, solves all the problems, prison must be a
>> Socialists Utopia.... and a Club Med vacation for Liberals.
>>
>

--


*Rumination*
#72 - What if your next abortion is the one fetus that would evolve into
a new human adult life that is immune to cancer? When is evolution NOT
really evolution.

[BeamMeUpScotty]

And the Stock Market goes up on the NEWS that OBAMA is a liar and
Nixonian style leader.


--


*Rumination*
"There can be no end of demands for security, if every particular
interest is to be entitled to it."

[Bret Cahill]

If you aren't interested in studying other nations then you aren't
interested in freedom.

Great political scientists like the framers and their mentor Baron
Montesquieu always study other nations.

Even GOP shill tanks occasionally pretend to be interested in other
nations if they think no one will point out their lies.


Bret Cahill


`

[BeamMeUpScotty]

WE don't need to be like the Dutch, you can get on a plane and be there
in less than 24hours.


Diversity is good....

[Peter Franks]

Yes, I study other nations, and so do you which is why, I presume, you
brought the Dutch into it. Apparently you didn't study my response,
however.

No one attacked the Dutch on 9/11. In fact, I don't know of anyone that
has attacked the Dutch in the past 50 years. They have absolutely no
need for a Patriot Act or drones. In short, no one cares about the
Dutch. So a legitimate question is: what in the hell are they spending
all of their tax money on? Clogs? A dumpy little colony that has no
appreciable military force, or need of such, and they have an 80%
marginal tax rate?

Seriously, what in the hell are they spending their tax $$ on?!

[Nickname unavailable]

yep, otherwise somalia would be the envy of the world.

[Nickname unavailable]

"Taxes are what we pay for civilized society." Justice Oliver Wendell
Holmes Jr.

"The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They
find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little
revenue is spent in getting it. . . . It is not very unreasonable that
the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in
proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that
proportion." Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations


"If the money is raised by taxation, then the burden will fall where
it ought to fall, . . . and the rich and stingy will no longer be able
to evade the duties of citizenship and of humanity." Robert Ingersoll

"I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in . . . a
graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, . . . increasing rapidly in
amount with the size of the estate." Theodore Roosevelt


adam smith socialist:The rate of profit is naturally low in rich and
high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries
which are going fastest to ruin:No society can surely be flourishing
and happy when part of the members are poor and miserable


http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Quotes-economics.htm



"All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age
of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind."
-- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

"No society can surely be flourishing and happy when part of the
members are poor and miserable."
-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations

"Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad
effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the
sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing
concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with
regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain
only of those of other people."
-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and
diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the
public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."
-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations

"As soon as the land of any country has all become private property,
the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never
sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce."
-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations

"The liberal reward of labor, therefore, as it is the necessary
effect, so it is the natural symptom of increasing national wealth.
The scanty maintenance of the laboring poor, on the other hand, is the
natural symptom that things are at a stand, and their starving
condition that they going backwards fast."
-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations

"The rate of profit... is naturally low in rich and high in poor
countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going
fastest to ruin."
-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations

"The subjects of every state ought to contribute toward the support of
the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their
respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they
respectively enjoy under the protection of the state ....[As Henry
Home (Lord Kames) has written, a goal of taxation should be to]
'remedy inequality of riches as much as possible, by relieving the
poor and burdening the rich.'"
-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations

"Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate differences between
masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters.
When the regulation, therefore, is in favor of the workmen, it is
always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favor
of the masters."
-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations

"The interest of dealers, however,... is a always in some respects
different from, and even opposite to, that of the public... The
proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes frm this
order ought... never to be adopted till after having been long and
carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the
most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose
interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have
generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and
who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed
it."
-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations

"In a society of an hundred thousand families, there will perhaps be
one hundred who don't labour at all, and who yet, either by violence,
or by the more orderly oppression of law, employ a greater part of the
labour of society than any other ten thousand in it. The division of
what remains, too, after this enormous defalcation, is by no means
made in proportion to the labour of each individual. On the contrary
those who labour most get least. The opulent merchant, who spends a
great part of his time in luxury and entertainments, enjoys a much
greater proportion of the profits of his traffic, than all the Clerks
and Accountants who do the business. These last, again, enjoying a
great deal of leisure, and suffering scarce any other hardship besides
the confinement of attendance, enjoy a much greater share of the
produce, than three times an equal number of artizans, who, under
their direction, labour much more severely and assiduously. The
artizan again, tho' he works generally under cover, protected from the
injuries of the weather, at his ease and assisted by the convenience
of innumerable machines, enjoys a much greater share than the poor
labourer who has the soil and the seasons to struggle with, and, who
while he affords the materials for supplying the luxury of all the
other members of the common wealth, and bears, as it were, upon his
shoulders the whole fabric of human society, seems himself to be
buried out of sight in the lowest foundations of the building."
-- Adam Smith, first draft of Wealth Of Nations

[And here is what Adam Smith thought about labor unions:]

"We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations [that is,
unions or colluding organizations] of masters, though frequently of
those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that
masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject.
Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and
uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labor above their
actual price."
-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations

"....Adam Smith—one of the founders of modern economics—recognized
clearly that a poor distribution of wealth could undermine the free
market system, noting that: “The disposition to admire, and almost to
worship, the rich and the powerful and…neglect persons of poor and
mean condition…is the great and most universal cause of the corruption
of our moral sentiments.”

[Nickname unavailable]

On May 12, 2:12 pm, Gunner Asch <gunnera...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 12 May 2013 10:49:44 -0700, Peter Franks <n...@none.com>

the Constitution created a robust central authority:stating in the
preamble the explicit responsibility of the government to promote the
general Welfare:The document also granted the federal government broad
domestic powers including authority to regulate interstate commerce,
the so-called Commerce Clause




http://truth-out.org/news/item/8080-did-the-founders-hate-government?

Did the Founders Hate Government?
Saturday, 24 March 2012 13:14 By Robert Parry, Consortium News | News
Analysis


Orwell’s insight - that who controls the present controls the past,
and who controls the past controls the future - could apply to the
American political debate in which the Right has built a false
narrative that enlists the Framers of the Constitution as enemies of a
strong central government, writes Robert Parry.
In the coming months – with a new fight over the federal budget, the
Supreme Court’s review of health-care reform and the November
elections – the battle in the United States will pit not just
political parties and economic ideologies against one another – but
competing national narratives of how and why the United States was
founded.
Indeed, it is that conflict over the American narrative that may well
determine the outcome of the presidential election and the future
direction of the United States. Yet, this dispute over the Founders’
vision is rarely debated in the mainstream news media.
The argument does, however, inspire right-wing groups which obsess
over “strict construction” of the Constitution and the “originalist”
intent of the Founders. Such references also have become standard fare
on the Republican campaign trail with the four remaining major
candidates claiming to be in this fight to defend American “liberty.”
On Saturday, for instance, ex-Sen. Rick Santorum declared that
President Barack Obama’s health-care reform is “a threat to the very
essence of who America is.” As the New York Times noted, “numbers like
1776 and 1860 increasingly pepper his speeches as he stresses the
historical urgency of his candidacy.”
The Right’s historical narrative holds that the Founders designed the
United States to have a weak central government barred from
confronting most domestic problems (though with broad powers for
defense). Under this “free-market” system, wealthy business interests
had the “liberty” to set their own rules and the average citizen had
the “freedom” to make his way the best he could.
There is, of course, a counter-narrative, but Democrats and
progressives rarely make it, preferring to cede the history to the
Right and to argue that the Founders couldn’t possibly have
anticipated the complex problems of the modern age.
Still, the counter-narrative to the GOP mythology is grounded in solid
history. Indeed, the evidence is that most constitutional framers were
pragmatic men interested in building a strong nation. They also were
fed up with the weak central government under the Articles of
Confederation. They surely weren’t anti-government ideologues.
In the Constitution, they created a robust central authority, stating
in the preamble the explicit responsibility of the government “to
promote the general Welfare.” The document also granted the federal
government broad domestic powers, including authority to regulate
interstate commerce, the so-called Commerce Clause.
Framing the Commerce Clause
Plus, the Commerce Clause was not some afterthought at the
Constitutional Convention in 1787. It was presented as one of the new
federal powers in James Madison’s Virginia plan on the first day of
substantive debate. It also was considered one of the least
controversial features of the new governing framework.
Indeed, constitutional architect Madison had been maneuvering to give
this power to the federal government for years, seeking such a change
in the Articles of Confederation, which governed the United States
from 1777 to 1787.
Madison “sponsored a resolution instructing Virginia congressmen to
vote to give the federal government the authority to regulate commerce
for twenty-five years,” noted Chris DeRose in Founding Rivals, a
resolution that won the support of Gen. George Washington, one of the
fiercest critics of the weak central government in the Articles of
Confederation.
Because the Articles’ structure of 13 “independent” and “sovereign”
states had left Washington’s soldiers starving and desperate – when
the states reneged on promised funding – Washington advocated a much
stronger central government.
Regarding Madison’s commerce idea, Washington wrote that “the
proposition in my opinion is so self evident that I confess I am at a
loss to discover wherein lies the weight of the objection to the
measure. We are either a united people, or we are not. If the former,
let us, in all matters of a general concern act as a nation, which
have national objects to promote, and a national character to support.
If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending it to be.”
When the Virginia legislature slashed Madison’s proposal for federal
control of commerce from 25 years to 13 years, he voted against it as
insufficient. His thoughts then turned to a more drastic scheme for
consolidating power in the hands of the federal government, a
constitutional convention, albeit under the guise of simply proposing
some changes to the Articles.
A Dramatic Change
In spring 1787 – with a convention called in Philadelphia to amend the
Articles of Confederation – Madison unveiled his radical alternative,
not simply some modifications to the Articles but an entirely new
system that wiped away the Articles’ language about the “independence”
and “sovereignty” of the states.
On May 29, 1787, the first day of substantive debate at the
Constitutional Convention, a fellow Virginian, Edmund Randolph,
presented Madison’s framework. Madison’s Commerce Clause was there
from the start, except that instead of a 25-year grant of federal
authority, the central government’s control of interstate commerce
would be made permanent.
Madison’s convention notes on Randolph’s presentation recount him
saying that “there were many advantages, which the U. S. might
acquire, which were not attainable under the confederation – such as a
productive impost [or tax] – counteraction of the commercial
regulations of other nations – pushing of commerce ad libitum – &c
&c.”
In other words, the Founders – at their most “originalist” moment –
understood the value of the federal government taking action to negate
the commercial advantages of other countries and to take steps for
“pushing of [American] commerce.” The “ad libitum – &c &c” notation
suggests that Randolph provided other examples off the top of his
head.
Historian Bill Chapman has summarized Randolph’s point as saying “we
needed a government that could co-ordinate commerce in order to
compete effectively with other nations.”
So, from the very start of the debate on a new Constitution, Madison
and other key framers recognized that a legitimate role of the U.S.
Congress was to ensure that the nation could match up against other
countries economically and could address problems impeding the
nation’s economic success and the public welfare.
The constitutional framers understood what they were doing. As
historian Richard Labunski wrote in James Madison and the Struggle for
the Bill of Rights, “no one knew better than the delegates that the
proposed Constitution would drastically alter the structure of
government. Much of the power of the states would be taken from them.”
The point also was not missed by the advocates of states’ rights.
After the Constitutional Convention, these Anti-Federalists, led by
Madison’s chief rival Patrick Henry, mounted a fierce campaign to
defeat Madison’s scheme because they recognized that it concentrated
power in the central government.
For instance, dissidents from Pennsylvania’s convention delegation
wrote: “We dissent … because the powers vested in Congress by this
constitution, must necessarily annihilate and absorb the legislative,
executive, and judicial powers of the several states, and produce from
their ruins one consolidated government.” [See David Wootton, The
Essential Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers.]
As resistance to Madison’s plan spread – and as states elected
delegates to ratifying conventions – Madison feared that his
constitutional masterwork would go down to defeat or be subjected to a
second convention that might remove important federal powers like the
Commerce Clause.
Finessing the Opposition
So, Madison – along with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay – began a
series of essays, called the Federalist Papers, designed to counter
the fierce (though generally accurate) attacks by the Anti-Federalists
against the broad assertion of federal power in the Constitution.
Madison’s strategy was essentially to insist that the drastic changes
contained in the Constitution were not all that drastic, an approach
he took both as a delegate to the Virginia ratifying convention and in
the Federalist Papers.
Today’s Right has sought to transform Madison from his role as the
chief advocate for a strong central government into the opposite – a
modern-day Tea Partier before his time – by citing Federalist Paper
No. 45, entitled “The Alleged Danger From the Powers of the Union to
the State Governments Considered,” in which Madison used the pseudonym
Publius.
Trying to finesse the opposition to his plan for enhanced federal
powers, Madison wrote: “If the new Constitution be examined with
accuracy, it will be found that the change which it proposes consists
much less in the addition of NEW POWERS to the Union, than in the
invigoration of its ORIGINAL POWERS.”
But even that was an admission from Madison that the Constitution
added teeth to what had been toothless authorities theoretically
granted to the central government under the Articles. Making powers
meaningful, rather than ineffectual, is not an insignificant change.
Madison also noted: “The regulation of commerce, it is true, is a new
power; but that seems to be an addition which few oppose, and from
which no apprehensions are entertained.”
Yet, to claim Madison as an opponent of an activist federal
government, the Right must ignore both his advocacy for beefing up
what had been weak authorities and adding the crucial new one over
commerce. The Right also must ignore Federalist Paper No. 14 in which
Madison envisioned major construction projects under the powers
granted by the Commerce Clause.
“[T]he union will be daily facilitated by new improvements,” Madison
wrote. “Roads will everywhere be shortened, and kept in better order;
accommodations for travelers will be multiplied and meliorated; an
interior navigation on our eastern side will be opened throughout, or
nearly throughout the whole extent of the Thirteen States.
“The communication between the western and Atlantic districts, and
between different parts of each, will be rendered more and more easy
by those numerous canals with which the beneficence of nature has
intersected our country, and which art finds it so little difficult to
connect and complete.”
The building of canals, as an argument in support of the Commerce
Clause and the Constitution, further reflects the pragmatic – and
commercial – attitudes of key founders. In 1785, two years before the
Constitutional Convention, George Washington founded the Potowmack
Company, which began the work of digging canals to extend navigable
waterways westward where he and other Founders had invested in Ohio
and other undeveloped lands.
Thus, the idea of involving the central government in major economic
projects – a government-business partnership to create jobs and
profits – was there from the beginning. Madison, Washington and other
early American leaders saw the Constitution as creating a dynamic
system so the young country could grow and overcome the daunting
challenges of its vast territory.
The Founders did debate the proper limits of federal and state powers,
but again Madison and Washington came down on the side of making
federal statutes and treaties the supreme law of the land. (Madison
had even favored giving Congress veto power over each state law, but
settled for granting the federal courts the authority to overturn
state laws that violated federal statutes.)
After Ratification
The narrow ratification of the Constitution in 1788 did not end the
confrontations over states’ rights, especially when the South began to
fear that its agriculture-based economy and its lucrative industry of
slavery might be threatened as the industrialized North expanded and
the anti-slavery movement grew.
In the early 1830s, President Andrew Jackson faced down South Carolina
over its claimed right to “nullify” federal law. And three decades
later, President Abraham Lincoln fought the Civil War to settle the
issue of states having the right to secede from the Union.
Still, as late as the 1950s and 1960s, Southern white supremacists
were still citing the principle of states’ right in defending
segregation. Though the segregationists lost those fights in federal
courts and in the battle for public opinion, they never surrendered.
They simply regrouped.
In the mid-1970s, as the Vietnam War ended, the American Left began
shutting down or selling off much its media, which had proved
effective in reaching out to the public to build opposition to the
war. At the same time, the Right began investing heavily in its own
media infrastructure.
Wealthy right-wing foundations and industrialists, like the Koch
Brothers, also poured money into think tanks, which hired clever
individuals who began reframing the national narrative. Part of that
effort was to support “scholarship” that transformed Madison and other
key framers from advocates of a strong central government into
proponents for states’ rights.
A few of Madison’s quotes – from 1788 as he tried to downplay how
radical his new constitutional system actually was – were plucked out
of context, while other parts of his biography as an advocate for a
strong central government were simply erased.
By Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in 1981, Americans were being told
that “government is the problem” and that the nation had deviated from
the Founders’ original vision of an Ayn Rand-style “free-market”
society in which everyone was on their own and the government only
worried about fighting wars.
Increasingly, the Right pitched itself as the defender of the nation’s
founding ideals. Any time the central government sought to address
vexing national problems – from the need to regulate Wall Street to
extending health coverage to the tens of millions of uninsured
Americans – these proposals were labeled “unconstitutional.”
Some right-wing jurists, most notably Supreme Court Justice Antonin
Scalia, advocated “originalism,” insisting that constitutional powers
should apply only to what the Founders had in mind at the time. The
Right ignored the clear record that the Founders intended their
governing structure to meet both their immediate needs and the distant
interests of their “posterity.”
Indeed, if there was any true “originalism,” it was that the
Constitution should be sufficiently dynamic to cope with any number of
anticipated and unanticipated challenges that might confront the
nation. As the discussion about canal building shows, Madison,
Washington and other key framers were pragmatists.
One-Sided Debate
Yet, while the Right was bending the founding narrative to its
purposes, the Left largely dismissed the importance of this debate,
perhaps in part because the Left tends to disdain many Founders as
slave-owning aristocrats who hypocritically denied their precious
“unalienable rights” to women, blacks, Indians, the poor and many
others.
While that surely was true, the nation’s founding narrative retains a
strong mythic appeal to many Americans – and the Right’s twisting of
the history has proved a powerful tactic to rally many middle- and
working-class Americans, particularly white men, to the Tea Party
cause and to the Republican Party.
Believing they’re channeling the true spirit of the Founders, many of
these average Americans end up siding with ultra-rich plutocrats who
see an effective and democratized federal government as the last
obstacle to their total domination of the United States.
Thus, the Tea Partiers and their allies fight: to let Wall Street
banks operate as recklessly as they wish; to let health insurance
companies deny coverage to sick people; to let rich investors pay
lower tax rates than their secretaries; to let billionaires buy up the
political process through Super-PACs; to let companies outsource jobs;
to let industry despoil the environment; and to slash life-saving
federal programs like Medicare, food stamps and Social Security.
The “logic” behind this “populist” support for the interests of the
rich is that many average folk think they are engaged in a principled
stand for “liberty” – with the federal government their oppressor,
standing in for the British Crown in 1776. That’s why the Tea Partiers
wave “Don’t Tread on Me” flags and dress up in Revolutionary War
costumes.
Simply put, these Tea Partiers have been fooled by a well-funded
propaganda campaign tricking them by substituting a false narrative
about the nation’s founding and thus enlisting their help in
dismantling the Great American Middle Class.
Building the Middle Class
Many of these Americans have forgotten a basic truth: that the Great
American Middle Class was largely a creation of the federal government
and its policies dating back to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. For
many Tea Partiers, it is more satisfying to think that they or their
parents climbed the social ladder on their own, that they “didn’t need
no guv-mint help.”
But the truth is that it was government policies arising out of the
Great Depression and carried forward through the post-World War II
years by both Republican and Democratic presidents that created the
opportunities for tens of millions of Americans to achieve relative
comfort and economic security.
Those policies ranged from Social Security and labor rights in the
1930s to the GI Bill after World War II to Medicare in the 1960s and
to government investments in infrastructure and technological research
over many decades. Even in recent years, despite right-wing efforts to
choke off money to government research, federal programs – such as the
Internet – have brought greater efficiency to markets, as well as
wealth to many entrepreneurs.
So, the Right’s success in dismantling the New Deal, piece by piece,
and shoving more and more Americans down the social ladder has hinged
on the demonization of “guv-mint.” This message – often wrapped in
patriotic hoopla and coded appeals to bigotry – were delivered most
effectively by the personable Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.
Yet, while rallying many working-class “Reagan Democrats” to his
banner, Reagan’s most important policy was slashing taxes on the rich.
Under Reagan’s “supply-side economics,” the top marginal tax rate –
what the richest Americans pay on their highest tranche of income –
was more than halved, from 70 percent to 28 percent.
Still, the promised surge in “supply-side” growth never really
materialized and a key result was the dramatic rise in the national
debt. Another less obvious change was the incentivizing of greed,
which had been discouraged by the much higher marginal tax rates of
the post-World War II years, from Dwight Eisenhower (when the top
marginal tax rate was 90 percent) through Jimmy Carter (with a 70
percent top rate).
After all, if 70 to 90 percent of your highest tranche of income went
to the government to help pay for building the nation, you had little
personal incentive to press for that extra $1 million or $2 million in
compensation.
So corporate CEOs – while well-paid – were happy earning about 25
times as much as their average worker in the 1960s. A few decades
later, that ratio on CEO pay was about 200 times what the average
worker was making.
The consequences of several decades of Reaganism and its related ideas
(such as the “free-market” shipping of many middle-class jobs overseas
where workers are paid much less) are now apparent. Wealth has been
concentrated at the top with billionaires living extravagant lives
while the middle class struggles. One everyman after another gets
shoved down the ladder.
The data is now clear that the last three decades have witnessed a
divergence between the haves and the have-nots unprecedented in the
United States, at least since the lead-up to the Great Depression when
a similar era of income inequality set the stage for financial
disaster.
For instance, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office – in an
analysis of data from 1979 to 2005 – found that the inflation-adjusted
income of middle-class Americans rose about 21 percent (only about one-
fifth the increase enjoyed by the middle class during the post-World
War II era).
Meanwhile, the income for the ultra-rich (the top 100th of one
percent) jumped 480 percent from 1979 to 2005, rising from an average
of $4.2 million to $24.3 million. And CBO’s analysis ends in 2005,
thus missing the decimation of the middle class from the Wall Street
bust of 2008.
Struggling Americans
Behind the numbers, the real-life consequences are painful. Millions
of Americans forego needed medical care because they can’t afford
health insurance; young people, burdened by college loans, crowd back
in with their parents; trained workers settle for low-paying jobs or
are unemployed; families skip vacations and other simple pleasures of
life.
Beyond the unfairness, there is the macro-economic problem which comes
from massive income disparity. A strong economy is one in which the
vast majority people can buy products, which can then be manufactured
more cheaply, creating a positive cycle of profits and prosperity.
Plus, the problems facing the nation grow even more severe with
looming shortages of vital resources and the impending catastrophe of
global warming. Only an energetic federal government can focus the
national will to tackle these challenges.
The pragmatic Founders would understand this need for unified action.
Yet, Republicans running for President and GOP members of Congress
continue to call for further cuts in taxes for the rich and more cuts
in government spending, rending the social safety net and slashing
investments in infrastructure, education, research and the
environment.
House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan unveiled a plan Tuesday to reduce the
highest marginal tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent – even lower
than it was under Reagan – while domestic spending would be slashed
and Medicare would be turned into a voucher system with the elderly
paying a much higher share of their health costs.
As in the past, this approach is accompanied by assurances of faster
economic growth, but the record for those promises should now be
clear. The GOP plans are also wrapped in rhetoric about “liberty” and
the “spirit of the Founders” – though in truth that spirit was infused
with a pragmatic notion of the country pulling together to meet its
challenges
So, what’s at stake in 2012 is not just who wins and how that will
affect the immediate welfare of the American people – but whether a
false narrative about America’s past will lead it into a darkening
future.

[Nickname unavailable]

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the
growth of 
private power to a point where it becomes stronger than
their democratic 
state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism--
ownership of government by an 
individual, by a group, or by any
controlling private power."
-Franklin D. Roosevelt


" For too many of us the political equality we once had won was
meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had
concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over
other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor —
other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free;
liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of
happiness.
Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could
appeal only to the organized power of government. The collapse of 1929
showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the
people's mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.
President Franklin Roosevelt "

[Nickname unavailable]

[Nickname unavailable]

"THE CONSERVATIVES" world view is flawed because its based upon a
small and particularly rosy sliver of reality.  To preserve that world
view, "THE CONSERVATIVES" believe that people had morally earned their
“just” desserts, and had to ignore those whining liberals who tried to
point out that the world didn’t actually work that way.  I think this
shows why "THE CONSERVATIVES" put so much effort into “creat[ing]
their own reality,” into fostering distrust of liberals, experts,
scientists, and academics, and why they won’t let a campaign “be
dictated by fact-checkers” (as a Romney pollster put it).  It explains
why study after study shows that avid consumers of "THE CONSERVATIVE"-
oriented media are more poorly informed than people who use other news
sources or don’t bother to follow the news at all.

