Socialism restricts the redistribution of wealth

There are times when things get shuffled around, put in a drawer, forgotten. I meant to get back to this in a much more timely fashion, but it just never happened.

John Rawls' most well known work, "A Theory of Justice", is where he writes the following: (page 242)

It is necessary, then, to recognize that market institutions are common to both private-property and socialist regimes, and to distinguish between the allocative and the distributive function of prices. Since under socialism, the means of production and natural resources are publicly owned, the distributive function is greatly restricted, wheras a private-property system uses prices in varying degrees for both purposes. Which of these systems and the many intermediate forms most fully answers to the requirements of justice cannot, I think, be determined in advance.

Rawls last line in particular is alarming: "Which of these systems and the many intermediate forms most fully answers to the requirements of justice cannot, I think, be determined in advance"

So what.... the planners are just going to have to conduct a series of social experiments in order to make sure they get it right? At the cost of whose life, liberty, and property? Hasn't enough destruction been wrought out in America at the hands of progressives and their schemes? Oh well, I suppose. Just as long as the Rawlsians achieve their "well ordered society"? See my prior posting, he uses this phrase over 70 times in the book. Justice? Screwing around with people's lives just to achieve your utopian view is not just. This is not just.

Rawls is correct though, in that socialism would restrict wealth redistribution, as the state would suck all it up indefinitely. This is actually something you can verify across the wider socialist world, by noting how often socialists will complain about the 'excesses of capitalism' and so forth - it produces more and they know it. So did Rawls. Which produces a very fascinating contradiction in this book of his, A Theory of Justice. How does a would be planner properly plan society - a "well ordered society" - without growing government so large so as to end up as a tyrannical socialist regime? On page 241, he writes:

In conformity with political decisions reached democratically, the government regulates the economic climate by adjusting certain elements under its control, such as the overall amount of investment, the rate of interest, and the quantity of money, and so on. There is no necessity for comprehensive direct planning. Individual households and firms are free to make their decisions independently, subject to the general conditions of the economy.

This is too contradictory to stand, which is possibly why Rawls' theories remain a creature of college indoctrination and nothing more. So 'comprehensive direct planning' isn't necessary, how about indirect? How about piecemeal? Some form of planning is clearly necessary, otherwise you don't have a "well ordered society". 40 years after being published, these ideas are still being pushing in academia which is why I have no intention of letting it go.

I'm not in the class anymore where Rawls was a hot topic, which is what made it easy for me to forget about this. But this sounds a lot to me like the earlier progressives who wanted a more activist government, but weren't socialists either.

Should the colleges ever become successful in indoctrinating enough utopian Rawlsians, hopefully someone will find what I'm attempting to do here, and be prepared to deal with this at that time.

http://tinyurl.com/79dvrlz

Levin explains why conservatism is not an ideology

On Levin's show this past thursday, he took a call from a college student in Chicago. This call wouldn't have had to be made if colleges still taught the principles of liberty. This call illustrates both the danger we face(which the colleges themselves have helped to create/exaserbate) as well as the fact that there are indeed answers to questions, there are solid and grounded reasons for why things are as they are.

Mark Levin explains why conservatism is not an ideology

Youtube

This couldn't come at a better time, considering some of the contrasts I hope to one day do between the Founders of America and the founders of progressivism. This is something that I myself have believed for a long time, but I've never heard or read an answer as eloquent as this.

http://tinyurl.com/7o77l5n

We must demand that the individual shall be willing to lose the sense of personal achievement

In "Democracy and Social Ethics", Jane Addams wrote the following: (page 275)

The power to distinguish between the genuine effort and the adventitious mistakes is perhaps the most difficult test which comes to our fallible intelligence. In the range of individual morals, we have learned to distrust him who would reach spirituality by simply renouncing the world, or by merely speculating upon its evils. The result, as well as the process of virtues attained by repression, has become distasteful to us. When the entire moral energy of an individual goes into the cultivation of personal integrity, we all know how unlovely the result may become; the character is upright, of course, but too coated over with the result of its own endeavor to be attractive. In this effort toward a higher morality in our social relations, we must demand that the individual shall be willing to lose the sense of personal achievement, and shall be content to realize his activity only in connection with the activity of the many.

So first off, all of you who reach higher to be better people, you're ugly.

Second, individuals must surrender to the collective - "the activity of the many".

This is pure poison. But it's a consistent refrain from those who believe in progressive ideals, that the individual doesn't matter. Only the group matters.

http://tinyurl.com/836ldml

Theodore Roosevelt's anti-constitutional progressivism

In Theodore Roosevelt's Autobiography,(page 372) he writes the following:

I declined to adopt the view that what was imperatively necessary for the Nation could not be done by the President unless he could find some specific authorization to do it. My belief was that it was not only his right but his duty to do anything that the needs of the Nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws. Under this interpretation of executive power I did and caused to be done many things not previously done by the President and the heads of the departments. I did not usurp power, but I did greatly broaden the use of executive power. In other words, I acted for the public welfare, I acted for the common well-being of all our people, whenever and in whatever manner was necessary, unless prevented by direct constitutional or legislative prohibition.

