Category Archives: Private Property

Treason Lobby

Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Private Property, Taxation

If you’ve worked smart and hard and are making more than a million dollars a year, you’ve lucked out: Garrett Gruener, leader of the Orwellian “Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength,” is lobbying Capitol Hill today on your behalf, to have your taxes increased. You’re working way too hard; you can’t take time off to defend private property. Not so Gruener; who is very very rich. Gruener has all the time and money in the world to bend the president’s big ear. And, naturally, lap dog to the left, NPR’s Jeffrey Brown, is all ears:

JEFFREY BROWN: First, I want you define this group. Who are you, how many, and where do you come — where do the members come from?

GARRETT GRUENER: These are about 200 folks so far who make a substantial amount of money and who believe that the — it’s time to roll back the Bush tax cuts, that essentially what we need to do for the sake of the country is to tax folks like ourselves more.

JEFFREY BROWN: And is there a consensus on how much more when you talk about — you’re talking about the marginal rate?

GARRETT GRUENER: That’s right.

We are talking about moving back to the marginal rate that prevailed under President Clinton of 39.6 percent on, in this case, folks who make more than a million dollars a year.

JEFFREY BROWN: What’s the argument? Why?

GARRETT GRUENER: Well, simply, first of all, the country needs the money, and we think it’s the right thing to do.

We think that, you know, like other Americans, we love this country, and that those in the upper 1 percent essentially have been treated too good for their own sake, too good for the sake of the country. We have all done very well, and it’s time to give back. …

[SNIP]

AND perhaps Gruener’s biggest non sequitur: “…the relentless desire on the part of the Republicans to push down marginal rates was causing us to have an excessive deficit, which we believe is a big problem, and to under-invest in things that we think are critical for a good society.”

In other words, merely thinking about leaving more private property with its original owners can collapse the welfare state (“which is critical for a good society”). Is there anything more repulsive than a left-liberal man, as he dreams up ways to give what’s not his away?

MORE.

‘The Program’ Behind The Occupy Wall Street Protests

Business, Capitalism, Democracy, Economy, Individual Rights, Political Economy, Political Philosophy, Private Property

Tired of listening to mealymouthed left-libertarians laboring to find commonalities with the Occupy Wall Street “sleepover”? You should be. I know I am. I have no sisterly solidarity for socialists.

Here’s the stark reality of this extravaganza: Within the buildings are people beavering away, working for a living. Railing against them without—sitting idle in the parks, streets and on sidewalks—are individuals who trash, scream, sleep for hours on end, loiter, strip down and publicly body-paint each other, copulate and defecate.

Economist George Reisman dissects the farrago of economic errors the protesters and their sympathizers commit: “What the protesters do not realize is that the wealth of the one percent provides the standard of living of the ninety-nine percent.”

Read “How a Highly Productive and Provident One Percent Provides the Standard of Living of a Largely Ignorant and Ungrateful Ninety-Nine Percent” by George Reisman.

UPDATED: Rick Gets Rabid; Ron Paul Endures

Economy, Elections, Political Philosophy, Politics, Private Property, Ron Paul, Taxation

The following is from my new WND.COM, “Rick Gets Rabid; Ron Paul Endures”:

“CNN must be desperate for the ratings the network receives whenever it hosts a Republican presidential debate. As moderator of the Tea Party Debate in Tampa, Florida, last month, Wolf Blitzer worked it. And not once did leftist activist-cum-anchor Anderson Cooper mention bullying in Las Vegas, Tuesday night: Viewers of the Western Republican Debate got off lightly. The excuse for a newsman known as Anderson Cooper did only one stupid thing: Demonstrate to the seven presidential contenders how to introduce themselves.

CNN was on its best behavior, which is more than one can say about Governor Rick Perry (R-TX). He sounds a lot like a slightly less stupid ‘W,’ which is still plenty stupid (and cunning to boot). The man is so much like The Decider in demeanor that it’s unsettling.

In bashing Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax-reform plan, Perry persistently called Cain ‘brother’ (‘I love you, brother, but…’). This phony, patronizing touch was plainly insulting.

For colorful metaphors that capture the tapped arteries of taxation in the Cain plan—destined to balloon with the lifeblood of the taxpayer—it’s hard to beat Grover Norquist. The president of Americans for Tax Reform likened 9-9-9 to putting ‘tapeworms in your tummy to try and maintain your weight.’ And to ‘having three needles in your arm drawing blood instead of one.'” …

Read the complete column, “Rick Gets Rabid; Ron Paul Endures,” now on WND.COM.

My book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon.

A Kindle copy is also on sale.

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Still better, shipping is free and prompt if you purchase Into the Cannibal’s Pot from The Publisher.

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UPDATED: The Individual? The Family? What About Property?

Elections, Family, Founding Fathers, Individual Rights, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Private Property, Ron Paul

RICK SANTORUM said this during the CNN Western Republican Debate, last night: “I disagree in some respects with Congressman Paul, who says the country is founded on the individual. The basic building block of a society is not an individual. It’s the family. That’s the basic unit of society.”

[SNIP]

What came first; the unit or its constituent parts? Is not a social unit like the family comprised of individuals? And did not the sovereign states precede the union? Although it all begins with the individual, the preeminence of the individual in no way negates the vitality of the family.

CONGRESSMAN RON PAUL REPLIED: “Well, I would like to explain that rights don’t come in bunches. Rights come as individuals, they come from a God, and they come as each individual has a right to life and liberty.”

Someone please stand up for property, next time. The defense of private property rights is urgent as the Occupy Wall Street hooligans encroach.

UPDATE: Contemplationist below is right. With his “Live, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” as I observed, Jefferson has “bequeathed us a vagueness that has helped undermine the foundation of civilization: private property.”