[Nickname unavailable]

On May 13, 6:22 pm, "Stormin Mormon" <cayoung61**NOJUN...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeit_macht_frei
>
> The slogan "Arbeit macht frei" was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. The slogan's use in this instance was ordered by SS General Theodor Eicke, inspector of concentration camps and second commandant of Dachau Concentration Camp.
>
> (Revised for liberalism. Taxes make free.)
> .
> Christopher A. Young
> Learn more about Jesus
>    www.lds.org
> .
> .

the nazi's were "CONSERVATIVES", who vastly lowed taxes on the
wealthy.

http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/chpt1.htm

What Fascism Is & Isn't


No other word causes so much misunderstanding, confusion, and heated
debate in politics than fascism. The term has been applied to many
individuals such as McCarthy, Hoover, and others. It is frequently
used to describe government policies and government themselves, often
incorrectly. What then is fascism exactly? Webster's Dictionary
defines it as: "A government system marked by a centralized
dictatorship, stringent socioeconomic controls and belligerent
nationalism." But the author takes exception with that definition. At
best, the definition is vague and abstract. Nor does the definition
seem capable of taking into all forms of fascism.
There is a resurgent, widespread attempt by the far right to label
fascism as a form of socialism. Fredrick von Hayek was the first to
attempt labeling the Nazis as socialists in his book The Road to
Serfdom published in 1944.70 The hard right quickly adopted it, as it
allowed the hard right to escape the charges that they had much in
common with the Nazis.2 Such endeavors are not only silly, but
dishonest as well and represent an attempt by the far right to
distance themselves for their earlier support of Hitler.
Hayek's book is based on two erroneous assumptions from the very
beginning. He first assumes that fascism and communism are one and the
same, as they are both totalitarian systems. This makes about as much
sense as calling a maple tree a pine tree because both are trees. His
second erroneous assumption lays in his belief that only socialism or
liberalism leads to totalitarian systems. In fact, all political
systems can lead to totalitarian systems and all political systems are
inherently unstable, as is any system created by man.
From there, Hayek takes severe liberties with history. For instance,
he goes on to claim that by deliberate policy the United States by
allowed the growth of cartels and syndicates after 1878.71 Indeed this
date and time period is significant, but not for a move towards
socialism or liberalism. Rather, it's the opposite a move towards
fascism and corporate rule. Even a reader with a rudimentary knowledge
of American history would recognize this time frame as the beginning
of the robber baron era and laissez faire economics, precisely the
type of economic policy Hayek holds in utmost esteem.
 Hayek offers little proof to support his conclusions; in fact the
book is devoid of any proof or even examples to support his findings.
The book degenerates into an argument based upon unsubstantiated
assertion. He argues against the nation state and proposes a
supernational authority or world federation made up of the financial
elite. In essence, Hayek proposes a world made up of sovereign
corporations accountable to no one. Not only did Hayek take severe
liberties with American history, he ignored the very nature of fascism
in Germany and Italy.
In various speeches made shortly after the March on Rome, Mussolini
stated, "We must take from state authority those functions for which
it is incompetent and which it performs badly... I believe the state
should renounce its economic functions, especially those carried out
through monopolies, because the state is incompetent in such
matters... We must put an end to state railways, state postal service
and state insurance." The state returned large monopolies to the
private sector after returning them to profitability such as the
Consortium of Match Manufactures, privatized the insurance system in
1923, the telephone system in 1925, and many of the public works.
In Germany the Nazis announced they would end nationalization of
private industries when they seized power. In 1932, Hitler returned
control of the Gelsenkirhen company to private hands and in 1936
returned the stock of "United Steel" to private hands. Throughout
1933-1936, the Nazi returned to private hands the control of several
banks: Dresdner, Danat, Commerz and Privatbank, the Deutsche Bank, and
several others. In 1936, the steamship company Deutcher Schiff and
Maschinenbau was returned to the private sector. In 1934, Dr. Schacht,
the Nazi Minister of Economy, gave instructions to hasten the
privatization of municipal enterprises. These enterprises were
especially coveted by the rich industrialists, as they had been
prosperous even during the depression.
Both in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, the tax system was changed to
one favoring business and the wealthy. The Nazis allowed industries to
deduct from their taxable income all sums used to purchase new
equipment. Rich families employing a maid were allowed to count the
maid as a dependent child and reap the tax benefit. In Italy, the
Minister of Finance stated: "We have broken with the practice of
persecuting capital."73
 Such programs, catering to big business and the rich elite, are more
akin to the policies of the Reagan Administration than it is to any
liberal administration including FDR's. Likewise, it was the rich
industrialists that were behind the fascist movement in the United
States during the 1930s. Thus it is no surprise that the right wing
attempts to try and label fascism as socialism in trying to distance
themselves from their previous support of fascism.
Perhaps the only redeeming feature in Hayek's book is his
acknowledgement of environmental problems.72 Indeed this is
significant, considering the book was first published in the 1940s,
long before the birth of the environmental movement. Hayek readily
acknowledges the problem of industrial pollution and the harmful
effects of deforestation, yet he stops short of any meaningful
solution. Instead of offering a viable solution Hayek condemns
government regulation and would allow market forces to provide the
solution. However, it was these same market forces that produced the
problem. We have plenty of proof of such a fool hearty approach both
here and globally. As late as the 1970s rivers caught fire in the
United States, cities were smog stricken and harmful pollutants were
damaging the environment world wide. Today we face the problems of
global warming and ozone depletion, and the problem of environmental
estrogens, which has the potential of being even more threatening than
both global warming and ozone depletion.
But perhaps the most damning of all evidence that Hayek was dead wrong
comes from the implementation of an economic system based on his
beliefs. Hayek later taught at the University of Chicago, the same
university that trained the "Boys from Chicago" who were the economic
brains behind the fascist regime of Pinochet in Chile. There is no
question in the matter that under Pinochet, Chile was indeed fascist.
More alarming, Hayek is an idol to several top-level officials in the
George W. Bush administration. They are dangerous close to imposing a
fascist style economy on the United States.
In order to dispel the myth of the Nazis being socialists we need to
first define socialism. Socialism is rigidly defined as an economic
system in which the workers own the means of production and
distribution of goods. A more relaxed definition would be simply that
the workers maintain political control over the production and
distribution of goods. Even using the more relaxed definition of
socialism, the Nazis can not be labeled as socialists as there simply
was no worker control over the production or distribution of goods in
Nazi Germany. In fact, the Nazis outlawed legitimate labor unions. In
place of the original unions, the Nazis implemented quasi-like unions
that were controlled by the industrialists. In a déjà vu manner, the
Republican Party has recently tried to enact a similar measure,
conferring legal status on worker groups controlled by corporations.
Some writers and historians have argued that you cannot have fascism
without corporatism, as the corporate power structure has much in
common with fascism. During the period preceding the outbreak of WWII
it was common to refer to fascism as corporatism in polite English
society.
More recently others have tried to define fascism as the "Third Way",
in the sense that it borrowed ideas from both capitalism and
socialism. The basic philosophy behind the "Third Way" incorrectly
labels any regulations or government controls over businesses as
socialism; essentially it's just a restatement of syndicalism. Such
nonsense should be rejected whole heartily. It again represents an
attempt to distance the right from their support of Hitler in the
1930s and ignores that the basis of the German economy under Hitler
was a capitalist system where the means of production remained in
private hands. Further, following the logic of the "Third Way," one
would have to label all capitalistic systems as "Third Way," for
throughout history there has never been a pure capitalistic system. A
pure capitalist economy is so inherently and fatally flawed that it's
never even been tried. But that is to be expected for any system that
awards the winner with all the eggs. Nor has there been a pure
socialistic system. Human greed simply prevents it.
The dangers of such nonsense can be illustrated with the following
quote taken from a Baptists fundamentalist's web page in their
labeling of the Japanese economy as fascist: However, Fascism is an
economic term, denoting the type of economy where the Means of
Production [factories, companies] and the ownership of raw materials
[mines, oil wells] remains in the hands of private individuals, but
where the government intervenes to determine how many competitors will
be allowed to produce the same thing, how much is produced, and what
prices may be charged.1
Here it can be seen that the term fascism has been clearly misapplied.
This description could past for the economic theory of the fascist
philosopher George Sorel. This is a description of syndicalism; it was
the economic model of fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to a large
extent. Syndicalism does draw some aspects from socialism, but the
system is still a capitalistic system as ownership of the means of
production and distribution of goods remain in private hands. It is no
more socialism than the conclusion of the Robber Barons and the
corrupt politicians of Tammy Hall. The only difference between this
example of syndicalism is that the government participation is open
versus the backroom corruption of politicians in Tammy Hall.
Not only Japan invoke syndicalism, but almost all the Pacific Rim
nations do, to some extent. These are the same nations that the hard
right has held up in the past as darlings of capitalism and free
enterprise. Yet these are precisely the same economic policies of the
Nazis that they have tried to foist off as socialism. The key
distinction here is the means of production still remains in private
hands, just as it did in Nazi Germany. No capitalistic society has
ever existed without some form of syndicalism or government control
over the economy. The closest America came to an entirely capitalistic
system was either the 1890s and the Robber Barons or the laissez faire
policies of Herbert Hoover, and as we all know, that didn't end too
well in the Great Depression of the 1930s.
No where does the quote above refer to totalitarian control or extreme
nationalism. In fact, they have tried to define fascism in strictly
economic terms for their own purposes. But it does serve to point out
the dangers of inventing the "Third Way" or the use of syndicalism in
an attempt to label the Nazis. The problem here is determining where
syndicalism ends and capitalism begins. Is the trading of pollution
credits a form of syndicalism or is it free enterprise? In America
today, the hard right would attempt to label it as socialism, as they
try to do with any laws or regulations of business. In fact, the past
laws regulating corporations were much more severe and restrictive in
the 1800s than today. One could argue that it was through syndicalism
that the power elite and corporations gradually eroded those laws
until corporations now enjoy more freedoms than what an individual
enjoys. This is precisely what has happened in America.
But environmental and labor laws are not socialism. They are in fact
nothing more than an attempt to bring an out of control system hell
bent on exploitation of the environment and labor back to order. No
labor law or environment law was ever passed in a vacuum. All of these
laws were brought about by a need to correct an unhealthy or unsafe
situation. While there are some corporations that strive to provide a
clean and safe workplace, there are many whose only concern is the
bottom line and they turn a blind eye towards safety and view their
employees as expendable commodities.
Regulation of businesses or corporations by itself is not socialism. A
business entity such as a corporation has no rights other than what
privileges a society wishes to grant it. People have rights; a paper
creation of a society such as a corporation has no inherent rights.
Business entities such as corporations only have conditional
privileges based upon providing for the common good of the society,
which granted the charter. All such paper creations have an obligation
to serve the society, which created it. Failing to perform that
obligation, it loses any right for its continuing existence. It the
obligation of that society to restrict the rights of such entities to
promote equality for all and to prevent a ruling aristocracy from
developing. This view is hardly socialism or even radical, unless one
wishes to label Thomas Jefferson as a radical socialist as he more
eloquently stated it:
"I hope we shall take warning from the example of England and crush in
its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare
already to challenge our Government to trial, and bid defiance to the
laws of our country."3
Perhaps one of the better definitions of fascism comes from Heywood
Broun, a noted American columnist in the 1930s:
"Fascism, is a dictatorship from the extreme right or to put it a
little more closely into our local idiom, a government which is run by
a small group of large industrialists and financial lords...I think it
is not unfair to say that any businessman in America, or public
leader, who goes out to break unions is laying the foundations for
fascism"75

A definitive definition of fascism is a totalitarian government with
extreme nationalist tendencies in which the government is controlled
and operated for the benefit of a few elite. However, it should be
noted that an all-encompassing definition of a complex system can not
be simply stated. Such simple definitions undoubtedly fail in time. A
caveat to the above definition would be anytime the government places
the rights of corporations or the elite above the rights of the
citizens, it represents a step towards fascism. A better insight into
what fascism is can be obtained by listing the traits that are common
to the classical fascist states of Franco's Spain, Nazi Germany and
fascist Italy. A list of traits of fascism is presented below. Note
that the first two are the two most defining traits, obviously many of
the others can be applied to many other social-political systems as
one moves down the list.
1. Totalitarian
2. Extreme nationalism
3. Top down revolution or movement
4. Destructive divisionism such as racism and class warfare
5. Extreme anti-communism, anti socialism, and anti-liberal views
6. Extreme exploitation
7. Opportunistic ideology lacking in consistency as a means to grab
power
8. Unbridled Corporatism
9. Reactionary
10. The use of violence and terror to attain and maintain power
11. Cult-like figurehead
12. The expounding of mysticism or religious beliefs

Not all fascists need exhibit all of the traits once again it should
be emphasized that all fascist states will exhibit a totalitarian
view. Most fascist states will have an extreme nationalism policy.
However, extreme nationalism is not mandatory. States such as Spain
under Franco and Chile under Pinochet were indeed fascist states, but
they could hardly be described as having a policy of extreme
nationalism.
A brief look at the above traits and how they relate to fascism will
convey a better understanding of what fascism really is, using Nazi
Germany as an example. First, because it was undisputedly fascist and
secondly because there is more literature available on the Nazis than
on either fascist Italy or Franco's Spain. Moreover, the use of the
Nazi's as an example is closer to the focus of this book, which is
creeping fascism in America.
Creeping fascism is the gradual lost of freedoms of the masses to the
power elite. Full-blown fascism has never appeared all at once. The
Nazis took several years to reach the final state of full-blown
fascism. It took the Nazis five years before Kristallnacht, which
marks the beginning of the "Final Solution." The Nazis gradually took
away the freedoms of the citizens of Germany until they were able to
launch the Holocaust. This was the reason for including the caveat in
the definition of fascism above, "Any action taken by the government
that places the rights of the elites and corporations above the
citizens is a step towards fascism."
Such actions will not look like fascism some may even appear to be
reasonable. Its only when the summation of many such actions ends in a
fascist state that such actions can be seen as a step towards fascism.
Make no mistake in understanding that the power elite, those that own
and run America's corporations, are fascist. They have forced war on
this country to protect their assets, they have over-exploited their
employees, they have used violence to bust unions, and they rely on
divisionist policies such as racism and class warfare to maintain
their power.
The erosion of our freedoms in the United States was prolonged by our
constitution. Nevertheless, over time the lost of freedoms has left
America at the edge of a chasm. Any further loss of freedoms and
America will begin an irreversible slide into the deep abyss of
fascism.
Before looking at the traits of fascism a brief review of the history
of fascism and its roots in modern philosophy is needed. By looking at
the roots of fascism in philosophy, we can gain an understanding why
fascism is often described as reactionary. By looking at the various
philosophers that have come to be associated with fascism, we will be
able to see that many of these traits come directly from fascism's
roots in philosophy. In that way, we can then see how some of these
traits that can be applied to other social-political system are
central to fascism.
Many writers have assumed that fascism has no intellectual or
philosophical roots due to its lack of a consistent ideology. But such
views are incorrect; the roots of fascism extend back to the French
Revolution. The French Revolution is one of those landmark events in
the history of Europe marking the beginning of a major shift in
European culture and governments. In essence, fascism was a reaction
to the French revolution. It was a reaction particularly to the slogan
of the revolution of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" that was hated
the most.
The concept of liberty from oppressive regimes in the daily lives of
the citizens, including forced religious values, and the concept of
voting and majority rule where the minority still retained a set of
inalienable rights, incensed the early philosophers of fascism. Such a
concept was a direct threat to the kings and nobles of the time, as
well as to the church. Remember this was a time for debtor's prisons,
indentured servants, and vassal states.
Equality, in the eyes of the law, was unspeakable. How could a mere
peasant have the same rights under the law as the kings, nobles, and
merchants? This was the time when the king's word was the law. Rights
were based on the social standing of one's birth. The only rights a
person had at the time were the rights that the king was willing to
extend, and they could be withdrawn at any moment.
Fraternity, in the sense that all men and women shared humanity was
considered heresy. It was a time when slaves were still considered and
treated as animals and women were considered property, and not part of
a greater humanity that needed to be shared.
All three terms meant a loss in power and control by those in power.
But, this is exactly what the philosophers that have come to be
associated with fascism were reacting to and rejecting. The period
following the French Revolution produced a virtual intellectual stew
of various philosophies, including those of Marx and Engels. A brief
look at some of the major philosophers of fascism will show how they
relate to the traits listed early, and how they were a reaction to the
French Revolution. This list of philosophers is by no means complete,
but it will suffice to show that many of the traits attributed to
fascism above have roots going back as far as the French Revolution.
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was a German philosopher perhaps best
known for his The World as Will and Representation.4 His beliefs held
that the will is the underlying and ultimate reality. The whole
phenomenal world was only the expression of will. Individuals have
free will only in the sense that everyone is an expression of a will.
Thus we are not authors of our own destiny, character, or behavior,
according to Schopenhauer. His views parallel the development of
relativistic physics that came a century later. His views were
influential on Nietzche, among others.
Georg Hegel (1770-1831), a German philosopher held pantheism as the
heart of his beliefs. The Phenomenology of Spirit and Science of Logic
are two of his better-known works. He viewed that all existence and
all history was divine and that nature was sacred. He viewed God as an
absolute spirit that also manifested itself in material things and
individuals. He believed God acted through humans and embodied himself
first in nature, then in the rising stages of human consciousness and
civilization. He also had an ethnocentric and egocentric view. He
maintained that the German nation was the highest carrier of the wave
of God's development. He believed that the bureaucratic monarchy of
Prussia was the highest form of state. These later views were
certainly manifested in the Nazi's view of the Aryan race, as shown in
the following quote.
"Thus the highest purpose of the folkish state is concern for the
preservation of those original racial elements which bestow culture
and create the beauty and dignity of a higher mankind. We, as Aryans,
can conceive of the state only as the living organism of a nationality
which not only assures the preservation of this nationality, but by
the development of its spiritual and ideal abilities leads it to the
highest freedoms."8
Fredrich Nietzche (1844-1900), also a German philosopher was best
known for his work Thus Spake Zarathustra.5 Hitler liked to be
photographed staring at a bust of Nietzche. Nietzche theorized two
sets of morals, one for the ruling class and another for the slave
class. Nietzche viewed that ancient empires grew out of the ruling
class and that religions arose out of the slave classes, (which
denigrates the rich, the powerful, rationalism, and sexuality.) He
developed a concept of an "overman," a superhuman, which symbolized
man at his most creative and highest intellectual development.
Obviously, the "overman" was manifested in the Nazi's view of the
Aryan race. He suffered a mental break down, most likely from the
advances of syphilis, and was cared for by his mother and later his
sister, Elisabeth. His sister painstakingly gathered his notes to
publish his latter works. However, she was active in the rising anti-
Semitic movement at the time and may have tainted his later work with
her views. From time to time, Nietzsche enjoys a rebirth of
popularity. Today is one such rebirth, fitting in well with the
unmitigated greed and corporatism of today's hard right. Nietzsche's
connection to the Nazis is obvious, as shown by the following
quotation.
"with satanic joy in his face, the black haired Jewish youth lurks in
wait for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood, thus
stealing her from her people. With every means he tries to destroy the
racial foundations of the people he has set out to subjugate. Just as
he himself systematically ruins women and girls, he does not shrink
back from pulling down the blood barriers for others, even on a large
scale. It was and it is Jews who bring Negroes into the Rhineland,
always with the same secret thought and clear aim of ruining the hated
white race by necessarily resulting bastardization, throwing it down
from its culture and political height, and himself rising to be
master."9
Notice the similarity in this passage and the Council of Conservative
Citizens that Senator Lott and representative Barr supported before
becoming embroiled in the resulting scandal in late 1998.10 The web
site for this white supremacist group described interracial marriage
to the mixing of chocolate milk with plain milk, and labeled it as a
path to racial extinction. They also described Lincoln as a communist.
11
Henri Bergson (1859-1941) was a French philosopher with a Jewish
father and an English mother. He was the winner of the Nobel Prize for
literature in 1927. He rejected the idea that scientific principles
could explain all existence. He was a promoter of what has become
known as Social Darwinism.6 Perhaps one of his better known works was
Time and Free Will. He was also a believer in pantheism. Once again,
we see the obvious connection with the Nazis of a master race in the
following quote concerning the Nazi's euthanasia program:
"...a secret circular went out from the Reich interior Ministry which
marked the beginning of a programme of euthanasia for mentally ill or
deformed children up to three years old. Doctors would be required to
report all such cases to the health authority on special forms; the
forms would then be forwarded to a panel of three medical assessors
who would adjucate over life or death by appending "-" or "+." Should
all three place a "+", a euthanasia warrant would be issued, signed by
the Reichsleiter Philipp Bouhler of the Fuhrer's Chancellery or
SS_Oberfuhrer Dr Viktor Brack, head of the Chancellery's Euthanasia
Department II. And so it happened: infants marked for death were
transferred to what were referred to as Children's Special Departments
in political reliable clinics, there to be given a "mercy death" by
injection or in one institution at Eglfing-Haar simply starved by a
progressive reduction of diet."7
Geroge Sorel (1847-1922) was a French philosopher who had considerable
influence on Mussolini. His writings promoted an economic model based
on syndicalism. He also believed in the degeneration of societies and
believed that social decay could only be delayed by idealists who were
willing to use violence to obtain power. His views were extremely anti-
democratic and anti-liberal.
With this very brief review of philosophy has shown that the fascist
traits of nationalism, totalitarian, racist, violence, unbridled
corporatism, reactionary, and the top down nature of fascism all are
grounded in the works of past philosophers.
A totalitarian government is one that seeks to maintain control over
all aspects of public and private life by using propaganda, terror,
and technology. Totalitarian regimes seek control over political,
social, and the culture. However, economic control is left in the
hands of a few elites in the fascist state. While the means of
economic control is left in the private hands of a few elites, this
same group controls the government. In essence the government becomes
the tool by which the rich and the corporations maintain control. The
distinction is important to note as it separates communism from
fascism. In a communist state the control over the economy moves to
the inside of government, while in the fascist state it remains in
private hands. Dictatorships differ in seeking only limited control
over the political environment of a society.
There was only limited government ownership under the Nazis. Prior to
the Nazi take over, the German governments took over failing
businesses and continued to operate them. When the Nazis took over the
government already owned a large number of enterprises. When the Nazis
took over they began to privatize many of these businesses, especially
the ones that had remained profitable during the depression like the
electric utilities.
Once Hitler assured big business that they would be free to continue
to operate, they failed to raise any further objections to the Nazis.
The large German steel and coal industries especially welcomed the
Nazis. Hitler's plans for rearmament meant large contracts for new
ships, tanks, etc. Later during the war when a labor shortage
appeared, it was Krupp from the German steel industry that first
raised the question of using slave labor from the concentration camps.
At first the Nazis were reluctant to allow the inmates to be used as
slaves as it would slow the progress of the "final solution." However,
once Krupp offered to pay for the slaves the Nazis readily agreed and
soon there was no shortage of companies seeking slaves.

What is less understood about the totalitarian power Hitler achieved
was the path he took to obtain that power. There never has been
totalitarian regime that gained instant total control. Such a sudden
change would spawn sudden revolutions. Mussolini took three years
before consolidating his power in Italy. In case of the Nazis, it took
even longer. Nor did the path to totalitarian Nazi state start with
the elevation of Hitler to the position of chancellor. Some historians
trace the roots of the path all the way back into the 1800s. A
complete analysis of German history from the time of the monarchy to
the seating of Hitler is beyond the scope of this book, if not beyond
the scope of any single book, as volumes could be written. What
follows is a very brief look at the slow erosion of freedom and the
concentration of power as it relates to the final totalitarian state.
For the most part, the period following WWI was a period dominated by
raucous politics and a series of crisis in Germany. The two periods in
which the Nazis gained the most strength was the early 1920s, during
the hyper inflationary period, culminating with the Beer Hall Putsch
and the depression of 1929-1931. There is little need to examine the
raucous politics of that period, everyone is well aware of Hitler's SA
thugs breaking up political rallies of other parties which also
resorted to the same tactics. It would not be untrue to describe many
political rallies of the time as ending in brawls.
Hitler and the Nazis were extremists, and mostly rejected by the
German voters during the good economic times of the 1920s. For
example, in 1928 they only polled 2.6 percent of the vote, gaining
just 14 seats out of the 491 seats in the Reichstag by virtue of the
republic's proportional representation. By 1930 and the start of the
depression, the Nazis had increased their seats to 107 out of 577
seats in the Reichstag. In the July 1932 election, at the height of
the depression, the Nazis polled 37.4 percent of the vote winning 230
seats in the Reichstag, becoming Germany's largest party.13 In the Nov
1932 election, they only won 196 seats as an anemic economic recovery
was already underway, the people began rejecting the Nazis and their
radical views and actions.
Germany's plunge into a totalitarian state began before the Nazis took
over. It was as much a result of a lack of a strong leadership as
anything else. For the first eleven years of the German Republic there
had been seventeen cabinets headed by nine different chancellors.12
Undoubtedly, the country faced grave crisis in this period such as
hyperinflation, but the lack of strong leadership and an increased
polarization was readily apparent. The Nazis were the most notorious
radicals unwilling to compromise, but the other parties have to share
some of the blame for this polarization as well. The blame can be
extended beyond the parties to the vested interests behind each party,
including that of big businesses. Fracturing the electorate by
polarization was playing right into the divisionist character of the
Nazis, whose radical program lacked a broad base of support as the
election results from 1928 showed.
The policies of the German governments during the 1920s inadvertently
aided the rise of the Nazis. Throughout the 1920s the government
arrested many of the leaders from the left. It would not be unfair to
term these arrests as purges. The arrest of any strong leaders
emerging from the left only served to further polarize the country by
creating a vacuum on the left that was only filled with the more
radical communists. A similar situation is emerging in the United
States, throughout this century the United States has conducted purges
of the left: the Great Red Scare of 1919, McCartyism of the 1950s, and
COINTELPRO operations during the sixties. Without the voices from the
left to moderate policy, the political center in the United States has
shifted to the hard right.
The immediate result in the lack of strong leadership is frequent
chances in government, which only lead to more instability and chaos.
An ideal parallel is the long string one term Presidents ending with
Lincoln and the Civil War. The polarization of the Unite States
gradually increased from about 1820 on resulting in one term
presidents. Another string of one term Presidents ended with the
election of Roosevelt in the middle of the Great Depression. In both
U.S. case the ending result was not pleasant: a civil war and a
depression.
Such frequent change in government does not allow businesses to make
long range plans, nor does it allow for enough to time for programs
enacted by a government to work. These effects then act as negative
feedback, further increasing the polarization and the resulting chaos.
Additionally, the German constitution was flawed and did not account
for a negative parliament. Power in Germany was concentrated in the
office of the president, headed by Hindenburg, who initially had been
elected by conservatives and reactionary rightists. He was a member of
the aristocratics from the Junker class and had been a war hero; he
likewise held sentiments for the monarchy. The president had the power
to appoint cabinets and chancellors. Beginning in 1930, Hindenburg
began the practice of appointing chancellors of his choice that were
not beholding to the parliament. To allow the chancellors to
circumvent parliament, he granted these chancellors emergency powers
that had been given to the president by the constitution. Starting in
1930, almost all national laws, including the power to tax, were
enacted by presidential decrees and not by the parliament. Such
presidential decrees would be similar to the executive orders in the
United States.
Hence, even before Hitler was appointed to the chancellor position,
power was being concentrated into the two offices of the chancellor
and the president. At least twice before appointing Hitler as
chancellor, Hindenburg entertained ideas of violating the constitution
by not holding elections within the sixty days as required by the
constitution.
Hindenburg had also avoided appoint Hitler as chancellor twice before
January 1933. Even with the support of big business Hindeburg failed
to appoint Hitler when the Nazis held more seats in the Reichstag than
any other party.
It wasn't until after Hitler met in secret with von Pappen at the
Cologne home of Baron Kurt von Schroder that Hindenburg would relent
and appoint Hitler chancellor. The baron was the head of the
international Schroder banking empire and had previously raised funds
to pay off the Nazi's debt.
The secret meeting on January 4, 1933 allowed Hitler and von Pappen to
work out their differences and to agree to a new cabinet under the
direction of both. This secret meeting was the birthplace of the Third
Reich.
However, there were two Americans that also were in attendance: John
Foster Dulles and his brother Allen. The Dulles brothers were there as
legal representatives for Kuhn Loeb Company, which had extended large
short term credits to Germany. Their presence was to secure a
guarantee of repayment from Hitler.
Moreover, Kurt von Schroder had extensive financial contacts in New
York and London. He was a co-director of Thyssen foundry along with
Johann Groeninger, Prescott Bush's New York bank partner. Schroeder
was also the vice president and director of the Hamburg-Amerika Line,
the same shipping line seized from Prescott Bush for trading with the
enemy.
Throughout 1932, actions taken by the Bush-Harriman shipping line were
directly responsible for bringing Hitler to power. The constitutional
government tried to disarm the Nazi Brown Shirts to stop the mad
election melees and murders. The U.S. embassy in Berlin reported:
" Hamburg-Amerika Line was purchasing and distributing propaganda
attacks against the German government, for attempting this last-minute
crackdown on Hitler's forces."
During 1932, Hitler's thugs murdered thousands of Germans. Arms for
Hitler were shipped to Germany aboard Hamburg-Amerika Line. They were
transferred to river barges before reaching Antwerp and then
transported across Holland freely. Samuel Pryor, founder of Union Bank
and a partner in the Hamburg-America Line was also executive committee
chairman of Remington Arms. Hitler's Brown Shirts were armed primarily
with Remington arms and Thompson submachine guns. A Senate
investigation of Remington concluded that all of the political
factions in Germany were armed with mostly American made guns.
Once Hitler and von Pappen had reached an agreement on their future
course of actions. Pappen pressured Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as
chancellor. The success of the meeting was recorded in Goebbels. On
January 5, 1933 Goebbels wrote in his diary "If this coup succeeds, we
are not far from power. . . . Our finances have suddenly improved."
Hindenburg appointed Hitler, as chancellor with the understanding
Hitler would be a parliamentary rather than a presidential chancellor.
Hitler immediately set about sabotaging the efforts to from a
parliamentary majority. Here is one of the first examples of fascism
and divisionism.
On February 1, 1933 the German parliament was dissolved and new
elections were scheduled for early March. Using his henchmen, Hilter
had the Reichstag building burnt. The fire was blamed on the
communist, his main revivals. Using the fire as an excuse, Hitler
banned the communist from the upcoming election. Additionally, Goring
deputized his storm troopers to harass any political opposition from
his position in the cabinet; even then the Nazis could not achieve a
majority in parliament as they polled only 43.9 votes.14 By summer,
all political parties except the Nazis had been dissolved. On the
death of Hindenburg in 1934, Hitler assumed the office of president
and further consolidated his gripe on power, but it would take a
couple of additional years before Hitler was a true totalitarian. He
purged the justice system of judges with adverse views, appointing
rabid Nazis in their place, and the storm troopers were given police
powers. Justice was now the Nazi party line.
One does not need to expound upon the extreme nationalism of the
fascist. The history of their invasion in a quest for world dominion
is well known. Mussolini turned his attention to Ethiopia and North
Africa; Hitler first to Austria, then Czechoslovakia, followed by
Western Europe and later to Norway and the east.
Hilter had left a blueprint for his extreme nationalism and the quest
for lebensraum in Mien Kampf as shown by the quote below.
"If the National Socialist movement really wants to be consecrated by
history with a great mission for our nation, it must be permeated by
knowledge and filled with pain at our true situation in this world;
boldly and conscious of its goal, it must take up the struggle against
the aimlessness and incompetence which have hitherto guided our German
nation in the line of foreign affairs. Then without consideration of
traditions and prejudices it must find the courage to gather our
people and their strength for an advance along the road that will lead
this people from its present restricted living space to new land and
soil; and hence also free it from danger of vanishing from the earth
or of serving others as a slave nation.
The Nationalist Socialist movement must strive to eliminate the
disproportion between our population and our area-viewing this later
as a source of food as well as a basis for power politics---between
our historical past and the helplessness of our present impotence."15
The third trait of fascism is that it consists of a top down
revolution or movement. It is becoming more accepted today that the
Nazis drew support from all classes. Indeed, this seems a reasonable
assumption when looking at all of the evidence. The storm troopers for
the most part drew their numbers from the lower and middle classes.
They were typically were unemployed laborers, inept middle management,
or failed businessmen. Likewise, given the vote tally of over thirty
percent in the 1932 elections, the Nazis had to have drawn votes from
all social classes. But this has no bearing on who controlled the
direction of the party. Control of the party rested solely with Hitler
and whom he allied with. He chose to ally with the upper class and big
business as borne out by his policies after gaining power. There is
little controversy over the considerable support Hitler drew from the
aristocrats, the military, or the Junkers.
Telltale signs forewarning of the elite control was evident from the
very formation of the party until the final days before gaining power.
A brief look at those that financed the Nazis rise to power will
reveal the real support behind Hitler. This is becoming an increasing
issue of contention as American hard right tries to distance
themselves from the similarities of their policies with fascism.
Hitler himself did not form the Nazi party initially. He joined an
existing party and then molded it according to his wishes. In fact,
his company commander had ordered him to attend a meeting of what was
the German Workers Party. Here was Hitler's initial reaction to the
party.
>"My impression was neither good or bad; a new organization like so many others. This was the time in which anyone who was not satisfied with developments and no longer had confidence in the existing parties felt called upon to found a new party. Everywhere these organizations sprang from the ground, only to vanish silently after a time. The founders for the most part had no idea what it means to make a party---let alone a movement---out of a club. And so these organizations nearly always stifle automatically in their absurd phillistinism."16
The order from his company commander provides the first evidence that
the elite backed Hitler from the very beginning. At any point from
this date the German military could have withdrawn its support of
Hitler and disbanded the Nazi party
Hitler was a good orator by all reports, as well as an astute
political observer. He knew how to motivate the masses in his name and
how to sustain a movement. Someone once remarked recently that you
needed only gain control of the 3Ms to gain power. The three "Ms" are
the military, media, and money. Hitler had all three behind him. As
shown by the passage from Mein Kampf, Hitler started with the blessing
of the military. The military, as well as big business, played a
behind the scenes role in the appointment of Hitler as chancellor.
It's the last of the 3Ms where much confusion and debate arise,
Hitler's source of funds or money.
Big business likewise had a large hand in bringing down Bruning in
1930. In a large part, it was the constant bickering by special
interest groups that led to the falling of Bruning's cabinet. Big
business was urging the following demands on the Bruning government:
>1. The government must take steps to lower the cost of production and widen the profit margin.
2. Lower taxes
3. Reduce the size of government.
4. Lower unemployment insurance benefit
5. The government must allow wages to progress to lower levels, by
voiding labor contracts and binding arbitration.26
If these demands from the business community seem familiar to the
reader, it's because in a large part they are the same policies that
the Republican Party has been advocating for the last twenty years.
Throughout the 1920s and up until Hitler was appointed chancellor the
Nazi party was plagued with a shortage of money. After release for
prison for the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler's only known source of
income was from the sale of Mein Kampf and fees for newspaper articles
he would write. The first edition of Mein Kampf was published July 18,
1925 in an edition of 10,000 copies selling for 12 marks. By the end
of the year almost all copies had been sold. A new edition was printed
but sales in the following year plummeted.
Nevertheless, almost immediately after being pardoned he bought a new
super-charged Mercedes-Benz for 28,000 marks.17 Additionally, Hitler
did not drive, so he had the additional expense of a chauffeur.
Likewise, from 1925 until his appointment as chancellor in 1933,
Hitler lived in increasing comforts, if not outright lavishness for
the times. Certainly, the royalties from Mein Kampf and fees for his
other writings were insufficient to cover even his living expenses,
not to mention the party's expenses.
Also, the funding for an ever-increasing number of SA troopers (many
of which were unemployed) had to be secured. Turner has suggested that
the Nazis were self sufficient from dues, speaker's fees, and
donations at rallies. However, this seems almost improbable looking at
the numbers from 1930. In 1930 there were about 100,000 storm troopers
that had to be fed, housed and otherwise supported. Additionally there
were 15,000 in the SS. Nazi membership at the beginning of 1931 was
only 389,000.18 Thus it seems very reasonable that outside sources of
funding was needed to maintain the SA and SS, as well as the ever
increasing lifestyle of Hitler. Membership fees in the Nazi party
started at a mark per month, non-paying members were quickly dropped
from the party.
From the very beginning of the Nazi party Hitler showed a knack for
obtaining funding from the more privileged members of German society.
For instance, everyone is well aware of the trial following the Beer
Hall Putsch, but less well known was a secondary trial following the
putsch. In the secondary trial, several businessmen that had donated
money or other support for Hitler were put on trial. Some have
attributed much of this early funding of the Nazis to the secret Thule
Society.19 Another early source of funds in the early 20s came from
the efforts of Scheubner-Richter, who was adept at gaining funds from
Bavarian aristocrats, big businessmen, bankers, and leaders of heavy
industry.20 Another source of early funds came indirectly from Fritz
Thyssen. Henry Ford also exerted a considerable influence over Hitler
in the early 1920s, as well as money. Some passages from Ford's
International Jew are nearly identical to passages in Mein Kampf.
Ford's book is reported to have had a large effect on many of the
school children of the time that were suffering through hyperinflation
and economic hard times while reading a book written by the world's
foremost capitalist.