How Napoleonic of you, Mr. Roosevelt. Saul Alinsky thought that the ends justified the means as well.

Both before and after this comment Roosevelt tries to claim that he is a constitutionalist. But a constitutionalist does not systematically look for weaknesses like a foreign invader, a constitutionalist protects and defends the constitution thereby defending liberty first and foremost.

Theodore Roosevelt stood against liberty, like every other progressive. We've been suffering because of progressivism ever since.

http://tinyurl.com/7tuvszv

How progressives use technology to confuse debate on governmental structure

In Constitutional Government(1908), Woodrow Wilson wrote the following:(pages 169-170)

When the Constitution was framed there were no railways, there was no telegraph, there was no telephone. The Supreme Court has read the power of Congress to establish post-offices and post-roads and to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states to mean that it has jurisdiction over practically ever matter connected with intercourse between the states. Railways are highways; telegraph and telephone lines are new forms of the post. The Constitution was not meant to hold the government back to the time of horses and wagons, the time when postboys carried every communication that passed from merchant to merchant, when trade had few long routes within the nation and did not venture in bulk beyond neighborhood transactions. The United States have clearly from generation to generation been taking on more and more of the characteristics of a community; more and more have their economic interests come to seem common interests; and the courts have rightly endeavored to make the Constitution a suitable instrument of the national life, extending to the things that are now common the rules that it established for similar things that were common at the beginning.

The fact that new technologies have arisen is of course, wholly irrelevant to whether or not the legislative has a check and balance upon the executive. It appears to me as if Wilson is perplexed a bit by the constitution. But being as Wilson himself was a central planner, he can't help it but look at the constitution in that way, as a highly regressive document for planning itself - which it isn't.

In the discourse regarding new technologies, Wilson utterly fails to make the case as to why there needs to be wholly new structures in government. It doesn't surprise me that this argument is of Wilsonian construct. Whole lectures have taken place in regard to this subject, It's been on TV and radio before. These are the voices of modern totalitarianism. So here's what all of us need to get straight: because three former paypal employees invented something called "Youtube", that means we need to give up the house and senate and we need panel after panel after panel of administrators to run our lives for us. See how disconnected the argument is? But that's what any progressive - Wilson included - would ultimately have you believe. Without being so honest and forthcoming, of course. This discourse on technology and the constitution is pure demagoguery. Even worse. Demagogues rely upon weaknesses in order to do what they do. Technology in conjunction with the constitution is not a weakness, but it's been made into one under an entirely false premise.

And this use of the word 'common' in conjunction with 'property' is disingenuous. For millenia, dictators of all stripes have used this ruse of 'common property' in order to rally the serfs. Common property is not government property. Private, government, and common property are three different things. The books I routinely quote from are common property; in the public domain, as are my recordings. The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution is common property. The audiobook recording of the STORM Manifesto is common property. It's one of the tyrant's best sales tactics: "We'll just redistribute a little wealth over here, hold this or that property in common over there", it's all a lie. What's really happening is the concentration of amassed power and wealth in one spot: the dictator's fist.

In some of the most famous words ever written, Lord Acton wrote the following to Mandell Creighton:

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

All of this and more, is exactly what Acton was talking about.

http://tinyurl.com/6r6ydwp

Tracing the roots of "progressive education" back to European ideals of totalitarianism

One of the most dangerous aspects of progressivism is the stranglehold they have upon the educational system. None of the ideas they have are new, some may be modern spins on old ideals, but these ultimately go back a long, long way. John Dewey is very well known as the father of modern education, but Dewey himself cites Mann as the "patron saint of progressive education". This makes Mann an important figure to be readily knowledgable about, as well as the roots of his beliefs.

Horace Mann is to Massachusetts' education what Dewey is to American education, to put it shortly. But tracking down the influences is what I'm going to attempt to do, and in doing so this will take quite some time. Because of the format of a blog, this may come off as convoluted if it's not read all the way through. Here, I copied a small line from TIME which mentions how Mann traveled to Germany and while there, he picked up ideas. What those ideas were, is what's important. I can't read the full article, but I have little doubt that they gloss over the fact that Mann was highly influenced by Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi past that one line.

