This post has two sections, one that applies to economic liberals and one that applies to economic conservatives. You may read both if you would like to – or simply click here if you are a liberal or here if you are a conservative.
Time for a Tea Party: A Message to the Right
April 15, 2009 will not be just another day. Sure, Americans everywhere will hurry to get our personal and corporate taxes together so that the Gestapo we call the IRS does not kick down our door with a no knock raid. However, another far more important event shall happen – the resurrection of the Boston Tea Party as patriots everywhere push back against the evils and excesses of the federal government and their insistence upon choking our prosperity.
I do have reservations about the motivation of some of the tea party participants. Our country’s fight for liberty -the Boston tea party, Tommy Paine’s work, The Revolution – was not simply a fight against the economic abuse of Britain, but rather a fight for Freedom. Despite invoking the patriotic theme of the revolution, some tea party protesters do not seem to care about freedom – they just want to dodge taxes. I respect their stand against the the insane corporate taxes and top tier, so called “progressive” taxes on the higher income of the hard workers and innovators that make this country free, but I despise their hypocrisy.
Psuedo socialists “rage against the machine” sing a song wake up. We as conservatives could take some advice from across the aisle and wake up – because we fight against the same machine: the status quo – the forces that want to strip us of our freedom and turn us into sheeple who follow the one party republocrat line.
So I ask my fellow tea party protestors a simple question: where are the protests and demonstrations to protect medical marijuana patients, gay marriage, and the very notion of states’ rights that underpin these causes? I will remind you that being a conservative isn’t about creating laws that favor you – it’s about creating an environment of freedom and small government in which we can all thrive and innovate. We must therefore, as conservatives, stand up for the freedom of all Americans. We must oppose the warrantless wiretaps, the renditions, the Federal Reserve expansion – all the excesses our two faced socialist in conservative clothing, George W. Bush created. Excesses that a two faced “socialist in reformers clothing” Obama claimed he would stop and is now continuing to expand. Power corrupts – absolute power corrupts absolutely. We must therefore return the power to the people – each individual that makes up our great society. Only then can we restore our economy, our society, our standing in the world.
I will remind all the hypocritical “conservatives” of a simple fact: If you want freedom its all or nothing – he who would sacrifice precious liberty for temporary security deserves neither.
On April 15th let’s protest with a grand tea party – not just a protest against the bailout, the taxes, the fed, and the economic abuses of this administration but a demonstration of solidarity with our fellow Americans. And let’s remember that our fellow Americans who struggle daily for freedom include the sick who need medical marijuana, the lgbt community who wants equality, and the everyday hard working non political American whose way of life is threatened daily by the nanny sociofascist police state that our past presidents have ushered us into.
We should fight the good fight and teabag the feds before they teabag us – but we should also protest in other novel ways. Get a gun license and stock up on guns so that the government is scared of the people – not the other way around. Plant questions by planting pot on government grounds or by sending your congressional representatives pictures of same sex couples and families – or simply send the white house a well rolled magical cigar. We must question the status quo, get the attention of the masses, and take on those who try to take our freedoms.
Time for a Tea Party: A Message to the Left
April 15, 2009 will not be just another day. Sure, Americans everywhere will hurry to get our personal and corporate taxes together so that the Gestapo we call the IRS does not kick down our door with a no knock raid. However, another far more important event shall happen – the resurrection of the Boston Tea Party as patriots everywhere push back against the evils and excesses of the federal government and their insistence upon choking our prosperity.
On April 15, patriots will come together to give tribute to our forefathers who obtained the freedoms that slip from us day by day and protest the socialist policies of this administration. Some readers may now be wondering how this Tea Party 2.0 applies to the Hardcore Dynamic lifestyle.
To preface the answer: I believe that within the counter culture there is too often a tendency to disvalue everything they perceive the status quo to represent. However, perceptions are not always the reality of a situation, and – forgive the cliché – but this behavior is tantamount to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. After all, the foundation of the counter culture itself is routed in the culture of the status quo. One would hope that even in the best, most fair, and most utopian of societies there exists a counter culture because that would be proof that unpopular opinions are not only developed, but tolerated.
A popular assumption within some circles is that private ownership, free markets and credit are responsible for the problems of society. In essence, it is an unvalidated assumption that capitalism is to blame for an innumerable number of social woes. In reality, capitalism and especially international free trade is responsible for spreading freedom, wealth and autonomy around the globe.
Some may now pause and wonder how true this is in light of recent events and the economic downturn. This notion is based on another fault assumption: that we have had free market capitalism in the United States. I will not devote this post to debunking this myth, but I will suggest that you research what free markets are, what us economic policy has been, and what the federal reserve has been doing. We have not had anything near free markets in this country since FDR was elected president.
Until we have completely unlimited resources, capitalism is the best way to manage the resources we are endowed with. Capitalism places power of ownership in the hands of the individual, rather than a state or a leader. In essence, it empowers the individual. Capitalism is a self governing, self regulating system, instead of top down approach that is advocated by socialists.
Capitalism also promotes equality. Uninhibited free trade is what allowed women to claim autonomy over patriarchal systems as it became clear that women were a powerful and untapped source of human and intellectual capital. Now women are more independent and equal than ever before. Likewise, when it was shown that happy flexible employees are far more productive than bored and stressed employees, rapid advancements in work place dynamics were introduced. By focusing on efficiency and productivity, capitalism not only disrupts the inequity of spoils and nepotism, but also bigotry, bias and slavery. Ultimately, capitalism encourages education and happiness because educated and happy people have more potential to be creative, work hard and create wealth.
It is easy to find fault with free trade because of the rapid changes it stimulates. Whenever change takes place there will always be relative winners and losers. In the case of trade, some workers in some sectors may lose out while others benefit. However, limited resources are better made use of and in the long run, as prices equalize and supply and demand comes into balance, people and resources around the world are put on a more level playing field. It is a phenomenon called Factor Price Equalization.
Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with winners and losers either. It is part of the grand process of natural selection. Without winners and losers, nothing would change and we would still be a stagnant species hunting for animals with spears on the savannah.
Capitalism has improved society through a tedious process of trial and error, but steadily, through applied theory and scientific research, the world is improving. The most radical advances in standard of living in the developing world have occurred because of an embrace of free trade. Just take a look at India and China where an incredible amount of social advancement is taking place because of businesses.
Still there are problems in the fundamental assumptions the business world and society as a whole tends to make. For example, we tend to think the long run is not that important because in the long run we are all dead. This idea has caused a great deal of damage to occur in the environment and has caused a tremendous amount of resource and policy mismanagement. All is not lost though, because as we get closer to radical life extension technology this paradigm will be eliminated.
As we progress into singularity begin to construct our own realities let us not forget the guiding light of Reason. Capitalism is an efficient tool that has been driving our progress but it has been what we have chosen to done with the tools that capitalism provides that has caused both the good and bad we see today. Until we develop the technology to have unlimited resources, capitalism is the most powerful and efficient system we have to work with. If we want to see real change take place today, we must harness the social machinery of capitalism and employ it towards improving the fabric of our reality. That is why on April 15, we must join to protest our regression towards socialism in the United States.
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