The extent of Ford's financial donations to Hitler still remains a
mystery. The U. S. ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, was quoted
saying "certain American industrialists had a great deal to do with
bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy."21 The
extent of corporate America's collaboration with the Nazis before the
war and even during the war, in some cases, is not fully known.
However, as time goes by and more information becomes available, the
collaboration begins to appear significant, as shown in the following
article.
"Bernd Greiner said 26 of the top 100 US companies in the 1930s
collaborated to some degree with the Nazis before, and in some cases
after, Hitler declared war on the United States in December 1941.
Company headquarters in the US have denied they knew what was going on
in Germany, but there is evidence to suggest they knew their German
subsidiaries used slave labor, tolerated it and in some cases were
actively involved, Greiner said.
Greiner confirmed a report in the newspaper Die Zeit, based on his
findings of US corporate involvement in Nazi Germany. The findings
went beyond allegations of US lawyers and historians last year that
automakers General Motors and Ford collaborated with the Nazi
regime."22
One of the more historically accurate, but shamefully apologetic to
big business sources is the book, German Big Business and the Rise of
Hitler by Turner.23 Turner does a good job in detailing the extensive
participation of the leaders of business with the Nazis. However, he
reaches the conclusion that big business did not support Hitler with a
rather contrived definition of what big business is. He based his
definition on the value of the float of stock on the market. His
definition limited the number of companies that he would classify as
big business to only 14 companies in the Ruhr industrial area and a
smattering of companies located elsewhere. Essentially, his definition
would be the equivalent of saying that only the Dow 30 companies in
the U. S. could truly be called big business. This of course is
nonsense. The majority of people would certainly consider Chrysler,
Texas Instruments, Hewitt Packard, John Deere and Chase Manhattan Bank
to be big business, but according to Turner's book they are not. It is
from this group of second and third tier businesses (in keeping with
Turner's definition) that provided the most help and support for
Hitler. Furthermore, Turner neglects the effect of cartel agreements
as well as subsidiaries in his analysis. Many of these second and
third tier corporations were owned and controlled by the 14
corporations, he considered to be big business.
Secondly, Turner focuses much of his attention on the period of
1920-1928, when the Nazis were at best a minor noisy party. During
this time, the Nazis were lucky to poll more than three percent of the
vote. Yet Turner tries to use this as proof that big business did not
support Hitler's rise to power, although he does admit that Fritz
Thyssen and Kirdolf were supporters of the Nazis during this time. An
equivalent situation would be today's Libertarian Party, a party that
draws support from Koch, head of Koch refinery (a second tier company
by Turner's reasoning). But no one is rushing to fund the Libertarians
today when they cannot even poll five percent of the vote.
Finally, when the source of funds were unquestionably from big
business Turner attempts to discredit them by claiming the source of
the funds was a junior level executive that couldn't be responsible
for overall company policy. Or he attempts to say they were given to
an individual Nazi. In one shameful passage Turner attempts to
discredit the funds given to Nazi fund-raiser Walther Funk by claiming
they were not a donation to the party as they may have been spent by
Funk for entertainment. Turner describes a particular drunken binge
across town by Funk in which he passed out some rather large tips and
then draws the conclusion that perhaps none of the funds given Funk
ever reached the Nazis.24 This is not the work of a historian, as
Turner claims to be. This is nothing more than conjecture by a
propagandist. There is also one other speculative conclusion one could
draw from this passage, and that is that the amount of money Funk was
receiving was so enormous that it permitted such behavior.
Turner does a good job in showing that it was those second and third
tier businesses that supported the Nazis. In Duren, a Rhenish
manufacturing town, the Nazis received considerable support from local
industrialists such as the millionaire dynasties (a term in use from
the 1820s in describing these two families) of the Schoellers and the
Schulls. Another area in which the Nazis received broad support from
businesses was Solingen, an industrial town.25 Overall, Turner
documents the participation of business leaders and their support for
the Nazis, leaving no question in the reader's mind that business
leaders exerted a considerable influence on the Nazis. Unfortunately,
he ends his study just as the Nazis seize power.
Many businesses chose to align with and support the Nazis after they
gained power. Krupp and I.G. Faben were both executors' of Goring's
Four-Year Plan to make Germany militarily self-sufficient by 1940. One
can view the details of Krupp's involvement and support for the Nazis
after March 1933 in the documents from the War Crimes Tribunal at
Nuremberg.31 The full set of available documents from Nuremberg is
also available on the Internet.32 By 1939, I.G. Faben provided the
Nazis with 90 percent of their foreign exchange, 95 percent of
imports, and 85 percent of all military and commercial goods. In 1932,
Hermann Schmitz Faben's joint chairman joined forces with Kurt von
Schroder, director of a wealthy private bank. Schroder was a fanatical
Nazi, often times dressed in his black SS uniform. Schroder is the man
that is closely linked with Chase Bank, Standard Oil and William
Teagle, and ITT. In 1932, Schroder and Wilhelm Keppler formed the
group known as "The Fraternity." This group guaranteed a source of
money to the Gestapo. Members agreed to contribute an average of one
million marks a year to Himmler's personally marked "S" account and
the transferable secret "R" account of the Gestapo.27
In April of 1933, Gustav Krupp sought out a private meeting with
Hitler. Krupp agreed to become Hitler's chief fundraiser and chairman
of the Adolf Hitler Fund. In return Hitler promised to appoint Krupp
as the fuehrer of Germany industry. Over the years, Krupp contributed
over six million marks of his own money to the Nazis, and his
correspondence shows that he truly enjoyed his job as chairman.28
Likewise, it is common knowledge that after Hitler was appointed
chancellor Krupp greeted people cheerfully with the Heil Hitler
salutation.
Schirer writes that in 1931, when Hitler decided to cultivate
relationships between influential industrial leaders, he kept their
identity a secret.
"The party still had to play both sides of the tracks. The party had
to allow Strasser, Goebbels and Feder to beguile the masses with
socialist talk and denigrating the industrial magnates."
Some of the meetings were so secretive that they were held in forest
glades."29
Further proof of the industrialist involvement and support of the
Nazis comes from the testimony of Funk at Nuremberg. The entire list
implicated by Funk is far too long to reproduce here, but besides
Thyssen and Krupp it included Georg von Schnitzler-I.G. Farben, August
Rosterg and August Diehn of the potash industry, Cuno of the Hamburg
Amerika Line, Otto Wolf, Kurt von Schroder, and many other wealthy
industrialists30
On May 2, 1933, the Nazis raided and occupied all trade union
headquarters. The leaders were beaten and arrested; some were placed
in the concentration camps. Union funds were confiscated and the
unions were dissolved. Members of the communist party and the social
democrats had already been arrested. On June 20, 1934, in what has
become known as the Night of Long Knifes, Hitler purged the socialists
within the Nazi party, chief among them Roehm.
With the broad financial support from the leaders of the business
community as well as from the military leaders and aristocrats, the
Nazis were truly a top down organization, while the Nazis used the
lower class as foot soldiers to gain power. They did so in a deceiving
manner, and once in power, immediately set about betraying the lower
classes
We have already shown one example of divisionism by the Nazis in their
rise to power. But what sets fascist divisionism apart from the
ordinary divisionism of any other political ideology? Certainly any
politician in a democracy appeals to some sort of divisionism, as he
is fully aware that he can not possibly appeal to the entire
electorate. The difference lies in the fact that divisionism is always
destructive in fascism and serves only as a means to gain and maintain
power. Even after gaining power, Hitler went to great pains in
dividing power, playing one follower against another, creating
rivalries in the party in the process. In short, Hitler kept the Nazi
party divided as if it was a set of small fiefdoms. One of the biggest
myths about the Nazis is that they were a single unit, when in fact
they were a conglomeration of various fractured parts. Eatwell states
the paradox within Hitler's power structure as: "because the party was
so divided that he had power and in turn the party was divided from
other key centers of power such as the army." 47 In other ideologies,
the divisionism is not inherently destructive. Rather, it's based on
differing approaches coming together to reach an equable solution to a
problem. In his rise to power, Hitler had no intention of compromising
with the other parties to form a parliamentary president. His moves
were calculated to destroy any chance of that.
A couple of examples from the present can further delineate the
difference between the two. Certainly many of the tax proposals coming
from the Republican party today could be classed as divisionism as
they favor the upper income earners over the lower income groups.
While the measures are divisive they can hardly be labeled as
destructive divisionism. They are more a reflection of difference in
opinion.
However, an example of an act that could be termed a fascist
divisionism was the Republican caused shut down of the government in
November 1995 after Clinton vetoed the budget bill. Clinton had
previously warned Congress that unless changes were made in the budget
he would veto the bill. Members of the hard right Council for National
Policy and many of their Republican members openly had declared they
would shut down the government. In essence, the Republicans adopted
the same policy that Hitler had in his bid to dismiss parliament; they
refused to negotiate honorably.
Just as Hitler had taken a position to subvert democracy, so had the
Republicans, led by Gingrich. The constitution defines the passing of
the budget in detail. The spending bills originate in the House after
passage by both the House and the Senate. It is then sent to the
President, who may either veto it or sign it. If the bill is vetoed,
it is up to Congress and the President to reach a compromise bill.
Otherwise, Congress must pass a bill with a two-thirds majority. The
failure of Congress to pass a bill to advert a government shutdown was
a dereliction of their constitutional duty. Fortunately, the outrage
coming from the general public forced the Republicans back to the
negotiation table. The point to be made is the only difference between
the two events---the Republicans feared the wrath of the people and
capitulated, Hitler had no such fear and parliament was dismissed.
The Republican shut down of the government also serves to point out a
flaw in our constitution, just as there was a flaw in the German
constitution. In the case of the U. S. constitution there is no other
mechanism other than shutting down the government if Congress fails to
pass a budget. If the fascists in America can be successful in
polarizing American politics to such an extent that the public, or at
least a considerable portion of it, tolerates a government shut down,
then the entire budget process becomes a fracas. And after observing
the behavior of the Republicans in their ill fated attempt to impeach
Clinton such a possibility does not appear so remote.
Another example of divisionism that is solely destructive that is not
based on racism or class warfare was the impeachment of Bill Clinton.
It served no purpose other than to smear the president, the articles
of impeachment fell far short of what the founding fathers had defined
in the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors." That phrase refers back
to the misuse of offices in England under the king. Additionally, the
investigation of Ken Starr has been plagued by civil rights abuse and
possible criminal action by Starr himself. It resembles a coup headed
by the multi millionaire Scaife with the aid of the religious right,
more than it resembled a justified impeachment.
But perhaps, the greatest illustration of the divisionism was seeing
support for the impeachment evaporate like rain on hot pavement in the
Senate following the State of the Union address and a thorough defense
of the charges by Clinton's legal team. The House prosecutors with the
conclusion of Ken Starr questioned Monica Lewinsky further in secret.
This single action by the House Republicans invoked criticism from
even members of their own party in the Senate. It was conducted
against the agreed upon rules, and it was unconstitutional in that the
power of investigation is delegated to the Senate. Likewise, it is
against the statute of the Independent Council. It served no purpose
other than to further divide and disgust the country. In short, it is
nothing but an attempt at a power play.

Often times, this divisionism takes the form of racism or class
warfare. It is often stated that Mussolini tried to eliminate class
distinctions in fascist Italy. But the reality is that he only
reinforced those distinctions. Certainly the Nazis practiced racism in
an outrageous manner, ending in the Holocaust. On the other hand,
fascist Italy was not racist in nature until after Mussolini adopted
Hitler's Jewish solution. Fascism doesn't necessary have to be racist
in nature, but racism is often used to divide the citizens, as their
radical platform isn't appealing to the broad masses. In addition,
racism is violent in nature and the resulting chaos from the violence
serves to further divide the masses. Whether or not a fascist state is
racist seems to depend more upon the culture of the society in which
it arises. Before fascism, Italy had a long history of generally
equable racial relationships, going all the way back to the old Roman
Empire. For instance, even the slaves were eventually given full
rights in Rome. However, the roots of anti-Semitism goes back much
further in Germany as shown in the following quote.
"This is a good month to reflect on the toxicity of words meant to
kill. Nov. 9 marks the 60th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the 1938
'Night of Shattered Glass' unleashed by the Nazis to terrorize
Germany's Jews. The date was chosen specially by Josef Goebbels,
Hitler's propagandist, to honor the birthday of Martin Luther, the
16th century monk who was a father of the protestant Reformation and
the founder of what became the Lutheran church.
Hitler greatly admired Luther: "He saw the Jew as we are only
beginning to see him today." Indeed. Luther saw the Jews as 'hopeless,
wicked, venomous, and devilish... our pest, torment, and misfortune.'
Initially, certain that his version of Christianity would appeal to
Jews, he expected large numbers of them to covert. When that failed to
happen, he turned violently against them. In 1543, Luther Published
"On the Jews and Their Lies," a work that would become known
throughout Germany, perhaps the most widely disseminated work of anti-
Semitism by a German until the rise of the Nazis 400, years later.
"What then shall we Christians do with this damned, rejected race of
Jews?" Luther asked.
"First, their synagogues should be set on fire, and whatever does not
burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt, so that no one may
ever be able to see a cinder or stone of it...
Secondly, their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed...
Thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayer books and Talmuds, in
which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught.
Fourthly, their rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to
teach any more...
Fifthly, passports and traveling privileges should be absolutely
forbidden to the Jews...
Sixthly, I advise that...all cash and treasure of silver and gold be
taken from them...
Burn down their synagogues, forbid all that I enumerated earlier,
force them to work, and deal harshly with them... If this does not
help we must drive them out like mad dogs, so we do not become
partakers of their abominable blasphemy and all their other vices. I
have done my duty. Now let everyone see to his."
This is hate speech.
< Sixty years ago next Monday on the night of Luther's birthday, Nazi
gangs rampaged across Germany. In every Jewish neighborhood, windows
were smashed and buildings were torched. All told, 101 synagogues were
destroyed, and nearly 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses were demolished.
On that night, 91 Jews were murdered; 26,000 were rounded up and sent
to concentration camps. It was the greatest pogrom in history. And it
was nothing compared with what was to come."33
The question then remains whether the fascism in America can be
considered racist or not. The past history of racism in the United
States would tend to support such. As a nation, we was one of the last
industrial nations to allow slavery, and it took the Civil War to end
slavery. It has been less than fifty years since "separate but equal"
was the rule of the land. It's only been sixty years since Japanese
citizens and immigrants were interred in camps following the bombing
of Pearl Harbor. The Rosewood incident happened less than a hundred
years ago, and lynching of blacks was common well into the 20th
century. This country has had a long, incredulous history of bigotry
and even genocide. There is no question of the genocide of Native
Americans in the efforts of the U. S. Army in passing out blankets
infected with small pox, or the slaughter of the Plains Indian's
primary source of food, the buffalo. Then there was the Trail of
Tears, as well. The Irish immigrants, following the potato famine,
were greeted by the Know Nothings, a party that based its support on
the hate of Catholics.
All of the hard right groups are racist, although more than one tries
to play their racism down or to hide it, such as the John Birch
Society and some of the various militia groups. Others are openly
racists, such as the Klan, the Nazis and the skinheads. The great
unifier of the far right, the Identity religion, links many of the
hard right groups. The Identity religion is based on anti-Semitic
belief that the true followers of Jesus immigrated to Britain and
northern Europe, that today's Jews are the descendents of Satan. It's
the mainstay religion among the militias, the Posse Comitatus, and
even among some of the Klan groups.
Besides the normal hate groups based on racism or anti-Semitism. the
religious right has emerged in the 1990s as a venomous hate group
basing their hate on gays and abortion. Abortion clinics increasingly
are becoming targets of bombings, arson, and vandalism. Late in 1998,
Matthew Shepard was murdered in Wyoming after being tie to a fence and
then pistol whipped, for being gay. Below are some quotes about gays
from one of the leaders of the religious right, Pat Robertson.
"This conduct [homosexuality] is anti-social, and it is a pathology.
It is a sickness, and it needs to be treated. It doesn't need to be
taught in the classroom as a preferred way of life..." - 700 Club,
3-7-90
"...the acceptance of homosexuality is the last step in the decline of
Gentile civilization." --Pat Robertson, of the Christian Broadcasting
Network, warned that hurricanes could hit Orlando, Fla., because of
gay events there. Time magazine, Oct 26, 1998
"If the world accepts homosexuality as its norm and if it moves the
entire world in that regard, the whole world is then going to be
sitting like Sodom and Gomorrah before a Holy God. And when the wrath
of God comes on this earth, we will all be guilty and we will all
suffer for it." - 700 Club, 9-6-9534
Compare that last quote of Robertson's to the following quote of
Hitler on syphilis.
"...they speak of this whole field as if it were a great sin, and
above all express their profound indignation against every sinner
caught in the act, then close their eyes in pious horror to this
godless plague and pray God to let sulfur and brimstone preferably
after their own death rain down on this Sodom and Gomorrah, thus once
making an instructive example of this shameless humanity."39
Such evidence, as Robertson's words, abounds that they would persecute
gays, it abounds in the numerous ballot measures in various states
that would deny gays their civil rights. Such a measure passed in
Colorado, only to be overturned by the Supreme Court. Another measure,
led by Lon Mabon in Oregon failed state wide, but was reintroduced on
local ballots in the following election. Mabon has also led ballot
measures to limit the concept of a family and limiting abortions to
only the first trimester. The first was another attempt to limit the
rights of gays.
In June 1998, near Jasper, Texas a black man named James Byrd was
dragged behind a pickup. Body parts were found over a two mile length
of the roadway.35 It is too early for trends in hate crimes to emerge,
as the FBI only began tracking hate crimes in 1991. The one trend that
does seem to be emerging is the hate crimes are becoming increasingly
violent as evident from the murders of Shepard and Byrd. The real
danger of these two murders is they serve to desensitize us, leading
to more numerous and increasing levels of violence, just as the Nazis
used increasing levels of violence against the Jews.
Racism is reemerging in various forms in the 1990s in political issues
and in the Republican Party. "English only" laws are being promoted
with increasing frequency by various Republican candidates, including
Robert Dole, and have even appeared on some ballot measures such as
California Prop 187. The obvious targets are immigrants from Mexico.
In effect, its nothing more than the reemergence of nativism. Other
forms of nativism have appeared, such as denying immigrants access to
welfare and the school system for children of immigrants. Nativism is
also behind various immigration bills and the increasing efforts
directed at illegals.
Perhaps the most dangerous form of racism to emerge has been the
Republican efforts to 'monitor' the polls. And videotape those
leaving. Cases have arisen in the 1998 election in North Carolina,
Georgia, Michigan, Maryland, Kentucky, Texas and Maine. The efforts
are directed primarily at districts in which have a high percentage of
minorities. Such efforts serve no useful purpose and do constitute a
violation of the Voting Rights Act.36 More disturbing is the Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court, William Rehnquist, served as the
director of Republican 'ballot security' in the poor areas of Phoenix,
Arizona between 1958-1962.37 He likewise wrote a pro separate but
equal memo as a law clerk for Justice Robert Jackson. All of which was
brought out in his confirmation hearings.
An even more subtle effort on the part of Republicans in denying votes
to the minorities and the poor is centered on the debate to allow a
statistical correction to the 2000 census. Such effort on the part of
the Republicans goes far beyond the election of 2000. The census will
be used to reapportionment of the congressional districts for the
decade. Thus, by denying the correction, they in effect are
perpetuating their power to 2010 by undercounting groups that
historically vote for Democrats
n Dec 1998, Republican House member Bob Barr and Senator Trent Lott
were exposed as keynote speakers before the Council of Conservative
Citizens, a racist organization. Lott was later determined to have
been an honorary member and had written several articles for their
paper dating back to the early 1990s. In January, Republican National
Chairman, Jim Nicholson asked members to dissociate themselves from
this group and directly appealed to national committee member Buddy
Witherspoon from South Carolina to resign. The request was refused.38
Once before, the Republicans were asked to denounce the radical John
Birch Society at their National Convention in the early 1960s.
Moderate members such as the former President Jerry Ford, did so.
However the measure failed.
>Another Republican that deserves mention here is Pat Buchanan and his anti-Semitic views. Buchanan has opposed virtually all civil rights bills and favorable court decisions; he has supported apartheid in South Africa; he has spewed forth views of Holocaust denial; he has called fascists such as Franco and Pinochet soldier-patriots. And Buchanan was a key figure in urging Reagan to visit the SS cemetery in Bitburg.40
Thus as we prepare to enter a new century, the Republican Party has
adopted racism as a divisionist tool to divide the electorate in an
attempt to maintain power and enact their extremist agenda. Not all
members of the Republican Party are racist, but many of the members
from the hard right that controls the party are racists. There are
honorable members of the party, but they are being forced into lesser
and lesser roles. The extremists have gained control. It is the burden
of those honorable members to take back control of their party and
denounce the extremist before it becomes too late.
 Perhaps the best assessment of the use of destructive divisionism by
fascist in the United States comes from a 1945 War department
publication:
"Three Ways to Spot U.S. Fascists.
Fascists in America may differ slightly from fascists in other
countries, but there are a number of attitudes and practices that they
have in common. Following are three. Every person who has one of them
is not necessarily a fascist. But he is in a mental state that lends
itself to the acceptance of fascist aims.
1.Pitting religion, racial, and economic groups against one another in
order to break down the national unity is a device of the divide and
conquer technique used by Hitler to gain power in Germany and in other
countries. With slight variations, to suit local conditions, fascists
everywhere have used this Hitler method. In many countries, anti-
Semitism is a dominant devise of fascism. In the United States native
fascists have often been anti-Catholic, anti-Jew, anti-Negro, anti-
Labor and anti-foreign born. In South America native fascists use the
same scapegoats except that they substitute anti-Protestantism for
anti-Catholicism.
Interwoven with the master race theory of fascism is a well planned
hate campaign against minority races, religions, and other groups. To
suit their particular needs and aims, fascists will use any one or a
combination of such groups as a convenient scapegoat.
2. Fascism cannot tolerate such religious and ethical concepts as the
brotherhood of man. Fascists deny the need for international
cooperation. These ideas contradict the fascist theory of the master
race. The color, race, creed or nationality-have rights. International
cooperation, as expressed in the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, run counter
to the fascist program of war and world domination. Right now our
native fascists are spreading anti-British, anti-Soviet, anti-French
and anti-United nations propaganda.
3. It is accurate to call a member of a communist party a communist.
For short, he is often called a Red. Indiscriminate pinning of the
label Red on people and proposals which one opposes is a common
political device. It is a favorite trick of native as well as foreign
fascists.
Many fascists make the spurious claim that the world has but two
choices---either fascism or communism and they label as communist
everyone who refuses to support them. By attacking our free
enterprise, capitalist democracy and by deny the effectiveness of our
way of life they hope to trap many people."74