Wikipedia's page on Social Pedagogy; that is, "Social Education", has a historical evolution from person to person that will probably suffice in the context of a blog posting. (And I would like to note, have you ever noticed how everything with these people is 'social'? Social education, social labour, social regulation, social production, social organization, social justice, social gospel, social rank, social responsibility, and on and on and on)

Pestalozzi, in short, was a follower of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's ideals as expressed in the book "Emile", which is something that the progressives 100 years ago were well aware of. Frank Pierrepont Graves was the educational commissioner for the State of New York for just under 20 years(1921-40), and here is what he wrote regarding this: (page 120)

Pestalozzi as the Successor of Rousseau. - Having outlined the various phases and influences of philanthropic education and surveyed the rise of the common school in America, we may now turn again to the more immediate development of the movements that found their roots in Rousseau. These received their first great growth through Pestalozzi.

As he notes on page 152, Horace Mann was instrumental in the importation of all this:

The most influential propaganda of the Pestalozzian 1 doctrines in general, however, came through the account of the German school methods in the Seventh Annual Report (1843) of Horace Mann, and through the inauguration of the 'Oswego methods' by Dr. Edward A. Sheldon. Mann spoke most enthusiastically of the success of the Prussian-Pestalozzian system of education and hinted at the need of a radical reform along the same lines in America.

Interesting wording - Horace Mann was a "Pestalozzian propagandist". Wheras Dewey is regarded as the father of modern education as a whole, Mann is regarded as "the Father of the Common School". This is a necessary evolution in the usurpation of education for totalitarian purposes. One reformer builds upon the work of a prior reformer. Regarding the book 'Emile', Graves writes this:(page 120 still)

Of course the negative attitude of the Emile was itself accompanied by considerable positive advance in its suggestions for a natural training, but this advice was often unpractical and extreme and its main emphasis was upon the destruction of existing education.

Incredible! So even with this acknowledged, using Emile as a blueprint is still accepted practice. He continues:

Hence the happiest educational results of Rousseau's work came through Pestalozzi, who especially supplemented that reformer's work upon the constructive side. Rousseau had shattered the eighteenth century edifice of despotism, privilege, and hypocrisy, and it remained for Pestalozzi to continue the erection of the more enduring structure he had started to build upon the ruins. Thus Pestalozzi became the first prominent educator to help Rousseau develop his negative and somewhat inconsistent 'naturalism' into a more positive attempt to reform corrupt society by proper education and a new method of teaching. He therein enlarged for education the social and psychological tendencies begun by Rousseau.

Right, so Rousseau is a valid "reformer" which all of us can look upon with shining eyes and open ears. Even with the results of the French Revolution, this goes to show you what kinds of things that progressives see as valid and thought provoking. As I read this, what I'm hearing is Cloward Piven mixed in with this. Destroy the system then you can remake the whole thing, and even if the ideas are widely rejected just implement them anyways. And this nonsense about Rousseau shattering the 18th century mindset, no matter what happy words are spread around, is completely removed from the results of what is actually born of the ideology of Rousseau.(French Revolution, again)

The point being, this is what's infected our school system, at least partly. From Dewey to Mann, who more than any other are the major forces responsible for what we're stuck with today. And considering people like Graves is an important part of the equation. Dewey didn't get elected to every single school board in the nation, that I'm aware of. So who would've been the one implementing Dewey's beliefs and philosophy? People who knew where it came from, and agreed with it.

Dewey himself had a degree of knowledge regarding the lineage of Pestalozzian ideals in the mix here. In an address given by Dewey in 1901 to the National Education Association(NEA), he stated the following:

Horace Mann and the disciples of Pestalozzi did their peculiar missionary work so completely as intellectually to crowd the conservative to the wall. For half a century after their time the ethical emotion, the bulk of exhortation, the current formulae and catchwords, the distinctive principles of theory have been found on the side of progress, of what is known as reform. The supremacy of self-activity, the symmetrical development of all the powers, the priority of character to information, the necessity of putting the real before the symbol, the concrete before the abstract, the necessity of following the order of nature and not the order of human convention - all these ideas, at the outset so revolutionary, have filtered into the pedagogic consciousness and become the commonplace of pedagogic writing and of the gatherings where teachers meet for inspiration and admonition.

Not only is it accepted, but it's viewed as revolutionary, in a good way. Pestalozzian ideals became so prevalent, that there was even a school journal published in Ohio called The Pestalozzian. It gets even worse when you consider who it is that introduced Pestalozzian ideals to Germany - Johann Gottlieb Fichte, one of the acknowledged fathers of socialism.(Hayek, Road to Serfdom, Page 81) In The American journal of education, published by Henry Barnard(who worked with Horace Mann), the introduction of Pestalozzi to the German princes is elaborated as follows: (page 836)

When, in the year of the French domination, the death of all German nationality seemed irremediable; when the dastardly hirelings left their standards in a heap on the field of battle, Fichte saw that for the redemption of Germany a nation must be educated. 'Create a people by national education,' he cried to the princes. The princes appealed to the people, and outward freedom was inaugurated. It was not Blacher, or Scharnhorst, etc., it was Fichte who drove the French out of the land. It was Fichte's deepest conviction that the idea of the perfect State could be gained only by education. He said 'the State cannot be constructed intelligently by artificial measures and out of any material that may be at hand, but the nation must be educated and cultivated up to it. Only the nation which shall first have solved the problem of education to perfected manhood through actual practice will solve that of the perfected State'. The philosopher was the creator of the idea of national education Fichte was the pedagogic statesman.