The extreme anti-communism and anti-socialism stance of the fascist is
beyond dispute among honest historians. Both communists and socialists
were the first to enter the concentration camps in Nazi Germany. Both
Mussolini and Franco fought against communist influence. From the
brief survey of the fascist philosophers and extreme anti-liberal
stance has been a factor in fascism from the beginning. The Nazi used
socialism as a ruse to gain power, but once in power they purged the
socialists within their party. The following quotes taken from Mein
Kampf will illuminate the anti-communism, anti-parliamentary
democracy, and the social darwinism of Hitler.
"Just as in 1918 we paid with our blood for the fact that in 1914 and
1915 we did not proceed to trample the head of Marxist serpent once
and for all, we would have to pay most catastrophically if in the
spring of 1923 we did not avail ourselves of the opportunity to halt
the activity of the Marist traitors and murders of the nation for
good"41 >
"As regards the possibility of putting these ideas into practice, I
beg you not to forget that the parliamentary principle of democratic
majority rule has by no means always dominated mankind, but to the
contrary is to be found only in brief periods of history, which are
always epochs of decay of peoples and states."42
"The best state constitution and state form is that which, with the
most unquestioned certainty, raises the best minds in the national
community to leading position and leading influence.
But as in economic life, the able men cannot be appointed from above,
but must struggle through for themselves,..."43
The second quote certainly is anti-liberal as it shows Hitler's
contempt for the democratic process. The last quote reveals Hitler as
a social Darwinist of which Turner makes the point in several places
in his book.44 Social Darwinism runs counter to the aims of socialism.
In fact it is the antithesis. It allows the elite to gain further
power, it willingly discards the poor and the weak as expendables.
With the anti-communism stance and social Darwinism character of
Hitler, it is not surprising that the fascist in America would come
from the extreme right. The United States was right in opposing
communism. But to what links? As with anything else moderation is an
admirable quality, excesses of any nature are damaging. Truman or
Eisenhower were not fascists for their anti-communism actions.
However, Tail Gunner Joe was either a fascist or a willing dupe of
fascists. The type of anti-communism of McCarthy served no other
purpose than to further his political career. He openly violated the
right to free speech and assembly of his victims. His aim was to
destroy them with out any regard to the evidence.
The social Darwinism as initiated by Reagan and his attacks on the
poor, and the dismantling of the welfare program led by Newt Gingrich
will also be labeled as examples of creeping fascism. Throwing people
into the streets arbitrarily to fend for themselves is destructive; it
is social Darwinism at its worst. Forcing them to except wages below
the minimum wage law is denying them their equal rights. But it was
precisely the economic woes of Germany that allowed the Nazis to rise
to power. Currently America is enjoying good economic times, but when
the economy takes a turn to the south the full impact of the lack of a
social safety net is going to be felt hard.
The next trait of fascism, extreme exploitation, is a direct result of
one of the primary traits of fascism, extreme nationalism. The form of
nationalism promoted by fascism not only concerns the standing in the
world but also applies to the sacrifices that are expected of
citizens. In short, the fascist state reigns supreme while the
individuals are subordinate to the state. The subordination of
individuals to the state is the antithesis of liberalism. Once again
some quotes from Mein Kampf will suffice.
"Since for us the state as such is the only form, but the essential is
its content, the nation, the people, it is clear that everything else
must be subordinated to its sovereign interests."45
"a peace, supported not by the palm branches of tearful, pacifist
female mourners, but based on the victorious sword of a master people,
putting the world into the service of a higher culture."46
Certainly from those two quotes there can be no question of the
subordination of individuals as practiced under the Nazis or to any
limits short of world domination by the Nazis. It is often stated that
Hitler left a road map to his future goals in Mein Kampf. There is no
greater evidence of that than in the last quote. How then did he rise
to power? The problem was nobody was listening. Nobody challenged his
aggressive views toward war, or at best they believed that they could
control or contain him. Only later did they find out the errors of
that false assumption.
This writer can find only two instances of this extreme exploitation
in America. Thanks to the efforts of CBS 60 Minutes and Evening News,
the story broke about the Tomb of the Unknown and how the Reagan White
House pressured the military to find an unknown to bury on Memorial
Day 1984. Turns out that in their haste to respond to the pressure
coming from the White House, they deliberately buried a fallen soldier
that wasn't so unknown. The unknown was Michael Bassie. This man had
given everything to his country except for his name. And the lowlife
filth occupying the White House had that stripped from him so he could
have a photo op on Memorial Day in an election year. This writer can
think of no other action that is more despicable; it's unforgivable.
Of course Reagan made sure he was the star of this photo op and used
it to promote and build support for his extremist military agenda.
The second instance comes at the hands of Newt Gingrich and the
Republicans of the 104th and 105th Congress. They have stripped the
rights of welfare recipients and required that they participate in
workfare. The problem comes in that these poor souls are not even
entitled to be paid the minimum wage or the right to unionize in some
cases. In other words, the Republican's answer to the poor is to force
the to work in perpetual slavery with no chance of ever breaking out
of poverty.
But this event is much more dangerous and goes much further than it
appears. The danger here lies in the suspension of the constitutional
equality under the eyes of the law. The Republicans have in effect
created a sub-class in which one of the very fundamental tenets of our
constitution, equality under the eyes of the law was ignored and
thrown out the window. Nor is this the only example of unequal
treatment of the poor at the hands of the Republicans. They also have
advocated cut backs in the budget for the public defender's office.
The Republicans have been very successful in their propaganda in
demonizing the poor. There seems to be an almost gutter level hatred
of the poor and any aid to assist them. Instead of reaching out a
compassionate helping hand towards the poor, the Republicans have
adopted a mean spirited social Darwinist view.
This brings us to the trait of opportunistic ideology of fascism. It
is perhaps one of the more confusing aspects of fascism. Mussolini
appears to have been indeed a socialist before founding the fascist
party. Mussolini likewise went from a pacifist to a rabid warmonger.
Clearly such dramatic changes in ideology could only be based in an
opportunistic grab for power. Mussolini started supporting a
syndicalism economy, but by 1923, with clear objections from business
leaders, he concluded the Palazzo Chigi Pact. This pact's main intent
was to simplify business relations by making the fascist the sole
representative of labor. In 1925, the Plazzo Vidoni agreement was
signed. This agreement made Rossoni's union the sole representative of
labor. It likewise prohibited the challenging of factory management.
By the close of the year, the grateful employer's federation publicly
announced adherence to the fascist regime.48 Such transformations
illistrate the opportunistic ideology present in fascism or is it a
lack of ideology, as well as further dispeling the myth that fascism
is another form of socialism.
Part of the problem with the ever-changing ideology of fascism arises
from the divisionism. Strasser was a socialist and it seems that
Goebbels was a Marxist. Both were allowed almost free reign in
promoting their own economic views as long as it gathered more support
of serve Hitler's purpose. But once their views failed to serve
Hitler, they were then brow beaten severely. An example of such
reversal in party ideology of the Nazis occurred on February 14,1926.
Prior to this date, both Strasser and Goebbels had approved of a
plebiscite campaign to deprive former royalty of their possessions, a
measure, that was popular with the common citizens. On the given date,
Hitler summoned both men to a meeting in Bamberg. Before those
gathered, Hitler forced both to capitulate and abandon the program.49
Similar events have already been given, in which various Nazis were
initially allowed to promote socialism in efforts to appease the lower
classes in an effort to gain their support.
Examples abound throughout the history of the Nazis where they adopted
their ideology to suit the audience. In October 1932, Strasser
announced a new program that was a stark reversal of the program the
Nazis had advocated in July. Higher taxes on the rich had been
replaced with a general reduction of taxes, instead of price controls
it centered on freeing prices. Instead of protectionism trade policy,
export and global trade was now promoted. Likewise, much of the
inflammatory rhetoric had been dropped.50
Hitler seems to have sensed the explosive nature of economics and
tried to avoid the subject both publicly and within the party. From
all indications, he was dissatisfied with the party planks on economic
matters. The only official stance on economic matters was the 1920
twenty-five point program. However, he only referred to this policy
document disparagingly in Mein Kampf and distanced himself from the
document.51 Likewise Hitler would never take an aggressive stance on
minor issues, he played to his audience to win their support.
Perhaps the most dramatic evidence of the opportunistic character of
the Nazis is illustrated by the actions of thirty-nine businessmen in
November 1932. The group contained such notables as Krupp, Thyssen,
Bosch, Siemens, and others. In a signed letter to Hindenburg they
urged him to appoint Hitler as chancellor. In essence they were
placing a bet that the socialism ideology was a fraud and that once in
power he would be a tool of capitalist.52
The only other reversal in policy that could rival the bet that the
leaders of big business made was Hitler's writings. In the first part
of Mein Kampf he argued that France was the sworn and greater enemy of
Germany. However, the second part to Mein Kampf he reversed course and
argued that Russia was the enemy as opposed to the first book in which
he proposed an alliance with Russia.53 This was a complete change in
his foreign policy. One can only speculate as to the reasons behind
such a switch.
Many writers have tried to label the Nazis as socialists in a folly to
distance themselves from fascist theory. They are quick to point to
the syndicalism policy as proof of socialist regulation of business.
They are in error, of course. Syndicalism is neither left nor right in
itself. It can be either, depending upon the political structure.
Syndicalism with labor groups or consumers dominating the issues would
indeed be socialistic in nature. On the other hand, syndicalism with
only industry or business groups dominating is certainly from the
right wing of the political spectrum. The issuing of controls or goals
over the production of war material by the government in a syndicalism
system is neither left nor right, it's simply self-preservation. The
goals and controls, including the 4-Year Plan issued by Goring, were
nothing more than gearing the economy up for war time production. In
essence, they were merely self-preservation measures.

>

Secondly, they will point toward many of the public works projects
that were implemented under the Nazis as examples of socialism. An
example of this is the construction of the autobahn, a project that
had been planned by previous governments, as were many of the public
work projects. They likewise forget that the Nazis took over at the
bottom of an economic depression, public work projects were enacted
not only in Germany, but in the U. S. as well as a means to end the
depression. Many of those projects in the U. S. were the construction
of useful infrastructure, such as the building of the high school in
New Ulm, Minnesota. Others had a definite commercialism bent to them,
such as the construction of Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood in Oregon.
Labeling the construction of a facility for a commercial business as
socialism is simply fools folly. The same applies to many of the
public works projects that were implemented under the Nazis.
Labeling such programs as socialism would be the same as labeling the
construction of the interstate highway system as socialism. If the
Eisenhower administration had one shinning moment, it was his support
for the construction of the freeway system. For those that are silly
enough to label such work as socialism, let them be reminded that no
other single event, other than the construction of the cross
continental railroad aided the development of business. Besides the
obvious advantage to shippers, the interstate highway system has
spawned many new businesses. Think of the number of motels/hotels as
well as the tourist traps, service stations, and others that have
grown up along the freeway system. The same applies to Germany and the
autobahn.
Finally, the same writers that label fascism as socialism would like
their readers to believe that these government regulations and
bureaucratic offices held ultimate power. Failure to comply would
result in the owners being shot. Nothing could be further from the
truth. The Nazis for a large part lived in fear of the leaders of big
business. They were aware that they had no comprehensive economic plan
and would defer to the judgement of the business leaders.
This point can be driven home with one simple example. Goering was one
of the Nazis that had little economic knowledge, but harbored some of
the more radical economic ideas and was fond of using regulatory
offices. Goering tried first to persuade the steel industry, both the
smelters and miners, to use low-grade German ore as opposed to the
high-grade Swedish ore. Importation of ore from Sweden would use up
precious foreign currency, as well as being a less reliable source in
the event of war. The invasions of Denmark and Norway were conducted
solely to protect the Nazis shipping routes for the Swedish ore. Most
of the industrialists politely refused Goering's request; even under
threats of arrest for sabotage, they still declined.54 None were
arrested for refusal. Instead Goering formed the Herman Goering Works
to take on the task. By the time of the outbreak of the war it had
evolved to be one of the largest companies in Germany.
Farben is another example of the Nazis bowing to the expertise of
leading corporations. With the advent of the first 4-Year Plan, they
realized they needed the cooperation of business leadership in order
to achieve self-sufficiency in a series of raw materials and finished
products. Most of which were items would be crucial to wartime
production. By the end of the war Farben, had a series of factories
around concentration camps, were major users of slave labor, along
with Krupp and many other corporations.
But the most damning evidence of the Nazi's unbridled corporatism was
evident shortly after passage of the Enabling Act, when Hjalmar
Schacht was appointed president of the Reichsbank. Schacht was a
brilliant financier who helped negotiate the Dawes Plan and was
largely responsible for stabilizing the currency in 1923; he also
detested democracy and parliamentarianism. His first official act was
the creation of Metall-Forschungsgesellschaft A.G. (Mefo), a dummy
corporation of four armament firms. The state assumed the liability
for their debts. The Mefo bills were not unlike promissory notes, they
were issued to government contractors and could be extended to five
years.55 Such favoritism of business is certainly not socialism. Today
in America such corporate aid is labeled as corporate welfare. Note
the similarity here not only to the present corporate welfare that's
being doled out, but also to Eisenhower's warning of the military-
industrial complex. The American military-industrial complex didn't
need to invent a new plan, they were simply free to follow the example
the Nazis used. In fact fascism is inseparatable from corporatism. You
simply cannot have a fascist government without corporations and a
capitalistic economy.
Schacht was later appointed to minister of economics in 1934, a post
he retained until he resigned in 1937 over policy disputes. He was not
an anti-Semitic and was conscious of the negative aspects of the
takeover of Jewish business on both the economy and world opinion. By
1936, he was advocating slowing down the rearmament program, fearing
the return of inflation.56 The return of inflation dispenses with the
myths that the Nazis maintained strict control of corporations and the
prices of goods in short order. In effect, such controls were non-
existent. It should also be pointed out here that the economy at this
time had taken on considerable shades of a consumer economy.
Italy used their form of syndicalism to eliminate labor unions; the
Nazis followed a similar path. The workers benefited little from this
unbridled corporatism. Unemployment went from an official figure of
six million unemployed in 1933, to 2.7 million in 1937, and by the
time of the outbreak of war there was a serious shortage of workers.
But growth in wages was far less spectacular, real wages rose only
sparingly. The index of wages rose from 92.5 in 1933 to 103 in 1937,
an increase of a meager eleven-percent.57 Much of the increase in
wages was achieved only from working longer hours. The only real
increases in the plight of the workers came with more unpaid leave.
Many of the other benefits produced no real benefits to the worker,
such as the factory beautification program.
From looking at the philosophers of fascism, it was revealed that
fascism was a reactionary movement. What then was the fascist reacting
to that led to the rise of Mussolini and Hitler? Many people
responding to the question would simply answer the Treaty of
Versailles. But such an answer is only partially correct. It doesn't
account for the widespread rise of fascism in many European countries
following WWI. In fact, during the period between the two world wars,
every government from the Rhine to the Pacific underwent drastic
changes. In many of those fascism had ample support but in the end was
rejected. Some of the problem can be laid to the beginning dissolution
of the British Empire and the arbitrary way in which maps were redrawn
following WWI without regard to ethnic or natural barriers. An example
would be the cobbled mess of ethnic groups that formed the former
republic of Yugoslavia, an area that remains a hot spot today.
Britain and the United States were about the only two governments that
did not undergo a major change during the period between the wars.
However, neither was immune to the rise of fascism. The U. S. saw a
rise of a great many fascist groups and groups closely aligned with
the fascist in the period between the wars. The German Bund, the
Silver Shirts and the mother's movement were all aligned closely with
fascism. It was also this period that seen the greatest membership in
the Ku Klux Klan.
The United States avoided full-blown fascism by essentially adopting
fascist methods on a milder scale. This was a shameful period in the
history of America. The infamous Palmer raids rounded up those with
communist connections. The I.W.W was harassed constantly by Hoover and
the FBI. In short, only those with non-approved political beliefs
would be prosecuted. This suppression of liberty had actually begun
around 1900. At the turn of the century, both conservative and liberal
elements combined to pass a blizzard of new laws. This effort aimed at
curbing lawless quickly became dominated by conservative elements and
evolved in a tool for the right wing for the remainder of the century.
As head of the FBI, Hoover quickly targeted the leaders of the left
for prosecution, ignoring the criminal actions of the hard right
groups. This has left the United States without any noticeable left
wing compared to the rest of the industrial world.
Perhaps one of the first and most notable events was the trial of
Sacco and Vanzetti, two immigrants charged with murder in
Massachusetts. They were found guilty more on their political beliefs
than on evidence. They were anarchists, atheists, and reportedly draft
dodgers, beliefs that threatened the industrialists of the time.64
Both were executed after considerable protest. Their trial set a
dangerous standard that people could be prosecuted for their political
beliefs. The inclusion of this trial here is to serve as a reminder of
a new problem that is emerging to confront the hard right, jury
nullification. Today there is considerable debate from both sides of
the political spectrum on jury nullification arising in death penalty
and drug cases. It warrants close observation. If the public becomes
too polarized, it could spell the end to the trial by jury system,
which has served admirably for over 200 years.
Various members of the right wing are now using this as an issue in
another attempt to polarize the electorate for their own selfish
purposes. These members of the right wing are promoting a system of
justice backed by mob or vigilante justice. Essentially, it's a system
backed by violence that is not unlike the tactics used by the Posse
Comitatus, the Freemen, or various militias to corrupt the justice
system.
The first example of political repression came in Minnesota. The then
Republican Governor Burnquist used the newly created Minnesota
Commission of Public Safety to suspend New Ulm's Mayor Fritsche and
City Attorney Pfaender for their pacifist views after war had been
declared on Germany in 1917. The following quote details some of the
shameful actions taken by the commission and its connection to the
hard right.
In April 1917, soon after America declared war on Germany, the
Minnesota Legislature, following ferocious debate, created the
Minnesota Commission of Public Safety. This remarkable body, chaired
and appointed by the governor, was given "all necessary power" to
maintain order and enhance Minnesota's contribution to the war effort.
Technically limited by the state and federal constitutions, the
commission essentially wielded all the authority of state government
during the 18 months of its active existence. >
The commission came to be dominated by representatives of the Twin
Cities business community. It used its sweeping authority with gusto,
not only to root out ``disloyalty'' but to combat labor unionism and
agrarian activism as well.
The commission dispatched detectives throughout Minnesota to
investigate people and organizations suspected of disloyalty. It
regulated food prices and the liquor trade, imposing prohibition in
some parts of the state. It banned union organizing and intervened on
the side of management in a bitter Twin Cities streetcar strike. It
created a ``Home Guard'' of some 8,000 troops to back up its decrees.
The commission served as a virtual campaign committee for Republican
Gov. Joseph Burnquist in his 1918 re-election bid. It turned a blind
eye toward frequent mob harassment of his opponents. It interrogated
and intimidated Minnesotans who declined to purchase Liberty Bonds to
finance the war effort.63
Nor was such action confined to just Minnesota, many states set up
similar commissions. State sponsored violence against leaders from the
left was common place. One group that suffered immeasurably was the
I.W.W, the Wobblies. On Nov 5, 1916, Washington State suffered its
bloodiest labor battle of all time. The resulting carnage between a
local sheriff and the Wobblies left seven dead and over fifty wounded
in the city of Everett.65
All three of these events illustrate that the United States repressed
those with radical ideas in the time period of WWI and immediately
thereafter. Pacifist, labor leaders, and leftist political leaders
were all prosecuted with equal zeal. Remember, this was the time
period of the Rosewood incident and other atrocities. The prosecution
was lead by the hard right and business leaders.
But the real answer to the question is that fascism following WWI was
a reaction to the Bolshevik revolution and the rise of liberalism
ideals. Up until the Russian revolution, the only economic system was
capitalism. Communism was a new revolutionary system. It threatened
the power elite directly and gave way to a rise not only in communism
but socialism and liberalism as well. It was no accident that fascism
arose first in Italy, where in the period of 1919-1922, socialists
ruled in many localities. Here fascism arose in the countryside were
old practices such as sharecropping were giving way to new methods. In
1920, the largest strike in Italian agriculture ever was settled when
the landowners capitulated. Elsewhere, unions were wringing out
concessions from the owners through strikes and boycotts.58

>
The real appeal of European fascism was the protection it afforded
against working class movements, socialism, and communism.59 Hobsbawm
states it even more forcefully in claiming that without the October
revolution and Leninism there would have been no need for fascism. For
up until that time, the demagogic right, although politically active
and noisy in many countries, had been kept in check.60 The entire Nazi
movement was a reactionary movement. The reaction to the Treaty of
Versailles is well known and needs no further comment, as is the
opposition of fascism to liberalism, socialism and communism. Rather,
the following quote will show how complete the reaction was to the
events of the time.
"Today Christians... stand at the head of Germany... I pledge that I
never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity...We
want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit... We want to
burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the
theater, and in the press- in short, we want to burn out the poison of
immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a
result of liberal excess during the past...few years."61 <
The quote above was taken from a speech delivered by Hitler. It
provides the illustration that the Nazi movement was completely a
reactionary movement, reacting not only to global power politics and
the rise of the left, but also to the changes in arts and culture of
the time. It also provides the link to demonstrate that today's hard
right movement in the U. S. is equally reactionary, in particular, the
element of the so-called religious right. Contrast it with the quote
by Pat Robertson below.
"The Constitution of the United States, for instance, is a marvelous
document for self-governmentby Christian people. But the minute you
turn the document into the hands of non-Christian and atheistic people
they can use it to destroy the very foundation of our society."-Pat
Robertson (The 700 Club, Dec. 30, 1981)62
Apparently, Robertson is under the impression that the constitution
applies to only those he chooses and is null and void for the rest of
us. Hitler held a similar contempt for democracy. However, the point
that the Nazis were reactionary has been established beyond any doubt.
The reaction was not just confined to the global political scene or
economic conditions, but extended into the very roots of the culture.
Starting around 1980, fascism reared its ugly head globally. Unlike
the rise of fascism in the 1920s, this time the Reagan administration
embraced it. The administration openly promoted class warfare, allowed
the LaRocuhians access to security and intelligence agencies, filled
the EPA with Coor's lackeys, and openly supported none but the elite.
In essence, the Reagan administration was the American equivalent of
the passage of the Enabling Act.
There is no need to expand on the violent behavior of the Nazis or
fascists, as there is no dispute of their long history of violence.
Instead, the violence of various groups in the United States will be
explored. Many readers will immediately think of the violence that
arose in the 60s during the war protests. In fact, that is the great
illusion of the media. The truth is that little violence was directly
attributed to war protestors. In fact much of the violence that did
come out of the war protests was the work of the FBI.
The real story of violence in the 60s was the violence inflicted upon
the civil rights workers by the Klan. The early part of the 60s was
marred by violence, inspired by the Klan and racial hatred of right
wing groups. Eisenhower had to use National Guards to integrate the
Little Rock school system. Kennedy had to use federal marshals to
integrate Old Miss. When the Supreme Court order that busing was to be
used as a tool for integration, the violence spread nationally. The
Klan burnt school busses in Michigan to prevent integration.
Since 1980, right wing groups such as the Order, which murdered the
Denver talk show host, Berg, likewise have dominated the violence. The
leader of the Order was killed in a shoot out with law enforcement.
Another right wing group, the Posse Comitatus became a household word
only after the Kahl shoot out with law enforcement in North Dakota.
And of course there was the bombing of the Oklahoma federal building
by the right winger McVeigh. Perhaps the greatest widespread use of
violence since the Klan has been the bombing and violence directed
against abortion clinics by members of the religious right.
Violence has been the hallmark of the hard right in America dating
back at least as far as the Know Nothing Party in the 1800s and their
hatred of Catholics. It was business leaders that hired Pinkertons to
murder union organizers in earlier times. Yet there is relatively
little in the way to support that left wing groups were equally
violent. Groups like the Weathermen were violent, but the group was
never more than a small fringe group. Its extremely small size limited
the extent of its violence. One of the reasons for the lack of
widespread violence from leftist groups has already been mentioned,
the suppression of left wing groups by the FBI.
The last two traits of fascism will be explored together, as they are
related by an underlying use of symbols and the inseparable nature of
cults and religions. There is no doubt that both Hitler and Mussolini
were in effect leaders of a cult. Their extremist views would rule out
a major following otherwise. In fact, both promoted imagines
consistent with cults. Both chose to use propaganda to promote larger
than life imagines of themselves. Both Hitler and Mussolini were
Catholics; neither appeared to be particularly active members of the
church. Hitler referred to Christianity throughout Mein Kampf, as
already shown by quotes of which a few more will be included here.
"The sword will become our plow, and from the tears of war the daily
bread of future generations will grow."
"The more the linguistic Babel corroded and disorganized parliament,
the closer drew the inevitable hour of the disintegration of this
Babylonian Empire and with it the hour of freedom for my German-
Austria people."
< " the Lord's grace smiled on his ungrateful children." >
Officially, the Nazis were a Christian group, if one can assign a
religion to the group by the public policies they enacted. In this
case, the assignment is based on the following prayer that the Nazis
required to be recited in all public schools.
"Almighty God, dear heavenly Father. In Thy name let us now, in pious
spirit, begin our instruction. Enlighten us, teach us all truth,
strengthen us in all that is good, lead us not into temptation,
deliver us from all evil in order that, as good human beings, we may
faithfully perform our duties and thereby, in time and eternity, be
made truly happy. Amen."67
It is also true that the Nazis dabbled in mysticism as well. Certainly
some of the philosophers were pantheistic. But what really underlies
both the religious and mysticism aspects of the Nazis is the symbolism
buried underneath. In fact, one follower of fascism believed that the
masses were unable to understand anything other than mere slogans.
From Mein Kampf the following quote concerns the symbolism hidden
behind the Nazi flag.
" Not only that the unique colors, which all of us so passionately
love and which once won so much honor for the German people, attest
our veneration for the past; they were also the best embodiment of the
movement's will. As National Socialists, we see our program in our
flag. In red we see the social idea of the movement, in white the
nationalistic idea, in the swastika the mission of the struggle for
victory of the Aryan man, and by the same token, the victory of the
idea of creative work, which as such always has been and always will
be anti-Semitic."66
At first in the quote above, Hitler is referring to the old flag of
Germany. The choice of red was based on stealing from the communists
and was chosen deliberately to enflame the Marxists. Throughout Mein
Kampf, Hitler refers to the value of propaganda and made extensive use
of symbols to convene a subtle message of hatred.
The similarities to the right wing in America is seen. The Republicans
have introduced a flag desecration amendment to protect their
symbolism. Even more revealing was the letter Newt Gingrich
distributed to members of GOPAC. In this letter, members were to use
the following words to impart a negative image: decay, failure, sick,
liberal, unionized, welfare, corrupt, greed and intolerant. The
following words were to impart a positive imagine: share, legacy,
control, truth, and courage.68
Cults are inherently fascist in nature. The leader demands total
submersion into the cult. America today has seen far too many examples
of cults and cult behavior. A recent example, would be the Waco
incident that ended badly. However, there are several right wing
groups that do exhibit cult behavior besides the religious groups; the
LaRouchians, many of the militias, and the Order would all qualify as
cults. In addition, much of the hard right inside the Republican Party
has taken on a cult like behavior in their idolizing Reagan. The 105th
Congress renamed the Washington airport after him. In the present
Congress Congressman Matt Salmmon of Arizona has introduced a bill to
deface Mt Rushmore by adding Reagan's imagine to the monument.69
It has been shown beyond any reasonable doubt that Hitler and the
Nazis were right wing extremists best described as social darwinists,
the antithesis of socialism. It was showed that the Nazis were best
described by syndicalism model and that syndicalism is neither
socialistic nor capitalistic, inherently. Syndicalism can be either
depending upon the makeup; the Nazis were definitely capitalists in
that there was no input from labor. All input was reserved for the
industrialist. Further, it was shown that the industrialists openly
defied Nazi desires in the case of the use of low-grade ores. It was
also shown that many of the businesses that was government owned were
taken over by the government prior to the Nazis, some dating all the
way from the monarchy. Likewise, it was shown that many of the Nazi
programs would be classified as corporate welfare today. And it was
shown that the real power behind the Nazi movement was the top
elitist. This should be sufficient for anyone to dispel the myth that
the Nazis were socialist, when in fact they were capitalistic
extremists.
In defining fascism, three traits stand above all others,
totalitarian, nationalism, and extreme corporatism. In fact, one can
not have fascism without corporatism. Other traits of fascism, such as
destructive divisionism and the use of violence are secondary. As
fascist ideology evolved in the later half of the 20th Century, a
happy face was put on fascism by its leaders as they down played the
violence and racism. This can be seen best in the far right wing
extremist groups currently active in the United States.
Additionally, there is one fact that absolutely places the Nazis and
fascism in the extreme right wing portion of the political spectrum,
and not the left. No one disputes that a communist revolution attacks
the ruling elite of a country. Similarly, socialism and liberalism
also attacks the same ruling elite, but the right wing extremists try
to claim the opposite. In reality these systems merely seek methods to
ease the burden and allow the lower classes to prosper rather than
attacking the elite. The Nazis, on the other hand, did not attack the
ruling elite of Germany. The rich industrialists were allowed to
continue their ways, eased by laws that the Nazis enacted for their
benefit. Likewise, the nobility of Germany was supported by the Nazis.
In short, the Nazis adopted the ruling elite in Germany and supported
them, the exact opposite of what a left leaning political ideology
would support.
There is no better proof of the Nazi support for the ruling elite than
looking at who supported Hitler in the 1930s in America. Granted, many
lower class people were involved in the pro-Hitler movement just as in
Germany. But like Germany, it was the rich industrialists that funded
these groups. Hearst ordered his newspapers to print pro-Nazi
articles. In fact, he had them print the Nazi propaganda directly from
Gobbels. Irenee du Pont funded several pro-fascist groups. Henry Ford
was well known for his praise of Hitler and funded many pro-Nazis in
the 30s. Andrew Mellon and John D. Rockefeller were supporters of
Hitler as well. No one is foolish enough to argue that these men were
not part of the ruling elite or rich industrialists in America at the
time. In fact, support for Hitler among the rich industrialists was
rampant.
The continued propagation of such nonsense by the present right wing
is nothing short of propaganda. It fits closely with the Nazis' use of
propaganda and the symbolism proposed by Gingrich and his negative
words. nor will it change the history of the right wing support of the
Nazis.

1. http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n1124.cfm
2. Why Americans Hate Politics, E. J. Dionne, Touchstone, 1991,
p152-154.
3. Thomas Jefferson: In his Own Words, Maureen Harrison & Steve
Gilbert, Barnes & Noble, 1996, p369.
4. http://www.friesian.com/arthur.htm
5. http://www.miami.edu/phi/schopnh.htm
http://members.aol.com/KathorenaE/private/philo/Nietz/nietz.html
http://userzweb.lightspeed.net/~tameri/nietz.html
http://users.aol.com/Irdetrigen/index4.html
< http://www.us.itd.umich.edu/~alexboko/zar/
http://www.pitt.edu/~wbeurry/nietzsche.html
http://www.ewu.edu/~millerj/nietzsche.index.html
6. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/bergson.htm
7. Himmler, Peter Padfield, MJF books,1990, p260.
8. Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler, Houghton Mifflin, 1971, p 394.
9. Mein Kampf, p325.
< 10. Lott renounces White Racialist Group He praised in 1992, Thomas
Edsell, Washington Post, Dec 16,1998.
11. http://www.cofcc.org/
12. Thirty Days, Henry Ashby Turner, Addison-Welsey, 1996, p5.
13. Thirty Days, p9-15.
14. Thirty Days, p164.
15. Mein Kampf, p645-646.<
16. Mein Kampf, p218.
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75. Southern Exposure, Stetson Kennedy, DoubleDay, 1946, p189




>
> "Peter Franks" <n...@none.com> wrote in messagenews:kmrkbi$780$1...@dont-email.me...

[Nickname unavailable]

snicker:
In Norway Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism:Norway has more entrepreneurs
per capita than the United States:there is no statistical evidence to
prove that low taxes result in economic prosperity:)



this is a long read, so it will be a tough one for conservatives/
libertarians/fascists. but the author has tried to keep it as simple
as possible for those folks. it ain't no cat in the hat though, so it
will probably go whoosh way over their pointy little heads. but, here
it is, in plain simple english, and it wipes away free market/supply
side/trickle down/lassie faire chicanery:)



http://www.inc.com/magazine/20110201/in-norway-start-ups-say-ja-to-socialism.html



In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism
We venture to the very heart of the hell that is Scandinavian socialism
—and find out that it’s not so bad. Pricey, yes, but a good place to
start and run a company. What exactly does that suggest about the link
between taxes and entrepreneurship?
Today's Small Business News
Daily news from around the Web recommended by Inc.'s reporters
Wiggo Dalmo is a classic entrepreneurial type: the Working-Class Kid
Made Good.
Dalmo, who is 39, with sandy blond hair and an easy smile, grew up in
modest circumstances in a blue-collar town dominated by the steel
industry. After graduating from high school, he apprenticed as an
industrial mechanic and got a job repairing mining equipment.
He liked the challenge of the work but not the drudgery of working for
someone else. "I never felt like there was a place for me as an
employee," Dalmo explains as we drive past spent chemical drums and
enormous mounds of scrap metal on the road that leads to his office.
When he needed an inexpensive part to complete a repair, company rules
required Dalmo to fill out a purchase order and wait days for
approval, when he knew he could simply walk into a hardware store and
buy one. He resented this on a practical level—and as an insult to his
intelligence. "I wanted more responsibility at my job, more control,"
he says. "I wanted freedom."
In 1998, Dalmo quit his job, bought a used pickup truck, and started
calling on clients as an independent contractor. By year's end, he had
six employees, all mechanics, and he was making more money than he
ever had. Within three years, his new company, Momek, was booking more
than $1 million a year in revenue and quickly expanding into new lines
of business. He built a machine shop and began manufacturing parts for
oil rigs, and he started bidding on and winning contracts to staff oil
drilling sites and mines throughout the country. He kept hiring, kept
bidding, and when he looked around a decade later, he had a $44
million company with 150 employees.
As his company grew, Dalmo adopted the familiar habits of successful
entrepreneurs. He bought a Porsche, a motorcycle, and a wardrobe of
polo shirts with his corporate logo on the chest. As rock music blasts
from the speakers in his office, Dalmo tells me that he is proud of
the company he has created. "We tried to build a family, and we have
succeeded," he says. "I have no friends outside this company."
This is exactly the kind of pride I often hear from the CEOs I have
met while working at Inc., but for one important difference: Whereas
most entrepreneurs in Dalmo's position develop a retching distaste for
paying taxes, Dalmo doesn't mind them much. "The tax system is good—
it's fair," he tells me. "What we're doing when we are paying taxes is
buying a product. So the question isn't how you pay for the product;
it's the quality of the product." Dalmo likes the government's
services, and he believes that he is paying a fair price.
This is particularly surprising, because the prices Dalmo pays for
government services are among the highest in the world. He lives and
works in the small city of Mo i Rana, which is about 17 miles south of
the Arctic Circle in Norway. As a Norwegian, he pays nearly 50 percent
of his income to the federal government, along with a substantial
additional tax that works out to roughly 1 percent of his total net
worth. And that's just what he pays directly. Payroll taxes in Norway
are double those in the U.S. Sales taxes, at 25 percent, are roughly
triple.
Last year, Dalmo paid $102,970 in personal taxes on his income and
wealth. I know this because tax returns, like most everything else in
Norway, are a matter of public record. Anyone anywhere can log on to a
website maintained by the government and find out what kind of scratch
a fellow Norwegian taxpayer makes—be he Ole Einar Bjørndalen, the
famous Norwegian biathlete, or Ole the next-door neighbor. This, Dalmo
explains, has a chilling effect on any desire he might have to live
even larger. "When you start buying expensive stuff, people start to
talk," says Dalmo. "I have to be careful, because some of the people
who are judging are my potential customers."
Welcome to Norway, where business is radically transparent, militantly
egalitarian, and, of course, heavily taxed. This is socialism, the
sort of thing your average American CEO has nightmares about. But not
Dalmo—and not most Norwegians. "The capitalist system functions well,"
Dalmo says. "But I'm a socialist in my bones."
Norway, population five million, is a very small, very rich country.
It is a cold country and, for half the year, a dark country. (The sun
sets in late November in Mo i Rana. It doesn't rise again until the
end of January.) This is a place where entire cities smell of drying
fish—an odor not unlike the smell of rotting fish—and where, in the
most remote parts, one must be careful to avoid polar bears. The food
isn't great.
Bear strikes, darkness, and whale meat notwithstanding, Norway is also
an exceedingly pleasant place to make a home. It ranked third in
Gallup's latest global happiness survey. The unemployment rate, just
3.5 percent, is the lowest in Europe and one of the lowest in the
world. Thanks to a generous social welfare system, poverty is almost
nonexistent.
Norway is also full of entrepreneurs like Wiggo Dalmo. Rates of start-
up creation here are among the highest in the developed world, and
Norway has more entrepreneurs per capita than the United States,
according to the latest report by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor,
a Boston-based research consortium. A 2010 study released by the U.S.
Small Business Administration reported a similar result: Although
America remains near the top of the world in terms of entrepreneurial
aspirations -- that is, the percentage of people who want to start new
things—in terms of actual start-up activity, our country has fallen
behind not just Norway but also Canada, Denmark, and Switzerland.
If you care about the long-term health of the American economy, this
should seem strange—maybe even troubling. After all, we have been told
for decades that higher taxes are without-a-doubt, no-question-about-
it Bad for Business. President Obama recently bragged that his
administration had passed "16 different tax cuts for America's small
businesses over the last couple years. These are tax cuts that can
help America—help businesses...making new investments right now."
Since the Reagan Revolution, which drastically cut tax rates for
wealthy individuals and corporations, we have gotten used to hearing
these sorts of announcements from our leaders. Few have dared to argue
against tax cuts for businesses and business owners. Questioning
whether entrepreneurs really need tax cuts has been like asking if
soldiers really need weapons or whether teachers really need textbooks—
a possible position, sure, but one that would likely get you laughed
out of the room if you suggested it. Or thrown out of elected office.
Taxes in the U.S. have fallen dramatically over the past 30 years. In
1978, the top federal tax rates were as follows: 70 percent for
individuals, 48 percent for corporations, and almost 40 percent on
capital gains. Americans as a whole paid the ninth-lowest taxes among
countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, a group of 34 of the largest democratic, market
economies. Today, the top marginal tax rates are 35 percent, 35
percent, and 15 percent, respectively. (Even these rates overstate the
level of taxation in America. Few large corporations pay anywhere near
the 35 percent corporate tax; Warren Buffett has famously said that he
pays 18 percent in income tax.) Only two countries in the OECD—Chile
and Mexico—pay a lower percentage of their gross domestic product in
taxes than we Americans do.
But there is precious little evidence to suggest that our low taxes
have done much for entrepreneurs—or even for the economy as a whole.
"It's actually quite hard to say how tax policy affects the economy,"
says Joel Slemrod, a University of Michigan professor who served on
the Council of Economic Advisers under Ronald Reagan. Slemrod says
there is no statistical evidence to prove that low taxes result in
economic prosperity. Some of the most prosperous countries—for
instance, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, and, yes, Norway—also have some of
the highest taxes. Norway, which in 2009 had the world's highest per-
capita income, avoided the brunt of the financial crisis: From 2006 to
2009, its economy grew nearly 3 percent. The American economy grew
less than one-tenth of a percent during the same period. Meanwhile,
countries with some of the lowest taxes in Europe, like Ireland,
Iceland, and Estonia, have suffered profoundly. The first two nearly
went bankrupt; Estonia, the darling of antitax groups like the Cato
Institute, currently has an unemployment rate of 16 percent. Its
economy shrank 14 percent in 2009.
Moreover, the typical arguments peddled by business groups and in the
editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal— the idea, for instance,
that George W. Bush's tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 created economic growth
—are problematic. The unemployment rate rose following the passage of
both tax-cut packages, and economic growth during Bush's eight years
in office badly lagged growth during the Clinton presidency, before
the tax cuts were passed.
And so the case of Norway—one of the most entrepreneurial, most
heavily taxed countries in the world—should give us pause. What if we
have been wrong about taxes? What if tax cuts are nothing like weapons
or textbooks? What if they don't matter as much as we think they do?
I'm sure I've already pissed off some people with that question—and
not just the rich ones. It's hard these days to say anything positive
about taxes without being accused of economic treason. President
Barack Obama's health care plan and his proposal to allow certain Bush
tax cuts to expire in 2012—a move that would cause the top marginal
tax rate on individuals to go up by 4.6 basis points, to the rate that
prevailed in the late 1990s—have caused the administration to be
eviscerated by business groups and their allies. "We are essentially
undoing the very thing that has made America exceptional: the free
enterprise system," wrote congressional candidate (and now a
Republican congressman from New York) Richard Hanna in a letter
published by the National Federation of Independent Business. "We can
no longer devalue the energy of the entrepreneur this way." Newt
Gingrich, a presidential hopeful and the former Speaker of the House,
has called Obama's presidency the first step toward "European
socialism and secularism," which he has suggested is a greater threat
to our country than Islamic terrorism.
The idea that Americans should be more terrified of Norwegian
economists than of al Qaeda bombmakers is pretty nutty, but I couldn't
help wondering: How bad would European socialism really be? What if
President Obama's health care and tax policies—which so far have been
modest by European standards—are just the beginning? What if his
proposal to allow the income tax rate on the richest Americans to rise
by several basis points is just the first step? What if, say, by some
crazy backdoor dealing involving Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and the
Ghost of Ted Kennedy, liberals manage something more sweeping: taxes
of 50 percent, a government-run health care system, an expansion of
Social Security, and sweeping regulations on business?
In other words, instead of some American version of European
socialism, what if we got the genuine article? What if the nightmare
scenario were real? What if you woke up tomorrow as a CEO in a
socialist country?
To answer this question, I spent two weeks in Norway, seeking out
entrepreneurs in all sorts of industries and circumstances.I met fish
farmers in the country's northern hinterlands and cosmopolitan techies
in Oslo, the capital. I met start-up founders who were years away from
having to worry about making money and then paying taxes on it, and I
met established entrepreneurs who every year fork over millions of
dollars to the authorities. (Norway's currency is the kroner. I have
converted all figures in this article to dollars.)
The first thing I learned is that Norwegians don't think about taxes
the way we do. Whereas most Americans see taxes as a burden, Norwegian
entrepreneurs tend to see them as a purchase, an exchange of cash for
services. "I look at it as a lifelong investment," says Davor Sutija,
CEO of Thinfilm, a Norwegian start-up that is developing a low-cost
version of the electronic tags retailers use to track merchandise.
Sutija has a unique perspective on this matter: He is an American who
grew up in Miami and, 20 years ago, married a Norwegian woman and
moved to Oslo. In 2009, as an employee of Thinfilm's former parent
company, he earned about $500,000, half of which he took home and half
of which went to the Kingdom of Norway. (The country's tax system is
progressive, and the highest tax rates kick in at $124,000. From
there, the income tax rate, including a national insurance tax, is
47.8 percent.) If he had stayed in the U.S., he would have paid at
least $50,000 less in taxes, but he has no regrets. (For a detailed
comparison, see "How High Is Up?") "There are no private schools in
Norway," he says. "All schooling is public and free. By being in
Norway and paying these taxes, I'm making an investment in my family."
For a modestly wealthy entrepreneur like Sutija, the value of living
in this socialist country outweighs the cost. Every Norwegian worker
gets free health insurance in a system that produces longer life
expectancy and lower infant mortality rates than our own. At age 67,
workers get a government pension of up to 66 percent of their working
income, and everyone gets free education, from nursery school through
graduate school. (Amazingly, this includes colleges outside the
country. Want to send your kid to Harvard? The Norwegian government
will pick up most of the tab.) Disability insurance and parental leave
are also extremely generous. A new mother can take 46 weeks of
maternity leave at full pay—the government, not the company, picks up
the tab—or 56 weeks off at 80 percent of her normal wage. A father
gets 10 weeks off at full pay.
These are benefits afforded to every Norwegian, regardless of income
level. But it should be said that most Norwegians make about the same
amount of money. In Norway, the typical starting salary for a worker
with no college education is a very generous $45,000, while the
starting salary for a Ph.D. is about $70,000 a year. (This makes
certain kinds of industries, such as textile manufacturing,
impossible; on the other hand, technology businesses are very cheap to
run.) Between workers who do the same job at a given company, salaries
vary little, if at all. At Wiggo Dalmo's company, everyone doing the
same job makes the same salary.
The result is that successful companies find other ways to motivate
and retain their employees. Dalmo's staff may consist mostly of
mechanics and machinists, but he treats them like Google engineers.
Momek employs a chef who prepares lunch for the staff every day. The
company throws a blowout annual party—the tab last year was more than
$100,000. Dalmo supplements the standard government health plan with a
$330-per-employee-per-year private insurance plan that buys employees
treatment in private hospitals if a doctor isn't immediately available
in a public one. These benefits have kept turnover rates at Momek
below 2 percent, compared with 7 percent in the industry.
But it takes more than perks to keep a worker motivated in Norway. In
a country with low unemployment and generous unemployment benefits, a
worker's threat to quit is more credible than it is in the United
States, giving workers more leverage over employers. And though Norway
makes it easy to lay off workers in cases of economic hardship, firing
an employee for cause typically takes months, and employers generally
end up paying at least three months' severance. "You have to be a much
more democratic manager," says Bjørn Holte, founder and CEO of bMenu,
an Oslo-based start-up that makes mobile versions of websites. Holte
pays himself $125,000 a year. His lowest-paid employee makes more than
$60,000. "You can't just treat them like machines," he says. "If you
do, they'll be gone."
If the Norwegian system forces CEOs to be more conciliatory to their
employees, it also changes the calculus of entrepreneurship for
employees who hope to start their own companies. "The problem for
entrepreneurship in Norway is it's so lucrative to be an employee,"
says Lars Kolvereid, the lead researcher for the Global
Entrepreneurship Monitor in Norway. Whereas in the U.S., about one-
quarter of start-ups are founded by so-called necessity entrepreneurs—
that is, people who start companies because they feel they have no
good alternative—in Norway, the number is only 9 percent, the third
lowest in the world after Switzerland and Denmark, according to the
Global Entrepreneurship Monitor.
This may help explain why entrepreneurship in Norway has thrived, even
as it stagnates in the U.S. "The three things we as Americans worry
about—education, retirement, and medical expenses—are things that
Norwegians don't worry about," says Zoltan J. Acs, a professor at
George Mason University and the chief economist for the Small Business
Administration's Office of Advocacy. Acs thinks the recession in the
U.S. has intensified this disparity and is part of the reason America
has slipped in the past few years. When the U.S. economy is booming,
the absence of guaranteed health care isn't a big concern for aspiring
founders, but with unemployment near double digits, would-be
entrepreneurs are more cautious. "When the middle class is shrinking,
the pool of entrepreneurs is shrinking," says Acs.
The downside to Norway's security, of course, is that it is expensive.
Norway has substantial oil reserves—but most of the proceeds are
invested abroad in a sovereign wealth fund. Norway's generous social
benefits are financed largely from taxes that fall heavily on the
country's richest people. The most controversial of these taxes is a
wealth tax, a 1.1 percent annual levy on the entirety of a person's
holdings above about $117,000, including stock in private companies
held by the owner.
In search of an opinion on how such soak-the-successful policies
affect the truly successful, I visited the tiny town of Misvær, a
mountain hamlet in the country's interior, 38 miles north of the
Arctic Circle. To get to Misvær, I took a small plane from Oslo to
Bodø, where I was met by a gorgeous twentysomething blonde in a flight
suit. She was, I somehow knew instantly, the pilot for Inger Ellen
Nicolaisen, the country's answer to Donald Trump and the most
flamboyant character in a country that prefers its wealthy to go about
their business modestly.
After a short helicopter ride over a fjord and some mountains, we
touch down in a snow-covered backyard, where we are greeted by a
positively feudal scene: Nicolaisen trots out from the house, a
modernistic structure perched far above the rest of the town like some
enormous suburban castle, followed by five dogs—two Great Danes, two
toy poodles, and a bulldog. She has shoulder-length platinum blond
hair and wears teal contact lenses and knee-high boots, looking
entirely unlike the 52-year-old mother of three that she is. "Welcome
to Miami," she yells above the roar of the helicopter.
She leads me inside, where we are attended by a pair of servants who
bring us coffee, pastries, and, though it's not quite noon, champagne.
Nicolaisen's husband—her second, a 39-year-old former professional
soccer player— eventually shows up and immediately begins assisting
the servants. Later, he shows me around the grounds on a six-wheel all-
terrain vehicle. There are the grazing sheep, the three teepees
equipped with heat, electricity, and full bars—Nicolaisen uses the
structures for corporate retreats—and the pack of Icelandic horses. As
we rumble around on the ATV, it seems clear to me that these are the
sort of people who should be animated by the wealth tax—and who won't
mind saying so.
But they aren't, not really. Although Nicolaisen considers herself a
conservative, she told me the issue that most animates her is poverty,
not taxes. "Yeah, the wealth tax is a problem," she says. "But you
have to make a choice. You can live in the Cayman Islands and pay no
tax. But I don't want to live in the Cayman Islands. To live in
Norway, you have to do what you have to. I think it's worth it."
Nicolaisen is famous for being the host of the country's version of
The Apprentice and for founding Nikita, the largest chain of hair
salons in Scandinavia. Over 26 years, Nikita has expanded into a hair
care conglomerate called Raise, whose concerns include a line of
private-label products and 120 salons in Norway and Sweden. Nicolaisen
owns the $60 million company outright. Her story, which she tells in a
best-selling memoir, Drivkraft—Norwegian for driving force—is a
triumph of scrappiness. Nicolaisen dropped out of high school at 14,
when she became pregnant. In her late teens, she supported herself and
her daughter, Linda, by hawking handmade children's clothes. In her
early 20s, she moved to Bodø and got a job as the receptionist in a
hair salon. She took up with the salon's owner, they eventually
married, and she got hooked on the hair business.
Nicolaisen was never much of a stylist, but her entrepreneurial
ambitions quickly outstripped her husband's."My first goal was five
salons—that seemed like a big goal," says Nicolaisen. She would
eventually divorce her husband and take over the business completely.
By 2000, she had expanded to 50 salons, and she found herself at a
crossroads. She was booking $21 million in revenue a year, and the
company was throwing off enough cash to allow her to live well. "I had
to decide: Should I relax, stop growing, and just earn a lot of money,
or should I expand?" she says. "I realized I couldn't stop there, so I
set the next goal at 500. Because, you know—5, 50, 500—it made sense."
I would have thought that Norway's tax system would discourage this
kind of thinking, but it doesn't seem to have been a factor. When I
asked her why she bothered growing, she said simply, "I'm an
entrepreneur. It's in my backbone."
This was the attitude of even those entrepreneurs who strenuously
objected to the Norwegian tax regimen, which I learned when I traveled
to Stokmarknes and visited the region's best-known entrepreneur, Inge
Berg. Berg's company, a fish-farming enterprise called Nordlaks, is a
half-hour's flight north of Bodø. The cold North Atlantic waters there
make for ideal spawning grounds for salmon, cod, and herring.
We hop into an inflatable skiff and, with Berg in the cockpit, motor
across the fjord to one of the company's 23 fish farms. There are
three floating pens, barely visible from a distance, each housing
50,000 teenage salmon jostling to catch the food pellets that are
being blown over the pens from a nearby barge. When Berg started as a
fish farmer, it was his job to hand-feed the fish, dumping bucket
after bucket of feed over the pens.
From the farm, we take the boat back to Berg's slaughterhouse and
packing facility, where the same salmon will eventually meet their
demise at a breathtaking rate of one fish per second. "One of the
reasons we've been successful is that we've focused exclusively on
salmon and trout farming—some other companies tried to expand to the
tourist industry or the cod industry," Berg says over the din of the
machines. "We invest everything in improving the process." Berg
proudly catalogs a number of innovations—a flash-freezing process, a
robotic packing system, and a fish oil plant that ensures that no fish
scrap is wasted. For now, the oil is mainly used in livestock feed,
but Berg brags that he has made sure it is approved for human
consumption, then proves his point by pouring me a shot of the viscous
pink liquid. (It smelled and tasted awful, but to his point, I did not
die.)
In 2009, Nordlaks pulled in $62 million in profits on revenue of $207
million, making Berg, the sole owner, a very rich man. Although the
Norwegian wealth tax includes generous deductions that allow Berg to
report a net worth of about $30 million, far less than he would net if
he sold his company, his tax bill is still substantial. Even if
Nordlaks made no profits, paid no dividends, and paid its owner no
salary, Berg would owe the Norwegian government a third of a million
dollars a year. "Every year, I have to take a dividend, just to pay
the tax," he says, sounding genuinely angry.
Berg is successful enough that paying the wealth tax is no hardship—in
2009, he took a dividend of nearly $10 million—but when a company
slips into the red, entrepreneurs can find themselves in trouble. "If
a company grows to a large size and then has two bad years in a row,
the founder may be forced to sell some stock," says Erlend Bullvåg, a
business-school professor at the University of Nordland and an adviser
to the Norwegian central bank. But none of the entrepreneurs I spoke
with had been forced to sell stock to pay their taxes—and Bullvåg, who
has interviewed dozens of entrepreneurs on behalf of the Norwegian
central bank, hasn't encountered a case personally. Berg told me that
he hadn't given much thought to the wealth tax; he didn't even know
exactly how it was calculated. "I get so pissed sometimes," he says.
"But you just have to look forward, and it passes."
The posting of tax returns online makes tax evasion nearly impossible
in Norway, but it doesn't stop the very rich from fleeing the country
altogether. The best-known example is John Fredriksen, a shipping
tycoon worth $7.7 billion and at one time the richest Norwegian. In
2006, Fredriksen, who had kept most of his personal assets outside the
country to avoid taxes, renounced his Norwegian citizenship. He became
the richest man in Cyprus.
Fredriksen's past is murky—he is reputed to have been one of the only
exporters willing to do business with Iran after the revolution—and he
rarely gives interviews. But in 2008, he told The Wall Street Journal,
"It's almost impossible to do business in Norway today." Norway's
prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, dismissed the defection as no great
loss—Fredriksen hadn't paid personal taxes in Norway for decades, and
his companies continue to pay taxes in the country. Even so,
Fredriksen is something of a folk hero to the entrepreneurs in his
former home.
"He is cool," says Jan Egil Flo, chief financial officer of Moods of
Norway, a $35 million clothing company in Stryn. I visited Moods of
Norway's offices on my last day in Norway and chatted with Flo and his
co-founders, Simen Staalnacke and Peder Børresen. The three were able
to start their company, which makes fashionable sportswear and suits,
largely thanks to the beneficence of the Norwegian socialist system.
In 2004, they received a $20,000 start-up grant from the Norwegian
equivalent of the Small Business Administration. Staalnacke and
Børresen enrolled in a local college, because doing so meant the
government would cover most of their living expenses. This may be why,
when I ask the three founders if they might become Cypriots anytime
soon, they protest. "No, no, no," says Børresen. "We've received a lot
from Norway and Norwegian society. Giving back is not a problem."
Moods of Norway operates 10 boutiques, which, in a country of five
million, means the company has saturated its home market. Two years
ago, it opened its first store in the U.S., a 2,500-square-foot space
in Beverly Hills, and Flo is in negotiations to open stores in New
York City's SoHo neighborhood and Mall of America in Minnesota. It has
been more challenging than he expected. "It's much easier to do
business in Norway," Flo says. "The U.S. isn't one country; it's 50
countries." Although Norway may be more heavily regulated than
America, the regulations are uniform across the country and are less
apt to change drastically when the political winds blow.
In addition to regulatory stability, Flo pointed to a number of other
advantages his company enjoys in Norway. Although personal taxes on
entrepreneurs are high, the tax rate on corporate profits is low—28
percent, compared with an average of about 40 percent in combined
federal and state taxes in the U.S. A less generous depreciation
schedule and higher payroll taxes in Norway more than make up for that
difference—Norwegian companies pay 14.1 percent of the entirety of an
employee's salary, compared with 7.65 percent of the first $106,800 in
the U.S.—but that money pays for benefits such as health care and
retirement plans. "There's no big difference in cost," Flo says. In
fact, his company makes more money, after taxes, on items sold in
Norway than it does on those sold in its California shop.
Flo is pushing his business into America for reasons that have nothing
to do with our tax structure. He wants Moods of Norway to be here
because America is the largest, most influential market in the world.
"There are more Norwegians in the Minneapolis area than in Norway,"
Flo says excitedly. "If you can get known in America, then the whole
world knows you."
I heard this sort of sentiment from lots of the entrepreneurs I spoke
with in Norway. They talked about the ambition and aggressiveness of
American culture, which can't help breeding success. The younger
entrepreneurs yearned for our tradition of mentoring, whereby seasoned
entrepreneurs help nascent ones, with money or advice or both.
The more time I spent with Norwegian entrepreneurs, the more I became
convinced that the things that make the United States a great country
for entrepreneurs have little to do with the fact that we enjoy
relatively low taxes. Kenneth Winther, the founder of the Oslo
management consultancy MoonWalk, regaled me for hours about the
virtues of Norway—security, good roads, good schools. But at the end
of our interview, he confessed that he had been hedging his bets: He
intended to apply to the American green-card lottery in January. "Why
not try?" he said with a shrug.
I also became convinced of this truth, which I have observed in the
smartest American and the smartest Norwegian entrepreneurs: It's not
about the money. Entrepreneurs are not hedge fund managers, and they
rarely operate like coldly rational economic entities. This theme runs
through books like Bo Burlingham's Small Giants, about company owners
who choose not to maximize profits and instead seek to make their
companies great; and it can be found in the countless stories, many of
them told in this magazine, of founders who leave money on the table
in favor of things they judge to be more important.
At one point, I asked Wiggo Dalmo why he was still working so hard to
expand his company: Why not just have a nice life—especially given
that the authorities would take a hefty chunk of whatever additional
money he made? "For me personally, building something to change the
world is the kick," he says. "The worst thing to me is people who
chose the easiest path. We should use our wonderful years to do
something on this earth."
When I got back to the United States, I had a beer with Bjørn Holte,
the CEO of bMenu, whom I'd first met in Oslo. It was early November—
days after the congressional elections—and Holte had just arrived in
New York City, where he is opening a new office. We talked about the
commercial real estate market, the amazing cultural diversity in a
city that has twice as many people as his entire country, and the
current debate in the United States about the role of government.
Holte was fascinated by this last topic, particularly the angry
opposition to President Obama's health care reform package. "It makes
me laugh," he says. "Americans don't understand that you can't have a
functioning economy if people aren't healthy."
Holte's American subsidiary pays annual health care premiums that make
his head spin—more than $23,000 per employee for a family plan—and
that make the cost of employing a software developer in the United
States substantially higher than it is in Norway, even after taxes.
(For a full breakdown, see "Making Payroll.") Holte is no pinko—he
finds many aspects of Norwegian socialism problematic, particularly
regulations about hiring and firing—but when he looks at the costs and
benefits of taxes in each country, he sees no contest. Norway is worth
the cost.
Of course, that's only half the question when it comes to taxes. The
other, more divisive question is, What is fair? Is it right to make
rich people pay more than poor people? Would paying a greater
percentage of our income for more government services make us less
free? "I'd rather be in the U.S., where you can enjoy the fruit of
your labor, rather than a country like Norway, where your hard work is
confiscated by the government," says Curtis Dubay, senior tax policy
analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C., think tank
that advocates for lower taxes.
These are important moral issues, but, in America, they are often the
only ones we are willing to consider. We have, as Holte suggests,
become religious about economic policy. We are unable or unwilling to
make the kind of cool-headed calculations about costs and benefits
that I saw in Norway. "There's a disconnect in the way people think
about paying taxes and funding public services that's worse here than
in any other country," says Donald Bruce, a tax economist at the
University of Tennessee. "We refuse to believe that taxes can be used
for anything productive. But then we say, 'Stay out of my Social
Security. And my Medicare. And don't cut defense or national parks.' "
Our collective inability to have a rational conversation about taxes
will have consequences. In 2010, the American budget deficit hit $1.3
trillion, or 10 percent of GDP. By 2035, the deficit could be close to
16 percent of GDP, according to the report issued late last year by
the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. That
report prescribed dramatic spending cuts and tax increases. But just
weeks after it was released, President Obama and congressional
Republicans unveiled a new package of tax cuts, which will add an
extra $800 billion to the deficit over two years.
Obama has said he hopes to allow these cuts to expire in 2012 and for
income tax rates to revert to levels of the 1990s, and that is only
one of many revenue-generation ideas kicking around in policy circles.
There are also proposals for a tax on millionaires, a national sales
tax, and even a dreaded, Norwegian-style wealth tax.
When lawmakers inevitably take up these issues, it's a sure thing that
those who oppose raising revenue through tax hikes will make the
argument that higher taxes will hurt entrepreneurs. They will make it
sound as if even a modest tax increase would represent a death knell
for American business. But the case of Norway suggests that Americans
should view these arguments with skepticism—and that American
entrepreneurs could stand to be less dogmatic about the role of
government in society.
This isn't to say that entrepreneurs don't have a right to get angry
about taxes—or to fight tax increases in the same way they might fight
any price increase by a supplier. It is to say only that, despite what
you hear from Washington politicians and activist groups, the tax rate
is probably far from the most important issue facing your business.
Entrepreneurs can thrive under almost any regime, even the scourge of
European socialism. "Taxes matter, but their effect is small in
magnitude," says Bruce. "In the end, decisions entrepreneurs make are
about more important things: Is there a market for what you're making?
Are you doing something relevant for the economy? If the answer is no,
then taxes don't matter much."
Max Chafkin is Inc.'s senior writer.

[Nickname unavailable]

limited government stifles growth and is bad for business:)socialized
governments provide critical support for business growth including
first class infrastructure built by the public sector/retraining of
workers/public education systems that result in better-prepared
workforces comparative to the US

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/22/stocks-socialized-us-countries-reagan_n_882270.html



Alex Wagner alex....@huffingtonpost.com Become a fan of this
reporter



Stocks Of Socialized Countries Have Outperformed U.S. Since Reagan Era

First Posted: 06/22/11 02:49 PM ET Updated: 06/22/11 03:35 PM ET

American traders aren't likely to take kindly to the suggestion that
big government might be good for the stock market. But data from a
paper on the job- and income-growth of top earners shows that stock
prices in some socialized countries, relative to themselves and
adjusted for inflation, have done considerably better than those in
the U.S over the last two and a half decades.
Specifically, during the twenty five years after Ronald Reagan took
office -- a pro-market honeymoon that Ryan Chittum of the Columbia
Journalism Review this week termed "the ascent of laissez-faire
economic policies" -- French stock prices have performed significantly
better than Americans ones, according to the report by Jon Bakija,
Adam Cole, and Bradley Heim.
A further examination of the 39-year period extending from the end of
the Nixon administration until 2008 shows the Swedish economy, known
for its high taxes and heavy regulation, growing at a significantly
higher rate than the US.
The authors conclude that big government might not actually stand in
contradiction to a productive economy: "Countries with typically high
levels of government involvement in the economy, such as Sweden,
Denmark and Canada, do not appear to have experienced stifled economic
growth relative to countries where government involvement is more
limited, like the US," the report says.
With bastions of socialism -- Sweden Canada and France -- outpacing
American market prices, does this mean it's time for Wall Streeters to
start calling croissants "Freedom bagels?" Probably not.
According to Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a research fellow specializing in
European economies at the Peterson Institute for International
Economics, the disparity between the American and European markets
might have more to do with the period in question than governmental
forces.
"In 1981, [Francois] Mitterand was elected president of France, and
the first thing he did was to nationalize a bunch of French businesses
and most of the banking system," Kirkegaard explained. "But going
forward, France has moved quite dramatically towards a market-oriented
economy, though not anywhere near the scope of market and economic
freedom as perceived in the U.S."

If Swedish and French markets have shown considerable strength
compared to American ones, Kirkegaard posited that "these countries
benefited from a more rapid shift to a market economy than in the U.S.
over this period. The starting point was much more hostile. That’s
what you see in the growth."
That said, Kirkegaard also dismissed the traditional American
capitalist contention that socialism is bad for market growth: "A lot
of the finger-pointing we do at these countries is totally misleading.
It's a myth."
Kirkegaard says that many socialized governments provide critical
support for business growth, including first class infrastructure
built by the public sector, retraining of workers and public education
systems that result in better-prepared workforces, comparative to the
US. "There are a lot of areas where the role of government is a
benefit for the businesses in these countries."
"The idea that they are socialists and condemned to living in these
bread bin-style housing complexes is illusional," he said. "It's
ideological slander."
Compare the stocks of Japan, France, and U.S., or get the report here:

[Nickname unavailable]

dumb shit, the stupidity of "CONSERVATIVES".


http://terrorism.about.com/od/originshistory/a/Moluccan.htm

1975: Moluccan Hijackings, Terrorism in the Netherlands
History of terrorism in Netherlands had roots in 17th century
From Amy Zalman, Ph.D., former About.com Guide

Overview:
In 1975, members of the South Moluccan community (Indonesia) in the
Netherlands drew attention to their desire for an independent state
through hijackings and kidnappings.

Tactic/ Type: Kidnapping, murder.
Where: A municipal building in Assen, a town in the Netherlands.
When: December, 1975.
The Story:
On December 2, 1975, six men boarded a train in the Dutch town of
Assen. Armed with machine guns and hunting rifles, they took the
entire four-car train hostage, killing the train's engineer at some
point in the process. There were about 50 passengers on board. The
Moluccans, threatening to kill their hostages if their demands were
not met, requested a plane from Dutch authorities. A standoff between
the Dutch military and the kidnappers ensued for the next several
days. Some of the hostages escaped on their own, but others—including
a passenger shot in the neck by the kidnappers—remained in captivity.
Several days later, members of this same group stormed the Indonesian
consulate in Amsterdam, taking 41 people were taken hostage. Four
people were injured attempting to escape from a third floor window.
At the time of the kidnapping, there was little knowledge beyond the
Netherlands of the Dutch South Moluccan community or their discontent.
Their presence in Holland was the end of a story that began in the
17th century, when the Dutch East India company was granted permission
by the Dutch government to conduct colonial activities. The South
Moluccan islands were highly desirable "Spice Islands" where cloves
and nutmeg grew, and they became essential crossroads of colonial
trade network.
By the late 19th century, a special relationship between the Dutch and
the South Moluccan Christians, who had been converted by the Dutch, or
the Portuguese before them, developed. Those who were Christian became
civil servants, or members of the military, and received special
privileges and pay. The others on the island were Muslims; Islam had
come to the islands in the 13th through 15 centuries.
Indonesia became an independent state in 1949. The Christian minority
were concerned about their loss of power, now that the Dutch were no
longer their rulers, and had reason to expect that the Dutch would
support their claims to autonomy from the government in Jakarta.
Unwilling to be absorbed into the new Indonesian state, South Moluccan
military members declared an independent Republic of the South
Moluccas, or Republic Maluku Selatan (RMS) on April 25, 1950. The
Indonesia army put the movement down and several years later, the RMS
relocated to the Netherlands as a government-in-exile. They believed
that the Dutch would help them gain independence, but by the 1970s,
after a generation of living in relatively poor conditions—including
in one former Nazi concentration camp, Lunetten--many felt that they
had been abandoned. Suspended between a home country, Indonesia, where
they had never lived, and a home country, Holland, where they felt
like guests, South Moluccans began forming extremist groups and using
terrorist tactics to draw attention to their discontent.

[BeamMeUpScotty]

On 5/14/2013 3:16 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
> On May 13, 1:20 pm, Peter Franks <n...@none.com> wrote:
>> On 5/12/2013 11:17 PM, Bret Cahill wrote:
>>
>>>>> Let me know if you ever get answer?
>>
>>>> Somehow they think that more taxes leads to more freedom.
>>
>>> That what the framers thought after they read _Spirit of Laws_ by the
>>> "celebrated Montesquieu."
>>
>> I don't care who thought what.
>>
>> Explain to me how me paying MORE taxes increases my freedom.
>
> "The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the
> growth of 
private power to a point where it becomes stronger than
> their democratic 
state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism--
> ownership of government by an 
individual, by a group, or by any
> controlling private power."
> -Franklin D. Roosevelt
>

So Roosevelt stole "all" the power.... and consolidated it by packing
the Supreme Court?



Interesting way to make sure no one else has any power.

[David J. Hughes]

Dikes, pumping seawater, social services.

[BeamMeUpScotty]

A lot of useless, redundant, Government....

[Peter Franks]

On 5/14/2013 12:15 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
>> You need to explain how rich me paying more taxes means I have increased
>> freedom.
>

> "The liberty of a democracyis not safe if the people tolerate the

> growth of 
private power to a point where it becomes stronger than
> their democratic 
state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism--
> ownership of government by an 
individual, by a group, or by any
> controlling private power."
> -Franklin D. Roosevelt

He was a liberal so everything he says is a lie.

> " For too many of us the political equality we once had won was
> meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had
> concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over
> other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor —
> other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free;
> liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of
> happiness.

Liberal response: guilt by association, all rich must be punished
because of the actions of a "small group".

> Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could
> appeal only to the organized power of government. The collapse of 1929
> showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the
> people's mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.
> President Franklin Roosevelt "

The president is not elected to do the will of the people, but rather
execute the protections constitutionally required of him. Roosevelt
didn't understand that (he's a liberal), he thought he was king and
could do what he wanted, and acted like it.

Liberals have no capacity to understand problems, instead they resort to
broad sweeping changes that do nothing to cure the actual problem, and
instead victimize and criminalize the majority of citizens that happen
to be generally associated.

So, as we can all see you haven't explained how the rich paying more
taxes increases freedom. All that you have done is show that liberals
have no understanding of problem resolution.

[Peter Franks]

On 5/14/2013 12:14 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
> The document also granted the federal government broad
> domestic powers including authority to regulate interstate commerce,
> the so-called Commerce Clause

Then explain Wickard v. Filburn.

[Peter Franks]

So your answer to ALL of the world's problems is to increase taxes.

[Peter Franks]

On 5/14/2013 12:22 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
> limited government stifles growth and is bad for business:)socialized
> governments provide critical support for business growth including
> first class infrastructure built by the public sector/retraining of
> workers/public education systems that result in better-prepared
> workforces comparative to the US

Point out any of the following words as they relate to your assertion in
the US Constitution: business, socialism, infrastructure, (re)training,
workers, education, prepared, workforce.

[Peter Franks]

Anyone that quotes FDR should be certified insane and locked up permanently.

[Gunner Asch]

On Tue, 14 May 2013 15:19:15 -0700, Peter Franks <no...@none.com>
wrote:

>On 5/14/2013 12:15 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
>>> You need to explain how rich me paying more taxes means I have increased
>>> freedom.
>>
>> "The liberty of a democracyis not safe if the people tolerate the

>> growth of ?private power to a point where it becomes stronger than
>> their democratic ?state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism--
>> ownership of government by an ?individual, by a group, or by any

Or math.

[Nickname unavailable]

On May 14, 5:19 pm, Peter Franks <n...@none.com> wrote:
> On 5/14/2013 12:15 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
>
> >> You need to explain how rich me paying more taxes means I have increased
> >> freedom.
>
> > "The liberty of a democracyis not safe if the people tolerate the
> > growth of 
private power to a point where it becomes stronger than
> > their democratic 
state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism--
> > ownership of government by an 
individual, by a group, or by any
> > controlling private power."
> > -Franklin D. Roosevelt
>
> He was a liberal so everything he says is a lie.
>

no, the wealthy blew out the economy, and had driven millions into
poverty. and americans knew it, and he won 4 consecutive elections.

> > " For too many of us the political equality we once had won was
> > meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had
> > concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over
> > other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor —
> > other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free;
> > liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of
> > happiness.
>
> Liberal response: guilt by association, all rich must be punished
> because of the actions of a "small group".
>

no, many wealthy people are decent law abiding patriotic americans.
but as FDR stated, a small group, who were very very wealthy, achieved
complete control of the economy. even ike under stood that.

Taxes were high back in the 1950s because people understood that
constraining wild extremes of wealth would make our country stronger
and prevent another depression. (Well, what did those old fogies
know?)





http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23641.htm




What Recession?

As the Economy Crashed Around Them, 400 Richest Americans Lined Their
Pockets with $30 Billion

By Les Leopold

October 05, 2009 "Alternet' -- It's great to know that during the
worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the wealth of the
400 richest Americans, according to Forbes, actually increased by $30
billion. Well golly, that's only a 2 percent increase, much less than
the double digit returns the wealthy had grown accustomed to. But a 2
percent increase is a whole lot more than losing 40 percent of your
401k. And $30 billion is enough to provide 500,000 school teacher jobs
at $60k per year.
Collectively, those 400 have $1.57 trillion in wealth. It's hard to
get your mind around a number like that. The way I do it is to imagine
that we were still living during the great radical Eisenhower era of
the 1950s when marginal income tax rates hit 91 percent. Taxes were
high back in the 1950s because people understood that constraining
wild extremes of wealth would make our country stronger and prevent
another depression. (Well, what did those old fogies know?)
Had we kept those high progressive taxes in place, instead of removing
them, especially during the Reagan era, the Forbes 400 might each be
worth "only" $100 million instead of $3.9 billion each. So let's
imagine that the rest of their wealth, about $1.53 trillion, were
available for the public good.
What does $1.53 trillion buy?
It's more than enough to insure the uninsured for the next twenty
years or more.
It's more than enough to create a Manhattan Project to solve global
warming by developing renewable energy and a green, sustainable
manufacturing sector.
And here's my favorite: It's more than enough to endow every public
college and university in the country so that all of our children
could gain access to higher education for free, forever!
Instead, we embarked on a grand experiment to see what would happen if
we deregulated finance and changed the tax code so that millionaires
could turn into billionaires. And even after that experiment failed in
the most spectacular way, our system seems trapped into staying on the
same deregulated path.
Instead of free higher education, health care and a sustainable
economy, we got a fantasy finance boom and bust on Wall Street which
crashed the real economy. We have our 400 billionaires, and we have 29
million unemployed and underemployed Americans. We have an
infrastructure in shambles. We have an environment in crisis. We have
a health care system that would make Rube Goldberg proud. And we have
the worst income distribution since 1929.
I hazard to guess that each and every Forbes 400 member could get by
with a net worth of $100 million. I don't think that would kill their
entrepreneurial drive or harm our economy--in fact it would be a major
boon to the economy to step back from the edge of such massive
concentration of wealth. The real problem is getting there form here.
A wealth tax that kicks in when you become worth more than $100
million would be a good start. The Eisenhower tax rate on adjustable
gross income over $3 million a year would help as well.
And please let's not call it socialism, now that we've placed the
entire financial sector on welfare to the tune of over $13 trillion in
subsidies and guarantees. (By the way, the yearly budget outlays for
means tested programs for low income citizens is about $350 billion
per year. So Wall Street's welfare is about 37 times as large as
welfare for poor.)
So if narrowing the income/wealth gap isn't socialism, what is it?
It's the America that thrived in the 1950s and 1960s. It's the America
that created a middle-class and vowed never to let the financial
gamblers return us to another depression. It's an America that put its
people to work and built an infrastructure that was the envy of the
world.
Where's Dwight David Eisenhower when we need him?

> > Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could
> > appeal only to the organized power of government. The collapse of 1929
> > showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the
> > people's mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.
> > President Franklin Roosevelt "
>
> The president is not elected to do the will of the people, but rather
> execute the protections constitutionally required of him.  Roosevelt
> didn't understand that (he's a liberal), he thought he was king and
> could do what he wanted, and acted like it.
>

yet, a president can affect, and introduce legislation thru members
of congress, you really need to take a civics course.

> Liberals have no capacity to understand problems, instead they resort to
> broad sweeping changes that do nothing to cure the actual problem, and
> instead victimize and criminalize the majority of citizens that happen
> to be generally associated.
>

yea those darn liberal founders.

the majority of the founders were liberals, who crafted the
constitution of the united states with broad powers to legislate, tax,
regulate, tariff, negate state law, promote and provide for the
general welfare, mandate, to ensure domestic tranquility, and to To
make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into
Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this
Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any
Department or Officer thereof.

> So, as we can all see you haven't explained how the rich paying more
> taxes increases freedom.  All that you have done is show that liberals
> have no understanding of problem resolution.

sure i have, you are simply a "CONSERVATIVE" information silo,
incapable of reasoning and logic,


A return to Eisenhower-era 90% top tax rates helps fix our economy in
several ways:
1) It makes it take longer to end up with a fortune. In fact it makes
people build and earn a fortune, instead of shooting for quick
windfalls. This forces long-term thinking and planning instead of
short-term scheming and scamming. If grabbing everything in sight and
running doesn’t pay off anymore, you have to change your strategy.
2) It gets rid of the quick-buck-scheme business model. Making people
take a longer-term approach to building rather than grabbing a
fortune 
will help reattach businesses to communities by reinforcing
interdependence between businesses and their surrounding communities.
When it takes owners and executives years to build up a fortune they
need solid companies that are around for a long time. This requires
the surrounding public infrastructure of roads, schools, police,
fire, 
courts, etc., to be in good shape to provide long-term support
for the 
enterprise. You also want your company to build a solid
reputation for 
serving its customers rather than cheapening the
product, pursuing 
quick-buck scams, cutting customer service, etc.
The current Wall 
Street/private equity business model of looting
companies, leaving 
behind an empty shell, unemployed workers and a
surrounding community 
in devastation will no longer be a viable
business strategy.
3) It will lower the executive crime rate. Today it is possible to
run 
scams that let you pocket huge sums in a single year, and leave
behind 
the mess you make for others to fix. A high top tax rate
removes the 
incentive to lie, cheat and steal to grab every buck you
can as fast 
as you can. This reduces the temptation to be dishonest.
If you aren’t 
going to keep the whole dime, why risk doing the time?
When excessive, 
massive paydays are possible, it opens the door to
overwhelming greed 
and a resulting compromising of principles. Sort
of the definition of 
the decades since Reagan, no?
4) Combined with badly-needed cuts in military spending – we spend
more on military than all other countries on earth combined – taxing
the wealthy ends budget deficits and starts paying off the massive
Reagan/Bush debt. This reduces and ultimately eliminates the share of
the budget that goes to pay interest. The United States now has to
pay 
a huge share of its budget just to cover the interest on the
borrowing 
that tax cuts made necessary. Paying off the debt would
remove this 
huge drag on our economy. (Never mind that Alan Greenspan
famously 
called for Bush’s tax cuts by saying it was dangerous to pay
off our 
debt – now that same Alan Greenspan says we need to cut
benefits to 
retired people because our debt is so high.)
5) It will bring in revenue to pay for improvements in infrastructure
that then cause the economy to explode for the better. Investing in
modern transit systems, smart grid, energy efficiency, fast internet
and other improvements leads to a huge payoff of increased prosperity
for all of us – especially for those at the top income levels.
Infrastructure improvement and maintenance is the “seed corn” of
economic growth. We have been eating that seed corn since Reagan’s
tax 
cuts.
6) (related) It will bring in revenue for improving our schools,
colleges and universities. Not only will this help our
competitiveness, but it will improve each of our lives and level of
happiness.
7) It will boost economic growth and rebuild a strong middle class. A
consumption-based economy does better when consumers have more to
spend. Perhaps not cause-and-effect, though I suspect so, but after
FDR raised top tax rates the economy grew dramatically. The 90% top
rate years under FDR, Truman, Eisenhower and the beginning of the
Kennedy years were the years when we built the middle class. And
remember, after Clinton raised top tax rates only modestly the
economy 
grew. How's it been doing since Bush's tax cuts for the rich?
A look 
at economic growth rate charts shows a steady decline in the
decades 
since top tax rates began to fall. Is it just a coincidence
that the 
economy booms after tax increases that provide revenue to
invest in 
new “seed corn,” and that the economy declines as we reduce
taxes?
8) It is good for business because increased revenue will enable
increasing government spending for the benefit of regular people.
This 
recirculates money into the economy more productively than the
current 
system of putting huge fortunes into a few hands and hoping
for a 
resulting consumption of high-end goods. The wealthy can only
spend so 
muc h so more disposable income in the hands of regular
people is good 
for business. Any business owner will tell you they
want customers 
more than they want tax cuts. (Let’s wait until the
top one percent no 
longer owns most of everything before we talk
about whether there is 
an effect on investment.)
9) It protects working people. Exploiting workers with long hours,
low 
pay or lack of pay increases, lack of worker protections, firing
union 
organizers and schemes that call employees “contractors” will
no 
longer pay off as it does today. The era of extreme union-busting
came 
in at the same time as the tax cuts.
Krugman: The chart shows the share of the richest 10 percent of the
American population in total income – an indicator that closely
tracks 
many other measures of economic inequality – over the past 90
years, 
as estimated by the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel
Saez. [see 
link below]
10) It redistributes income and wealth in ways that help all of us.
Currently a few people receive most of the income and own most of
everything. A very high top tax rate reduces this concentration of
wealth.
11) It fights the political instability that results from
concentration of wealth. Great inequality in a society and the
resulting loss of opportunity results in political instability that
can lead to extreme ideologies, rebellion, etc. We are seeing all the
signs of a resurgence of these problems today.
12) It will help rebuild our sense of democracy and belief in
equality. As we have seen and are seeing, when too much is in the
hands of too few, they have too much power and influence and use it
to 
get even more.
13) It will strengthen the government that We, the People have worked
hard to build, and strengthen its ability to enforce the laws and
regulations that protect all of us and the resources we hold in
common. It will increase its ability to provide all of us equally
with 
the benefits of our joint efforts and our economy.
14) Finally, for good measure, increasing top tax rates will cause
those affected to work harder to make up the difference. The Ayn
Randians claim the very rich are the “producers” and all the rest of
us are just parasites and slackers who feed off their “work.” So it
will be very good for our economy to get them working harder by
taxing 
them at 90%! You may have heard about those 25 hedge fund
managers who 
brought in an average of $1 billion each last year – an
amount that 
would have paid for 658,000 teachers -- while the rest of
the country 
suffered through a terrible economy. If we had a top tax
rate of 90% 
they would “only” take home $100 million or so each – in
a single 
year. And we could have 658,000 more teachers. So it’s a win-
win.Taxes 
are how we all pitch in to enjoy the benefits and
protections of 
modern society. Those benefits and protections are
what enable people 
to become wealthy, and we ask that they give some
back so others can 
prosper as well. Help us spread the word about
these important 
stories...Email to a friend
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010041625/13-ways-90-percent-top...

[Nickname unavailable]

yet, it does not say complete control, just the right to regulate.
you still cannot lie this away,

[Nickname unavailable]

"Large swaths of the conservative
movement seem to live in a world of their own creation. The
balkanization of media outlets allow people to read only that which
they agree with. This selective perception and confirmation bias
creates a self-reinforcing alternative universe. Facts don’t matter;
data and science are irrelevant. You only hear exactly what it is you
want to hear.
Outlets like Fox News and pundits like George Will and Dick Morris
were forecasting a Mitt Romney landslide. Don’t like the polling
data? 
Create a site called “UnskewedPolls.com” to provide numbers you
do 
like. As it turned out, UnskewedPolls was the least accurate
polling 
aggregator this election cycle. If you spend most of your
time 
rationalizing why the polls are inaccurate and the media are
biased, 
you will probably be surprised at what happens next. As
smart 
investors know, this sort of bias can be very expensive."

[Nickname unavailable]

this is so easy, see, you have no reasoning or logic skills.

[Nickname unavailable]

snicker, here is ike,


t's helpful for understanding things, but the supposed "significance"
given the arbitrary 100% figure is entirely political clown theater.
Note the clown dance that comes out when we point out the post WWII
level and how it had no effect on the economy of the post war era and
the 50's into the 60's. (Of course back then the top marginal rate
was 
91%, corporate income tax was between 40 and 55%, and the
capital 
gains tax was above 25%.)
http://visualizingeconomics.com/2011/04/14/top-marginal-tax-rates-191...
Ah those great conservative days of the 50s!
When Ike said such things as "“Every gun that is made, every warship
launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft
from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not
clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is
spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the
hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true
sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of
iron.” 
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security
unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs you
would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is
a tiny splinter group of course that believes you can do these
things. 
Among them are a few other Texas oil millionaires and an
occasional 
politician or business man from other areas. Their number
is 
negligible and they are stupid.” 
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
And: 
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the
acquisition 
of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by
the military 
industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous
rise of misplaced 
power exists and will persist. We must never let
the weight of this 
combination endanger our liberties or democratic
processes. We should 
take nothing for granted. Only an alert and
knowledgeable citizenry 
can compel the proper meshing of the huge
industrial and military 
machinery of defense with our peaceful
methods and goals, so that 
security and liberty may prosper
together.” 
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

[Nickname unavailable]

On May 14, 7:33 pm, Gunner Asch <gunnera...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 14 May 2013 15:19:15 -0700, Peter Franks <n...@none.com>

americans are not buying it from the boys("CONSERVATIVE,
EXTREMISTS")WHO CRIED WOLF: National Security Brief: Poll Finds
Americans Aren’t Buying GOP Benghazi Witch-Hunt



http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/05/14/2006711/national-security-brief-poll-gop-clinton-benghazi/

National Security Brief: Poll Finds Americans Aren’t Buying GOP
Benghazi Witch-Hunt
By ThinkProgress on May 14, 2013 at 9:05 am

Public Policy Polling released a poll on Monday finding that more
Americans trust former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over
Republicans over the GOP-ginned up Benghazi controversy.
Forty-nine percent trust Clinton, versus 39 percent for Republicans.
Meanwhile, PPP finds, “Congressional Republicans remain very unpopular
with a 36/57 favorability rating.” Americans also think Congress
should be focusing on more pressing issues such as immigration reform
and gun control:
Voters think Congress should be more focused on other major issues
right now rather than Benghazi. By a 56/38 margin they say passing a
comprehensive immigration reform bill is more important than
continuing to focus on Benghazi, and by a 52/43 spread they think
passing a bill requiring background checks for all gun sales should be
a higher priority.
A whopping 41 percent of Republicans polled think the Obama
administration’s handling of Benghazi is the greatest scandal in U.S.
history. “One interesting thing about the voters who think Benghazi is
the biggest political scandal in American history,” PPP adds, “is that
39% of them don’t actually know where it is. 10% think it’s in Egypt,
9% in Iran, 6% in Cuba, 5% in Syria, 4% in Iraq, and 1% each in North
Korea and Liberia with 4% not willing to venture a guess.”

[BeamMeUpScotty]

On 5/14/2013 9:06 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
> On May 14, 5:30 pm, Peter Franks <n...@none.com> wrote:
>> On 5/14/2013 2:01 PM, BeamMeUpScotty wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On 5/14/2013 3:16 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
>>>> On May 13, 1:20 pm, Peter Franks <n...@none.com> wrote:
>>>>> On 5/12/2013 11:17 PM, Bret Cahill wrote:
>>
>>>>>>>> Let me know if you ever get answer?
>>
>>>>>>> Somehow they think that more taxes leads to more freedom.
>>
>>>>>> That what the framers thought after they read _Spirit of Laws_ by the
>>>>>> "celebrated Montesquieu."
>>
>>>>> I don't care who thought what.
>>
>>>>> Explain to me how me paying MORE taxes increases my freedom.
>>
>>>> "The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the
>>>> growth of 
private power to a point where it becomes stronger than
>>>> their democratic 
state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism--
>>>> ownership of government by an 
individual, by a group, or by any
>>>> controlling private power."
>>>> -Franklin D. Roosevelt
>>
>>> So Roosevelt stole "all" the power.... and consolidated it by packing
>>> the Supreme Court?
>>
>>> Interesting way to make sure no one else has any power.
>>
>> Anyone that quotes FDR should be certified insane and locked up permanently.
>

Or better yet the IRS should put them on the list to Audit them.


I want to know why the TEA PARTY followers in teh IRS didn't swap the
"NO FLY LIST" with the LIST OF TEA PARTY groups that were flagged for
audit.


--


*Rumination*
#52 - Socialism is a philosophy of mediocrity, a creed of intolerance,
and a feeling of malice towards the good fortune of others!

[Peter Franks]

On 5/14/2013 6:00 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
> On May 14, 5:20 pm, Peter Franks <n...@none.com> wrote:
>> On 5/14/2013 12:14 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
>>
>>> The document also granted the federal government broad
>>> domestic powers including authority to regulate interstate commerce,
>>> the so-called Commerce Clause
>>
>> Then explain Wickard v. Filburn.
>
> yet, it does not say complete control, just the right to regulate.
> you still cannot lie this away,

Filburn didn't engage in commerce among the several States.

[Peter Franks]

On 5/14/2013 5:59 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
> On May 14, 5:19 pm, Peter Franks <n...@none.com> wrote:
>> On 5/14/2013 12:15 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
>>
>>>> You need to explain how rich me paying more taxes means I have increased
>>>> freedom.
>>
>>> "The liberty of a democracyis not safe if the people tolerate the
>>> growth of 
private power to a point where it becomes stronger than
>>> their democratic 
state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism--
>>> ownership of government by an 
individual, by a group, or by any
>>> controlling private power."
>>> -Franklin D. Roosevelt
>>
>> He was a liberal so everything he says is a lie.
>>
>
>
> no, the wealthy blew out the economy, and had driven millions into
> poverty. and americans knew it, and he won 4 consecutive elections.

No, not the wealthy, but a "small group" (your words).

You have implicated the wealthy by association. No evidence or proof
that the wealthy, as a group, caused anything.

>>> " For too many of us the political equality we once had won was
>>> meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had
>>> concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over
>>> other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor —
>>> other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free;
>>> liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of
>>> happiness.
>>
>> Liberal response: guilt by association, all rich must be punished
>> because of the actions of a "small group".
>
> no, many wealthy people are decent law abiding patriotic americans.
> but as FDR stated, a small group, who were very very wealthy, achieved
> complete control of the economy. even ike under stood that.

Yet ALL wealthy people are penalized. That is the standard liberal
response. PUNISH ALL for the actions of a FEW.

[Peter Franks]

On 5/14/2013 6:05 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
> On May 14, 5:26 pm, Peter Franks <n...@none.com> wrote:
>> On 5/14/2013 12:22 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
>>
>>> limited government stifles growth and is bad for business:)socialized
>>> governments provide critical support for business growth including
>>> first class infrastructure built by the public sector/retraining of
>>> workers/public education systems that result in better-prepared
>>> workforces comparative to the US
>>
>> Point out any of the following words as they relate to your assertion in
>> the US Constitution: business, socialism, infrastructure, (re)training,
>> workers, education, prepared, workforce.
>
> this is so easy, see, you have no reasoning or logic skills.

And you have no capacity to answer the question. So I'll answer for you.

None of those words as they relate to your assertion are found in the
constitution. Liberal response: make stuff up.

The founders put in place a means by which the Constitution could be
changed called the Amendment process. If you liberals want to control
the economy, pass an amendment rather than changing words to suit your
agenda.

I may have no reasoning or logic skills, but you have NO ability to
actually follow process and procedure when it runs counter to your
agenda. The federal government was NOT instituted to support business
growth including first class infrastructure built by the public sector,
nor was it instituted to retrain workers, nor to fabricate a public
education system regardless of the result. Why can't liberals
understand that?

[Peter Franks]

Can you or Ike point out where the federal government is delegated
authority over guns, feeding the hungry, warming the cold and unclothed?

> “Should any political party attempt to abolish social security

Where is the authority delegated to the federal government for social
security?

> unemployment insurance

Where is the authority delegated to the federal government for
unemployment insurance?

> and eliminate labor laws

Where is the authority delegated to the federal government for labor laws?

> and farm programs

Where is the authority delegated to the federal government for farm
programs?

[Gunner Asch]

On Tue, 14 May 2013 19:14:34 -0700, Peter Franks <no...@none.com>
wrote:

>On 5/14/2013 5:59 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
>> On May 14, 5:19 pm, Peter Franks <n...@none.com> wrote:
>>> On 5/14/2013 12:15 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
>>>
>>>>> You need to explain how rich me paying more taxes means I have increased
>>>>> freedom.
>>>
>>>> "The liberty of a democracyis not safe if the people tolerate the

>>>> growth of ?private power to a point where it becomes stronger than
>>>> their democratic ?state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism--
>>>> ownership of government by an ?individual, by a group, or by any

>>>> controlling private power."
>>>> -Franklin D. Roosevelt
>>>
>>> He was a liberal so everything he says is a lie.
>>>
>>
>>
>> no, the wealthy blew out the economy, and had driven millions into
>> poverty. and americans knew it, and he won 4 consecutive elections.
>
>No, not the wealthy, but a "small group" (your words).
>
>You have implicated the wealthy by association. No evidence or proof
>that the wealthy, as a group, caused anything.
>
>>>> " For too many of us the political equality we once had won was
>>>> meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had
>>>> concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over
>>>> other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor —
>>>> other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free;
>>>> liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of
>>>> happiness.
>>>
>>> Liberal response: guilt by association, all rich must be punished
>>> because of the actions of a "small group".
>>
>> no, many wealthy people are decent law abiding patriotic americans.
>> but as FDR stated, a small group, who were very very wealthy, achieved
>> complete control of the economy. even ike under stood that.
>
>Yet ALL wealthy people are penalized. That is the standard liberal
>response. PUNISH ALL for the actions of a FEW.

Indeed it is. Remember the Communist manifesto...

"From each according to his abilities..to those according to their
needs"

When one is rich..and one is a worthless dope smoker...Communists
believe that the dope smoker should be given the money of the person
who worked for it.

[Nickname unavailable]

actually he was. we do not know if he was going to use it all, or
sell it. he says his own use. but if his crop caused a excess beyond
what the feds wanted for the country as a whole, he is engaged in
commerce in other states. his crop affected others in other states.

[Nickname unavailable]

On May 14, 9:14 pm, Peter Franks <n...@none.com> wrote:
> On 5/14/2013 5:59 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On May 14, 5:19 pm, Peter Franks <n...@none.com> wrote:
> >> On 5/14/2013 12:15 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
>
> >>>> You need to explain how rich me paying more taxes means I have increased
> >>>> freedom.
>
> >>> "The liberty of a democracyis not safe if the people tolerate the
> >>> growth of 
private power to a point where it becomes stronger than
> >>> their democratic 
state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism--
> >>> ownership of government by an 
individual, by a group, or by any
> >>> controlling private power."
> >>> -Franklin D. Roosevelt
>
> >> He was a liberal so everything he says is a lie.
>
> >   no, the wealthy blew out the economy, and had driven millions into
> > poverty. and americans knew it, and he won 4 consecutive elections.
>
> No, not the wealthy, but a "small group" (your words).
>

it was fdrs own words also.

> You have implicated the wealthy by association.  No evidence or proof
> that the wealthy, as a group, caused anything.
>

no, only those who will not pay their fair share. adam smith knew
this well.

The rate of profit is naturally low in rich and high in poor
countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going
fastest to ruin:No society can surely be flourishing and happy when
part of the members are poor and miserable


http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Quotes-economics.htm



"All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age
of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind."
-- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

"No society can surely be flourishing and happy when part of the
members are poor and miserable."
-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations

"Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad
effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the
sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing
concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with
regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain
only of those of other people."
-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and
diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the
public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."
-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations

"As soon as the land of any country has all become private property,
the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never
sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce."
-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations

"The liberal reward of labor, therefore, as it is the necessary
effect, so it is the natural symptom of increasing national wealth.
The scanty maintenance of the laboring poor, on the other hand, is the
natural symptom that things are at a stand, and their starving
condition that they going backwards fast."
-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations

"The rate of profit... is naturally low in rich and high in poor
countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going
fastest to ruin."
-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations

"The subjects of every state ought to contribute toward the support of
the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their
respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they
respectively enjoy under the protection of the state ....[As Henry
Home (Lord Kames) has written, a goal of taxation should be to]
'remedy inequality of riches as much as possible, by relieving the
poor and burdening the rich.'"
-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations

"Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate differences between
masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters.
When the regulation, therefore, is in favor of the workmen, it is
always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favor
of the masters."
-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations

"The interest of dealers, however,... is a always in some respects
different from, and even opposite to, that of the public... The
proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes frm this
order ought... never to be adopted till after having been long and
carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the
most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose
interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have
generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and
who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed
it."
-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations

"In a society of an hundred thousand families, there will perhaps be
one hundred who don't labour at all, and who yet, either by violence,
or by the more orderly oppression of law, employ a greater part of the
labour of society than any other ten thousand in it. The division of
what remains, too, after this enormous defalcation, is by no means
made in proportion to the labour of each individual. On the contrary
those who labour most get least. The opulent merchant, who spends a
great part of his time in luxury and entertainments, enjoys a much
greater proportion of the profits of his traffic, than all the Clerks
and Accountants who do the business. These last, again, enjoying a
great deal of leisure, and suffering scarce any other hardship besides
the confinement of attendance, enjoy a much greater share of the
produce, than three times an equal number of artizans, who, under
their direction, labour much more severely and assiduously. The
artizan again, tho' he works generally under cover, protected from the
injuries of the weather, at his ease and assisted by the convenience
of innumerable machines, enjoys a much greater share than the poor
labourer who has the soil and the seasons to struggle with, and, who
while he affords the materials for supplying the luxury of all the
other members of the common wealth, and bears, as it were, upon his
shoulders the whole fabric of human society, seems himself to be
buried out of sight in the lowest foundations of the building."
-- Adam Smith, first draft of Wealth Of Nations

[And here is what Adam Smith thought about labor unions:]

"We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations [that is,
unions or colluding organizations] of masters, though frequently of
those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that
masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject.
Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and
uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labor above their
actual price."
-- Adam Smith, Wealth Of Nations

"....Adam Smith—one of the founders of modern economics—recognized
clearly that a poor distribution of wealth could undermine the free
market system, noting that: “The disposition to admire, and almost to
worship, the rich and the powerful and…neglect persons of poor and
mean condition…is the great and most universal cause of the corruption
of our moral sentiments.”

> >>> " For too many of us the political equality we once had won was
> >>> meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had
> >>> concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over
> >>> other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor —
> >>> other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free;
> >>> liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of
> >>> happiness.
>
> >> Liberal response: guilt by association, all rich must be punished
> >> because of the actions of a "small group".
>
> > no, many wealthy people are decent law abiding patriotic americans.
> > but as FDR stated, a small group, who were very very wealthy, achieved
> > complete control of the economy. even ike under stood that.
>
> Yet ALL wealthy people are penalized.  That is the standard liberal
> response.  PUNISH ALL for the actions of a FEW.

yet, its we the people. its why so many wealthy have stood up and
said tax me.

[Nickname unavailable]

On May 14, 9:19 pm, Peter Franks <n...@none.com> wrote:
> On 5/14/2013 6:05 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
>
> > On May 14, 5:26 pm, Peter Franks <n...@none.com> wrote:
> >> On 5/14/2013 12:22 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
>
> >>> limited government stifles growth and is bad for business:)socialized
> >>> governments provide critical support for business growth including
> >>> first class infrastructure built by the public sector/retraining of
> >>> workers/public education systems that result in better-prepared
> >>> workforces comparative to the US
>
> >> Point out any of the following words as they relate to your assertion in
> >> the US Constitution: business, socialism, infrastructure, (re)training,
> >> workers, education, prepared, workforce.
>
> >   this is so easy, see, you have no reasoning or logic skills.
>
> And you have no capacity to answer the question.  So I'll answer for you.
>

snicker:)))

> None of those words as they relate to your assertion are found in the
> constitution.  Liberal response: make stuff up.
>

no, they are there.

> The founders put in place a means by which the Constitution could be
> changed called the Amendment process.  If you liberals want to control
> the economy, pass an amendment rather than changing words to suit your
> agenda.
>

broad powers to legislate, tax,
regulate, tariff, negate state law, promote and provide for the
general welfare, mandate, to ensure domestic tranquility, and to To
make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into
Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this
Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any
Department or Officer thereof.

its right out of the constitution. you simply cannot ignore or lie it
away.

> I may have no reasoning or logic skills,

at least we are making progress:)))

but you have NO ability to
> actually follow process and procedure when it runs counter to your
> agenda.  The federal government was NOT instituted to support business
> growth including first class infrastructure built by the public sector,
> nor was it instituted to retrain workers, nor to fabricate a public
> education system regardless of the result.  Why can't liberals
> understand that?

sure it was. it says it right here,


Section 8 - Powers of Congress
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties,
Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common
Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties,
Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several
States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on
the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and
fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and
current Coin of the United States;
To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for
limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their
respective Writings and Discoveries;
To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas,
and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules
concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use
shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval
Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the
Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and
for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of
the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the
Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia
according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such
District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of
particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of
the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority
over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the
State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts,
Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into
Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this
Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any
Department or Officer thereof.

THE SUPREMACY CLAUSE
Article. VI.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be
made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be
made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme
Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby,
any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary
notwithstanding.


The preemption doctrine derives from the Supremacy Clause of the
Constitution which states that the "Constitution and the laws of the
United States...shall be the supreme law of the land...anything in the
constitutions or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."
This means of course, that any federal law--even a regulation of a
federal agency--trumps any conflicting state law.

so any law, treaty or regulation that is deemed constitutional, shall
be the law of the land. its really quite simple. the constitution was
crafted by liberals, who gave the constitution broad powers to
legislate, tax, regulate, negate state law, mandate, tariff, to
promote and provide for the general welfare, to ensure domestic
tranquility:)))

[Nickname unavailable]

> > “Should any political party attempt to abolish social security
>
> Where is the authority delegated to the federal government for social
> security?
>

> > unemployment insurance
>
> Where is the authority delegated to the federal government for
> unemployment insurance?
>

> > and eliminate labor laws
>
> Where is the authority delegated to the federal government for labor laws?
>

> > and farm programs
>
> Where is the authority delegated to the federal government for farm
> programs?

[Nickname unavailable]

On May 14, 10:19 pm, Gunner Asch <gunnera...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 14 May 2013 19:14:34 -0700, Peter Franks <n...@none.com>

communists are "CONSERVATIVES".

[Peter Franks]

On 5/14/2013 10:10 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
> On May 14, 9:14 pm, Peter Franks <n...@none.com> wrote:
>> On 5/14/2013 5:59 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On May 14, 5:19 pm, Peter Franks <n...@none.com> wrote:
>>>> On 5/14/2013 12:15 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
>>
>>>>>> You need to explain how rich me paying more taxes means I have increased
>>>>>> freedom.
>>
>>>>> "The liberty of a democracyis not safe if the people tolerate the
>>>>> growth of 
private power to a point where it becomes stronger than
>>>>> their democratic 
state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism--
>>>>> ownership of government by an 
individual, by a group, or by any
>>>>> controlling private power."
>>>>> -Franklin D. Roosevelt
>>
>>>> He was a liberal so everything he says is a lie.
>>
>>> no, the wealthy blew out the economy, and had driven millions into
>>> poverty. and americans knew it, and he won 4 consecutive elections.
>>
>> No, not the wealthy, but a "small group" (your words).
>>
>
> it was fdrs own words also.
>
>> You have implicated the wealthy by association. No evidence or proof
>> that the wealthy, as a group, caused anything.
>
> no, only those who will not pay their fair share. adam smith knew
> this well.

So the dance continues...

You said first that they are taxed because they blew out the economy.
When that was proved to be garbage, you move on to that they need to pay
their fair share...

You liberals are impossible to have a conversation with. You keep
morphing the concepts and your position each time it is shown to be
founded on garbage.

[Peter Franks]

On 5/14/2013 10:08 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
> On May 14, 9:11 pm, Peter Franks <n...@none.com> wrote:
>> On 5/14/2013 6:00 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
>>
>>> On May 14, 5:20 pm, Peter Franks <n...@none.com> wrote:
>>>> On 5/14/2013 12:14 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
>>
>>>>> The document also granted the federal government broad
>>>>> domestic powers including authority to regulate interstate commerce,
>>>>> the so-called Commerce Clause
>>
>>>> Then explain Wickard v. Filburn.
>>
>>> yet, it does not say complete control, just the right to regulate.
>>> you still cannot lie this away,
>>
>> Filburn didn't engage in commerce among the several States.
>
> actually he was. we do not know if he was going to use it all, or
> sell it.

So you liberals punish for what you /think/ will happen in the future?

He did not engage in commerce.

> he says his own use. but if his crop caused a excess beyond
> what the feds wanted for the country as a whole, he is engaged in
> commerce in other states. his crop affected others in other states.

Point out the word "affect" in the constitution and get back to me.

[Peter Franks]

You have done a remarkable job of deluding yourself.

[Peter Franks]

<relevant response retained>

That's right, the authority isn't delegated. I'm glad you've finally
realized that. Now we are getting somewhere.

So, since the authority hasn't been delegated, what's appropriate? If
the power is truly needed (suspect), then invoke Article V; if not, let
the states manage themselves.

[BeamMeUpScotty]

On 5/14/2013 5:06 PM, David J. Hughes wrote:
> On 5/14/2013 1:54 PM, Peter Franks wrote:

>> On 5/14/2013 10:20 AM, Bret Cahill wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> Let me know if you ever get answer?
>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Somehow they think that more taxes leads to more freedom.
>>>>
>>>>>>>>> That what the framers thought after they read _Spirit of Laws_
>>>>>>>>> by the
>>>>>>>>> "celebrated Montesquieu."
>>>>
>>>>>>>> I don't care who thought what.
>>>>

>>>>>>> Not surprising as thinking isn't something you can do.

>>>>
>>>>>>>> Explain to me how me paying MORE taxes increases my freedom.
>>>>

>>>>>>> Milton Friedman explained it.
>>>>
>>>>>>> There is no free lunch on liberty.
>>>>
>>>>>>> Freedom ain't free.
>>>>
>>>>>>> Taxes are the price of freedom.
>>>>
>>>>>> So 100% taxes equates to 100% free.
>>>>
>>>>> Only if you think paying 100% of your income for food is the only way
>>>>> to satisfy your appetite.
>>>>
>>>>> There is an optimum and it's about 80 - 90%.
>>>>
>>>> So exactly how does paying 90% of my income make me 100% free?
>>>>
>>>>> The Dutch pay about 80% marginal rate and they have no Patriot Act, no
>>>>> drones flying over head spying on the public.
>>>>
>>>>> Why?
>>>>
>>>> Because no one cares about the Dutch.
>>>
>>> If you aren't interested in studying other nations then you aren't
>>> interested in freedom.
>>>
>>> Great political scientists like the framers and their mentor Baron
>>> Montesquieu always study other nations.
>>>
>>> Even GOP shill tanks occasionally pretend to be interested in other
>>> nations if they think no one will point out their lies.
>>
>> Yes, I study other nations, and so do you which is why, I presume, you
>> brought the Dutch into it. Apparently you didn't study my response,
>> however.
>>
>> No one attacked the Dutch on 9/11. In fact, I don't know of anyone that
>> has attacked the Dutch in the past 50 years. They have absolutely no
>> need for a Patriot Act or drones. In short, no one cares about the
>> Dutch. So a legitimate question is: what in the hell are they spending
>> all of their tax money on? Clogs? A dumpy little colony that has no
>> appreciable military force, or need of such, and they have an 80%
>> marginal tax rate?
>>
>> Seriously, what in the hell are they spending their tax $$ on?!
>>
>
>
> Dikes, pumping seawater, social services.

A lot of useless, redundant, Government....

And they have a 250% debt ratio in the Netherlands, they are worse off
than France. And they are at risk for an economic collapse.

[CanopyCo]

On May 14, 10:19 pm, Gunner Asch <gunnera...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 14 May 2013 19:14:34 -0700, Peter Franks <n...@none.com>

Isn’t that how you run your house?
;-)

[Nickname unavailable]

On May 15, 8:45 am, Peter Franks <n...@none.com> wrote:
> On 5/14/2013 10:10 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On May 14, 9:14 pm, Peter Franks <n...@none.com> wrote:
> >> On 5/14/2013 5:59 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
>
> >>> On May 14, 5:19 pm, Peter Franks <n...@none.com> wrote:
> >>>> On 5/14/2013 12:15 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
>
> >>>>>> You need to explain how rich me paying more taxes means I have increased
> >>>>>> freedom.
>
> >>>>> "The liberty of a democracyis not safe if the people tolerate the
> >>>>> growth of 
private power to a point where it becomes stronger than
> >>>>> their democratic 
state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism--
> >>>>> ownership of government by an 
individual, by a group, or by any
> >>>>> controlling private power."
> >>>>> -Franklin D. Roosevelt
>
> >>>> He was a liberal so everything he says is a lie.
>
> >>>    no, the wealthy blew out the economy, and had driven millions into
> >>> poverty. and americans knew it, and he won 4 consecutive elections.
>
> >> No, not the wealthy, but a "small group" (your words).
>
> >   it was fdrs own words also.
>
> >> You have implicated the wealthy by association.  No evidence or proof
> >> that the wealthy, as a group, caused anything.
>
> >   no, only those who will not pay their fair share. adam smith knew
> > this well.
>
> So the dance continues...
>

what dance. you are hard wired, you even admit it.

> You said first that they are taxed because they blew out the economy.
> When that was proved to be garbage, you move on to that they need to pay
> their fair share...
>

ROTFLOL!! we taxed at a progressive rate so that they could not blow
bubbles that would blow out the economy. and of course, if the rest of
the country is forced into subsidizing them, then they are not paying
their fair share. you are completely clueless(you even admit it)as to
the reasons for the founding of this nation. the founders would spit
on you. the declaration of independence, the preamble, and the
constitution were all based on the writings of the founder thomas
paine.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-ruskin/the-common-sense-entitlem_b_3273757.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

Ian Ruskin
Director of The Harry Bridges Project



The Common Sense Entitlements of Thomas Paine
Posted: 05/14/2013 5:04 pm


"More and more able bodied people are becoming dependent upon the
government...it will bankrupt the nation." -- Paul Ryan

"The poll
found strong opposition to reductions in Medicare and Social Security
benefits and strong support for taxing the rich." -- Kaiser Family
Foundation poll
"Simply eliminating the payroll tax earnings cap would, according to
the Congressional Budget Office, solve the financial crisis facing the
Social Security system." -- New York Times
In 1797 Thomas Paine's Agrarian Justice was published, perhaps the
final chapter in the development of his understanding of the path from
revolution to social action. It was presented to a world of great
cruelty and injustice, a world, not unlike ours, of great wealth and
great poverty. The "corporations" of the 1790s were mainly
agricultural estates, where lucky individuals reaped huge profits from
the produce of the lands that they "owned." The poor, with little or
no land to call their own, struggled to grow or barter enough to stay
alive. And this was a world that controlled its poor through debtors'
prisons, workhouses (sweatshops for the destitute) and harsh
sentences, from flogging to prison to exile to death, for stealing
even life's basic necessities.
In 1776 Paine had written the much-quoted line in Common Sense that
"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil," a line
so loved by America's political conservatives. What they happily
ignore is the fact that Paine, one of the world's greatest
propagandists (in the positive sense of the word) was writing a
pamphlet to rouse up the colonists against the rule of a distant and
oppressive British government. He used anything at his command,
including quotes from the scriptures that he would later attack as "a
history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize
mankind" and the idea that we, society, could do a better job of
governing than a disinterested English monarch 3000 miles away.
But when the American and then French Revolutions did not lead to
Paine's vision of true democracy, he turned his pen, in Rights of Man
and Agrarian Justice, to specific ways to create more economically and
socially just societies. And it would be through the actions of
government.
"I had come to realize the importance of the Nation, and of shared,
communal, social responsibility, to be held as equally important as
individual concerns. The elderly, the widowed, newly married couples,
the poor, the unemployed, disbanded soldiers and children, who would
be required to attend school, must be provided for from state funds.
And all this support is not the nature of charity, but of a right." --
Rights of Man, Part the Second, 1792
In other words, the people would receive Social Security, including
widows' benefits, welfare, unemployment benefits, veterans' benefits
and free education, plus a sum to every married couple to help them
start out in life, and these would be rights, things that you were
ENTITLED to. Not in any way a charity! Paid for through general
taxation.
AND that our purpose in life was to help our fellow human beings:
"The greatest offence of all to the great Father is when we seek to
torment and render each other miserable." -- Rights of Man, Part the
Second, 1792


"There will be a National Fund to pay ever person at age 21 a sum as a
compensation in part for the loss of his or her natural inheritance of
land, and a sum per year to every person at age 50, and to those,
blind and lame, who cannot provide income themselves, for the rest of
their lives."

And how would these entitlements be financed?
Paine said, 75 years before Karl Marx:
"When land is improved through cultivation, it is the value of the
improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual
property. Every proprietor of cultivated land, therefore, owes the
community a ground-rent for the land he holds. The Fund will also be
financed by a tax of a tenth part on the value of all estates when
they are passed on to relatives due to death. And this will be not a
charity but a right, not bounty but justice." -- Agrarian Justice,
1797
So, again, these are ENTITLEMENTS, not in any way a charity. And Paine
would tax corporations and family estates to raise the money, far more
radical than our present system!
And today we have debate about cutting Social Security and Medicare,
the entitlement programs paid for by, not corporations or family
estates, but by working people out of their paychecks all through
their working life. These people are OWED the money back from these
programs. And when we read that the government will soon be paying out
$6 to seniors to every $1 to children, it is somehow not mentioned
that the seniors who will now receive it BACK have been paying it in
for decades. This is yet another fine example of the Mark Twain quote
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

What is true is that Thomas Paine would be appalled by the continuing
lack of equality in America, by the ever-growing power of corporations
and the ever-increasing difficulty of maintaining life as a "middle
class" American. And he would be appalled by the suggestion that
entitlements lead to dependency, and by the fact that the very rich
continue to do all they can to make sure that less goes to everyone
else.
Again, as the Deist, NOT atheist, Paine said "The greatest offence of
all to the great Father is when we seek to torment and render each
other miserable." We still have some way to go.
Ian Ruskin is the Director of The Harry Bridges Project and The Life
of Thomas Paine and will be performing his one-man plays about these
two radical forgotten heroes in Los Angeles in May and June. Ticket
information

> You liberals are impossible to have a conversation with.  You keep
> morphing the concepts and your position each time it is shown to be
> founded on garbage.

you mean you cannot even understand simple concepts.

[Nickname unavailable]

which means you cannot refute it:))) its all in the constitution, as
clear as a bell, and you refuse to admit it.


your position is straight, doctrinaire, knee-jerk right wing extremism.

[Nickname unavailable]

you mean it was all there, you refuse to admit it.



"CONSERVATIVES" cannot escape their ideological boxes and are
creatures of their biases. They want their prejudices vindicated and
their beliefs supported. A writer who tells them something that they
do not want to hear receives abuse. These readers cannot benefit from
facts and new information and change their minds. They already know
everything and only want information that supports their beliefs and
advances their agendas. 

If a writer makes the case so clear that
readers simply cannot avoid it, the reader will intentionally misread
the article or book and attack the writer for saying everything that
he does not say. The chorus will join in the effort to shut down the
unwelcome information before it reaches others
"CONSERVATIVES" are hostile to facts and truths that do not support
their biases and serve their interests, there is a disconnect from
reality, which is the situation in America today.

> That's right, the authority isn't delegated.  I'm glad you've finally
> realized that.  Now we are getting somewhere.
>

"CONSERVATIVES" cannot escape their ideological boxes and are
creatures of their biases. They want their prejudices vindicated and
their beliefs supported. A writer who tells them something that they
do not want to hear receives abuse. These readers cannot benefit from
facts and new information and change their minds. They already know
everything and only want information that supports their beliefs and
advances their agendas. 

If a writer makes the case so clear that
readers simply cannot avoid it, the reader will intentionally misread
the article or book and attack the writer for saying everything that
he does not say. The chorus will join in the effort to shut down the
unwelcome information before it reaches others
"CONSERVATIVES" are hostile to facts and truths that do not support
their biases and serve their interests, there is a disconnect from
reality, which is the situation in America today.

> So, since the authority hasn't been delegated, what's appropriate?  If
> the power is truly needed (suspect), then invoke Article V; if not, let
> the states manage themselves.

amazing, you are so stupid you cannot even understand what the word
legislation means.



for "THE CONSERVATIVE" Facts are not in fashion right now. Argument by
anecdote, by attack, by fear, by anger, and by falsehoods, all are
preferable to dry facts which might, just might, fail to support the
case.

[Bret Cahill]

> >>>>>>>>> Let me know if you ever get answer?
>
> >>>>>>>> Somehow they think that more taxes leads to more freedom.
>
> >>>>>>> That what the framers thought after they read _Spirit of Laws_ by the
> >>>>>>> "celebrated Montesquieu."
>
> >>>>>> I don't care who thought what.
>

> >>>>> Not surprising as thinking isn't something you can do.
>

> >>>>>> Explain to me how me paying MORE taxes increases my freedom.
>

> >>>>> Milton Friedman explained it.
>
> >>>>> There is no free lunch on liberty.
>
> >>>>> Freedom ain't free.
>
> >>>>> Taxes are the price of freedom.
>
> >>>> So 100% taxes equates to 100% free.
>
> >>> Only if you think paying 100% of your income for food is the only way
> >>> to satisfy your appetite.
>
> >>> There is an optimum and it's about 80 - 90%.
>
> >> So exactly how does paying 90% of my income make me 100% free?
>
> >>> The Dutch pay about 80% marginal rate and they have no Patriot Act, no
> >>> drones flying over head spying on the public.
>
> >>> Why?
>
> >> Because no one cares about the Dutch.
>
> > If you aren't interested in studying other nations then you aren't
> > interested in freedom.
>
> > Great political scientists like the framers and their mentor Baron
> > Montesquieu always study other nations.
>
> > Even GOP shill tanks occasionally pretend to be interested in other
> > nations if they think no one will point out their lies.
>

> > Bret Cahill
>
> > `
>
> WE don't need to be like the Dutch,

They're pretty diverse.

> you can get on a plane and be there
> in less than 24hours.

It's better for the planet to hike taxes on the rich for a tax hike
economic boom.


Bret Cahill

[Bret Cahill]

> Yes, I study other nations, and so do you which is why, I presume, you
> brought the Dutch into it.  Apparently you didn't study my response,
> however.
>
> No one attacked the Dutch on 9/11.  In fact, I don't know of anyone that
> has attacked the Dutch in the past 50 years.  They have absolutely no

> need for a Patriot Act or drones.  In short, no one cares about the
> Dutch.

And Muslim jihaders don't care about red counties or red states.
That's how I knew that the BM bombers were jihaders.

Jihaders only blow up blue cities full of decadent infidels and women
who dress nicely.

> So a legitimate question is: what in the hell are they spending
> all of their tax money on? Clogs?

Prenatal care. The Dutch are the tallest people on earth.

> A dumpy little colony that has no
> appreciable military force, or need of such, and they have an 80%
> marginal tax rate?
>
> Seriously, what in the hell are they spending their tax $$ on?!

Freedom.


Bret Cahill

[BeamMeUpScotty]

enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies
IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS
IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS
punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish
our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our
enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies
IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS
IRS punish our


And the Stock Market goes up on the NEWS that OBAMA is a liar and
Nixonian style leader. And Obama HATES America and he HATES the
Constitution.... enough to use the IRS to attack and punish American
citizens.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jr9mLB3yKs




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeNoRqtDSeQ

IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS
IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish
our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our
enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies
IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS
IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish
our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our
enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies
IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS
IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish
our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies

[BeamMeUpScotty]

Back to the one world Socialism are we?







*Rumination*
#45 - If you haven't found the lie in what a Liberal told you, then you
didn't dig deep enough.

[Winston_Smith]

On Wed, 15 May 2013 14:09:27 -0400, BeamMeUpScotty
<ThenDestro...@blackhole.nebulax.com> wrote:

Oh look. Our little wonder managed to cut and paste a link to a video
that someone else made. Isn't he clever? Isn't he accomplished? Not
bad at all for someone with the brain power of a three year old.

Add to that he was actually able to type four words and repeat them
three dozen times. Man, that is intellect. That is insight. That is
deep thought at it's best.

I think we should give him the flying fickle finger of fate award.

[BeamMeUpScotty]

On 5/15/2013 2:51 PM, Winston_Smith wrote:
> On Wed, 15 May 2013 14:09:27 -0400, BeamMeUpScotty
> <ThenDestro...@blackhole.nebulax.com> wrote:
>
> Oh look. Our little wonder managed to cut and paste a link to a video
> that someone else made. Isn't he clever? Isn't he accomplished? Not
> bad at all for someone with the brain power of a three year old.
>

You are an Alinskyite Liberal, you attack the messenger like Obama and
the IRS does.... destroy the person when you can't destroy the FACTS.

Typical Democrat-Socialist tactics made popular by Saul Alinsky.

[Gunner Asch]

Lets see....tax the rich. That means the Government gets the money.
And how does the government spend that money? What do they buy with
it? Well...there is military spending...which the Left hates....and
road building..which only helps the drivers and the few workers.
Then there is Welfare..which those that Dont work get paid. People
like Bret.

So Bret either wants more military spending, more roads, or more
welfare. Which one do you guys think he wants?

>
>
>
>
>
>
> *Rumination*
>#45 - If you haven't found the lie in what a Liberal told you, then you
>didn't dig deep enough.

[Winston_Smith]

On Wed, 15 May 2013 15:00:23 -0400, BeamMeUpScotty wrote:
>On 5/15/2013 2:51 PM, Winston_Smith wrote:

>> On Wed, 15 May 2013 14:09:27 -0400, BeamMeUpScotty wrote:
>>
>> Oh look. Our little wonder managed to cut and paste a link to a video
>> that someone else made. Isn't he clever? Isn't he accomplished? Not
>> bad at all for someone with the brain power of a three year old.
>
>You are an Alinskyite Liberal,

You might want to check with TMT and deep on my liberal credentials. I
think they have been revoked.

>you attack the messenger like Obama and
>the IRS does.... destroy the person when you can't destroy the FACTS.

Besides, I didn't say anything for or against conservatives, liberals,
the IRS, or Obama. I said you were spamming usenet with worthless junk
of zero content and acting like a three year old.

>Typical Democrat-Socialist tactics made popular by Saul Alinsky.

Whoever the h*** that is.

[BeamMeUpScotty]

Well.... the Secret service uses it to buy hookers.

congress uses it to start a plate museum in South Carolina.

Obama gives it out for cell phones and, Farmers that never farmed anything.

They buy into Solar cell corporations that wast it on a fancy building,
but goes out of business in just a year or two. And leves behind a
building that no one wanted.

They build exploding Space shuttles.


Obama pays to have a immigration service that he won't let deport the
illegal immigrants they catch.

Need more.... I can keep going?

--


*Rumination*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=v4S5nM8BjwM&NR=1

[Nickname unavailable]

> government is a customer: businesses hire more workers if they have more customers, and fire workers if they have fewer customers: There are 2 big categories of customer: One is comprised of individual consumers The other is government.: 1 out of every 5 Americans works for a company whose customer is the government


so slash away dummies, maybe your job will be the one that gets
sacrificed on the alter of stupidity. then after that, perhaps you
might figure it out after you can no longer consume, and maybe you
lose your home, that demand for goods and services is wage driven.








http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/unemployment-government-spending_b_2744459.html?utm_hp_ref=politics&ir=Politics


Robert Reich
Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy, University of California at
Berkeley; Author, 'Beyond Outrage'



Why Customers Are Disappearing, Why Higher Unemployment Is the Likely
Result, and Why Many in Washington Don't Have Half a Brain
Posted: 02/22/2013 4:37 pm
Can we just put aside ideology for one minute and agree that
businesses hire more workers if they have more customers, and fire
workers if they have fewer customers?
There are two big categories of customer: One is comprised of
individual consumers. The other is government.
We tend to think of the government as a direct employer -- of
teachers, fire fighters, civil servants.
But government is also a major customer of the private sector. It buys
school supplies, pharmaceuticals, military equipment, computers. It
hires private companies to build roads and bridges, dredge ports,
manage data.
One out of every five Americans works for a company whose customer is
the government.
Here's the problem: Both categories of customer are buying less.
Individual consumers are buying less because they have less take-home
pay. Their wages are dropping (the median wage is 8 percent below what
it was in 2000, adjusted for inflation). And their taxes have gone up.
The expiration of the Social Security payroll tax cut will shrink the
typical paycheck by more than $1,000 this year.
Less take-home pay is causing 45.7 percent of consumers to pull in
their belts, according to a survey released Thursday by the National
Retail Federation. A quarter of consumers are putting off big-ticket
purchases. A third are cutting back on eating out. A fifth are
spending less on groceries.
This is why January's retail sales rose at their smallest rate in
three months.
What about the other big customer -- government? It used to be that
when consumers spent less, government stepped into the breach and
spent more in order to keep people employed. That's what we were
supposed to have learned from the Great Depression.
No longer. Government is cutting back, too. Deficit hawks and
government-haters are insisting on it.
Last year, President Obama agreed to $1.5 trillion of spending cuts,
which have already begun.
Unless Republicans and Democrats reach a budget agreement before next
Friday, another $85 billion of spending cuts go into effect this year.
They'll begin almost immediately.
With consumers and government both spending less, businesses won't
hire more workers; they'll fire more workers. That's likely to happen
in coming months.
Anyone with half a brain should be able to understand all this. But
apparently many in Washington don't have half a brain.
ROBERT B. REICH, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the
University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the
Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most
effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written
thirteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock" and "The Work
of Nations." His latest is an e-book, "Beyond Outrage," now available
in paperback. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect
magazine and chairman of Common Cause.

>







>
> >           *Rumination*
> >#45 - If you haven't found the lie in what a Liberal told you, then you
> >didn't dig deep enough.
>
> --
> "You guess the truth hurts?
>
> Really?
>
> "Hurt" aint the word.
>
> For Liberals, the truth is like salt to a slug.
> Sunlight to a vampire.

> Raid� to a cockroach.

[BeamMeUpScotty]

On 5/15/2013 4:32 PM, Winston_Smith wrote:
> On Wed, 15 May 2013 15:00:23 -0400, BeamMeUpScotty wrote:
>> On 5/15/2013 2:51 PM, Winston_Smith wrote:
>>> On Wed, 15 May 2013 14:09:27 -0400, BeamMeUpScotty wrote:
>>>
>>> Oh look. Our little wonder managed to cut and paste a link to a video
>>> that someone else made. Isn't he clever? Isn't he accomplished? Not
>>> bad at all for someone with the brain power of a three year old.
>>
>> You are an Alinskyite Liberal,
>
> You might want to check with TMT and deep on my liberal credentials. I
> think they have been revoked.

I never go by anything except your post to me, I don't even care what
the name on the page is...... because Liberal is Liberal. I have
Republicans tell me they aren't Liberal yet they are spewing Liberal
ideology.


Every post you make is a new beginning with me.

[BeamMeUpScotty]

On 5/15/2013 3:55 PM, Gunner Asch wrote:

Well.... the Secret service uses it to buy hookers.

congress uses it to start a plate museum in South Carolina.

Obama gives it out for cell phones and, Farmers that never farmed anything.

They buy into Solar cell corporations that wast it on a fancy building,
but goes out of business in just a year or two. And leves behind a
building that no one wanted.

They build exploding Space shuttles.


Obama pays to have a immigration service that he won't let deport the
illegal immigrants they catch.

Need more.... I can keep going?

More......


Obama pays the U.N. to treat America like shit and try to violate the
u.s. constitution.


They send it out to terrorists like the Palestinians.

Obama's vacations....

more?

[Winston_Smith]

Fine. Tell me what I wrote that showed me to be a liberal. What I said
was "you were spamming usenet with worthless junk of zero content and
acting like a three year old.".

[Nickname unavailable]

On May 15, 1:09 pm, BeamMeUpScotty

<ThenDestroyEveryth...@blackhole.nebulax.com> wrote:
> enemies  IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies  IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies
>  IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies  IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies  IRS IRS
> IRS punish our enemies  IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies  IRS IRS IRS
> punish our enemies  IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies  IRS IRS IRS punish
> our enemies  IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies  IRS IRS IRS punish our
> enemies  IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies  IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies
>  IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies  IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies  IRS IRS
> IRS punish our
>
> And the Stock Market goes up on the NEWS that OBAMA is a liar and
> Nixonian style leader. And Obama HATES America and he HATES the
> Constitution....  enough to use the IRS to attack and punish American

> citizens.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jr9mLB3yKs

>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeNoRqtDSeQ
>
> IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS
> IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish
> our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our
> enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies
> IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS
> IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish
> our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our
> enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies
> IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS
> IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish
> our enemies IRS IRS IRS punish our enemies

Bush Used the IRS, FBI, CIA and Secret Service to Go After Opponents.
Where Was the Fox and GOP Outrage?: in 2005, Bush’s IRS began what
became an extensive two-year investigation into a Pasadena church
after an orator dared to speak out against President Bush’s Iraq War

http://www.alternet.org/bush-used-irs-fbi-cia-and-secret-service-go-after-opponents-where-was-fox-and-gop-outrage

/ By David Sirota [2]

Bush Used the IRS, FBI, CIA and Secret Service to Go After Opponents
-- Where Was the Fox and GOP Outrage?
May 14, 2013  |

As your kindergarten teacher probably told you, two wrongs do not make
a right. But the discrepancy in reactions to wrongs does, indeed, show
how Washington so often serves the interests of the political right.
That’s one of the big – if deliberately ignored – takeaways from the
reaction to news that the Internal Revenue Service allegedly targeting
conservative organizations for extra scrutiny in their larger review
of political groups’ tax exempt status. In the last few days, the
allegations have generated a wave of national headlines,
a congressional investigation [3],federal legislation [4] and ever-
louder [5] calls for impeachment [6].
Considering the gravity of the allegations against the Obama IRS from
the Treasury Department’s inspector general, congressional scrutiny is
certainly warranted. However, there’s just one problem: most of the
lawmakers and pundits today decrying the use of public resources
against a White House’s political opponents had little – if anything –
to say about equally troubling revelations about the Bush
administration’s deployment of public resources against its opponents.
In fact, conservatives said so little back then that Fox News
apparently doesn’t even know [7] (or is pretending not to know) the
Bush administration used the IRS in the same way the Obama
adminstration allegedly did.
And here’s the even more incredible thing: the Bush cabal didn’t just
use the IRS for its political hackery – it mounted a full-scale
government-wide assault on its enemies, marshaling disparate agencies
in its smear efforts.
Bush’s use of the IRS was but one part of that larger assault. As my
Salon colleague Alex Seitz-Wald notes today in greater detail [8], in
2005, Bush’s IRS began what became an extensive two-year investigation
[9] into a Pasadena church after an orator dared to speak out against
President Bush’s Iraq War. Not coincidentally, the Los Angeles Times
[10] reports that the church targeted just so happened to be “one of
Southern California’s largest and most liberal congregations.” That
IRS church audit came a year after it launched a near-identical attack
on the NAACP [11] after the civil rights organization criticized
various Bush administration policies.
That is not where the story ends, however. The Bush administration’s
crusade against its enemies moved from the IRS into the Secret
Service.
Under the Republican president, that law enforcement agency
was repeatedly [12] deployed [13] to physically block suspected
antiwar activists from attending public presidential events. As
the San Francisco Chronicle [12] reported, the scheme eventually
targeted some peaceful antiwar activists for arrest for the alleged
crime of “holding up small handwritten protest signs outside the
designated zone” of free speech (yes, the Bush White House cemented
the precedent that the right to dissent is no longer a fundamental
right, but is instead only allowed in certain “free speech
zones” [14]). Ultimately, in a case dealing with a man who was
arrested for simply telling Vice President Dick Cheney that his
“policies on Iraq are disgusting,” the Republican-dominated Supreme
Court upheld the Bush administration’s use of “retaliatory
arrests” [15] against the administration’s ideological critics.
Then, in 2010, we learned that Bush’s targeting operation was also
operating inside the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Recounting
findings from the Justice Department’s Inspector General,
the Washington Post [16] reported that “the FBI improperly
investigated some left-leaning U.S. advocacy groups after the Sept.
11, 2001, attacks…citing cases in which agents put activists on
terrorist watch lists even though they were planning nonviolent civil
disobedience.”
A year later, we learned that along with the IRS, Secret Service and
FBI, the Bush administration may have also been using the Central
Intelligence Agency against its political enemies. As the New York
Times [17] reported, “A former Central Intelligence Agency officer who
was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of
President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked
intelligence officials to gather sensitive information” on prominent
Iraq War critic Juan Cole. That story had an eerie similarity to the
Bush administration’s effort to out CIA operative Valerie Plame as
retribution for her husband’s criticism of that same war.
Unlike the noisy outrage that met today’s allegations of IRS
misconduct under President Obama, these earlier – and well-documented
– revelations of systemic IRS, Secret Service, FBI and CIA misconduct
were met with a collective shrug of the shoulders in Washington. Sure,
a few newspapers wrote about them, and a few Democratic lawmakers
[18] tried to raise questions about the Bush administration’s actions,
but compared to today’s sound and fury over the IRS allegations, there
was veritable silence. Indeed, as alluded to before, so little outrage
was voiced about this kind of thing during the Bush years that a Fox
News’ headline this week summarizing a Karl Rove interview
blared: “What if IRS Under President Bush targeted liberal
groups?” [7] – as if that never actually happened…even though it most
certainly did.
What explains this obvious double standard in the reactions to Bush
era and Obama era misconduct? Partisanship, expectations and
ideological bias.
In terms of partisanship, Republicans now screaming bloody murder over
the IRS allegations clearly don’t care about the principles of equal
protection, nonpartisan public services or impartial governance. We
know this because most of them had nothing to say about the Bush
administration’s actions against the GOP’s ideological opponents. In
the context of that record, the GOP is really saying it is outraged
when government resources are aimed at its friends, but more than
happy to have those resources aimed at its enemies.
That context, though, hasn’t been publicly referenced by most
Democrats. Indeed, other than Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) [19], most
Democratic lawmakers have not dared to mention that the problem of
politicized government goes back many years.
That gets to expectations and ideological bias – simply put, the
expectation in a Washington where both parties and most media outlets
tilt to the right is that conservative groups should never be treated
the same way liberal groups so often are. Why? Because conservative
causes (say, the anti-tax movement) tend to be aligned with the
interests of the transpartisan moneyed establishment while liberal
causes (say, the anti-war movement) tend to be at odds with those
interests.
Thus, when conservative groups happen to be treated like liberal
groups, the Washington Outrage Machine turns the noise up to 11 – even
though when liberal groups were targeted, that Outrage Machine
remained dormant. And with today’s national press corps reoriented
around amplifying – rather than challenging – power, this double
standard is then predictably reflected in a corresponding discrepancy
in coverage.
Taken together, the lesson should be straightforward: according to
Washington, politicized government is perfectly fine when it is
punishing liberal forces that challenge the status quo, but totally
outrageous when it is targeting conservative groups that preserve the
status quo.
Neither should be acceptable, of course. But that truism is ignored by
a hypocritical political culture whose unquestioned assumptions so
obviously favor the right.

[BeamMeUpScotty]

You said no one watches them, that would mean it makes no difference.

> in 2005, Bush’s IRS began what
> became an extensive two-year investigation into a Pasadena church
> after an orator dared to speak out against President Bush’s Iraq War

And Bush is gone now isn't he, so we didn't elect him again did we? ;)



Then there's that little thing about two wrongs don't make a right.


You can't just admit Obama is a FUCK-UP. Obama hates America and
Obama hates the constitution.

[Nickname unavailable]

On May 16, 12:17 am, BeamMeUpScotty

your a big government socialist who profited off of the rigging of
the stock market with tax payer dollars by reagan. why should anything
you say carry any weight at all?

[BeamMeUpScotty]

I don't recall saying I profited or that I had stocks in a Reagan stock
Market..... I didn't have any U.S. stocks during Carter or Reagan, I
was a college kid.

I did say I didn't lose big because I got out.... I also never said I
had a lot of money in the U.S. Stock market.

But I did get it "all" out when Clinton won his second term because I
saw that bubble coming and I did have a sizable amount in the U.S.
Stocks back then. I closed my U.S. trading account. Funny that the
bubble burst and I didn't lose anything on the Clinton manipulating of
the Markets.

Then when Bush was creating a Bubble by artificial interest rates I
again got out after testing the waters for while but I had NOT really
been back in it in any substantial amounts.

I then dropped it all and kept it at ZERO being invested there while
Obama has been in office. I won't be putting a dime in while Obama
manipulates the entire economy. I invest in other directions.


But your rants are a hoot to read, even if you never get anything right.

[Peter Franks]

On 5/15/2013 8:36 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
> Bush Used the IRS, FBI, CIA and Secret Service to Go After Opponents.

So, are you saying that this is good or bad?

If it is good, then you must be in support of Bush.

If it is bad, then you must view Obama as equivalently corrupt as Bush.

Well, which is it?

[Winston_Smith]

On Wed, 15 May 2013 18:32:21 -0700, Winston_Smith wrote:

>On Wed, 15 May 2013 20:04:18 -0400, BeamMeUpScotty wrote:

>>>> You are an Alinskyite Liberal,
>>>
>>> You might want to check with TMT and deep on my liberal credentials. I
>>> think they have been revoked.
>>
>>I never go by anything except your post to me, I don't even care what
>>the name on the page is...... because Liberal is Liberal. I have
>>Republicans tell me they aren't Liberal yet they are spewing Liberal
>>ideology.
>>
>>Every post you make is a new beginning with me.
>
>Fine. Tell me what I wrote that showed me to be a liberal. What I said
>was "you were spamming usenet with worthless junk of zero content and
>acting like a three year old.".

Cat got your tongue?

[BeamMeUpScotty]

It's NOT there and I'm NOT going back to find it to satisfy you.


There are enough people with presumed authority over me, I don't need
one more. So I'll do as I please....


I post more thoughtful and informed content here than any 50 Liberals.

You don't like the truth, use your reader filters to filter out the truth.


See how freedom works?

[Winston_Smith]

On Thu, 16 May 2013 20:23:43 -0400, BeamMeUpScotty wrote:
>On 5/16/2013 7:28 PM, Winston_Smith wrote:
>> On Wed, 15 May 2013 18:32:21 -0700, Winston_Smith wrote:
>>> On Wed, 15 May 2013 20:04:18 -0400, BeamMeUpScotty wrote:
>>
>>>>>> You are an Alinskyite Liberal,
>>>>>
>>>>> You might want to check with TMT and deep on my liberal credentials. I
>>>>> think they have been revoked.
>>>>
>>>> I never go by anything except your post to me, I don't even care what
>>>> the name on the page is...... because Liberal is Liberal. I have
>>>> Republicans tell me they aren't Liberal yet they are spewing Liberal
>>>> ideology.
>>>>
>>>> Every post you make is a new beginning with me.
>>>
>>> Fine. Tell me what I wrote that showed me to be a liberal. What I said
>>> was "you were spamming usenet with worthless junk of zero content and
>>> acting like a three year old.".
>>
>> Cat got your tongue?
>
>It's NOT there and I'm NOT going back to find it to satisfy you.

You talked big and now you are running with your tail between your
legs. OK. I'll just put you down as all talk and no content. Another
proof you are a mindless liberal.

>There are enough people with presumed authority over me, I don't need
>one more. So I'll do as I please....

You should check in with your parole officer, though. And probably the
guy who approves you for more food stamps.

>I post more thoughtful and informed content here than any 50 Liberals.

You do post more.