So what little information I was able to get out of TIME is accurate.

With Fichte having been the one being instrumental in introducing Pestalozzian ideals into Germany, that means that it wasn't purely Pestalozzi's principles that Germany was educating with. This explains Horace Mann's comments with regard to viewing your children as hostages to their cause(I mean, really. Who uses language like this when referring to children, anyways?) as well as his comment "Men are cast-iron; but children are wax." This is not the language of an educator. This is the language of an indoctrinator, which is exactly what Fichte believed should be done.

Ficthe himself was a disciple of Pestalozzi in a way, but also of Rousseau. (1, 2, 3)

Having done some digging into the writings of Fichte, I find his words not all that unlike Mann's, Dewey's, or other statists that I've posted about. He writes this in his "Addresses to the German Nation": (Page 20)

Then, in order to define more clearly the new education which I propose, I should reply that that very recognition of, and reliance upon, free will in the pupil is the first mistake of the old system and the clear confession of its impotence and futility. For, by confessing that after all its most powerful efforts the will still remains free, that is, hesitating undecided between good and evil, it confesses that it neither is able, nor wishes, nor longs to fashion the will and (since the latter is the very root of man) man himself, and that it considers this altogether impossible. On the other hand the new education must consist essentially in this that it completely destroys freedom of will in the soil which it undertakes to cultivate and produces on the contrary strict necessity in the decisions of the will the opposite being impossible.

At least he was honest.

This is what was imported into America. This is at the root of someone who could look at children as "hostages to some cause". From page 21:

If you want to influence him at all, you must do more than merely talk to him; you must fashion him, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than you wish him to will

Does this not sound almost word for word what Woodrow Wilson wrote? And further Fichte wrote: (Page 34)

The system of government must be arranged in such a way that the individual must not only abstain, but will also work and act, for the sake of the community.

This is the same sort of aggressive language that John Dewey used. THIS is the language of an indoctrinator. He makes clear what results he wants from his indoctrination. He talks again and again about 'molding' the right kind of german, who puts community 'in place of that love of self'. This has nothing to do with education benefitting the child being "educated", this is all about statist goals and statist idealism. In "Road to Serfdom", where Hayek points out (page 81) that classical liberalism had been killed by the socialists, this is how they did it - using the groundwork that Fichte(with help from said princes) laid. It's no wonder then that Isaiah Berlin lists Fichte as one of the six architects of the modern authoritarian state.

So if we ask the question this way: What exactly is it that the early educational reformers imported? As is shown, they thought they were following Pestalozzi. And in a lot of ways, I'm sure they were. However, with so many similar ideas being promoted and with 'Germanic(Prussian) ideals' being imported, there's bound to be some overlap, particularly when you consider the similarities. With Rousseau being the main root either way, Pestalozzi or Fichte. It all ultimately goes back to the same place.

Like so much of any of the other things I quote, the writings of Dewey, Rousseau, Fichte, or any other could be written today.

http://tinyurl.com/7fnk4mj

William Randolph Hearst was a progressive, not a conservative

In my interview on WZRD yesterday, I made the comment in response to a question regarding William Randolph Hearst, even without having already made an entry about it.

In "Truths about the Trusts", Hearst himself writes the following:(last page - 50)

The masses of the people to-day are more enlightened, more capable than ever before, more confident of their own knowledge and ability, more able to govern wisely and impartially, more dis- posed to take the power of government into their own hands and better fitted to exercise it for the general good.

The progressive political program in the United States is both moderate and sound. Its purpose does not go beyond the ideas of the founders of this republic, or beyond the obvious right and recognized ability of the citizens who constitute this republic.

This magazine declares its devotion to the cause of progress and will employ its best efforts to promote that cause.

It will discuss in its columns every phase of progress, and will endeavor to promote all legiti- mate advance and development without dissension and without disturbance.

It will strive to allay all unnecessary antagonisms and to unite all classes in harmonious support of such progressive measures as will secure exact justice for all and the fullest advantage for all.

I don't know about you, but I resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me, the free men and women of this country, as "the masses." This book was written in 1916, which would've been beyond his days as an elected representative within the Democrat party. But it does give you an idea about how he looks at people - as a collective.

Outside of looking for how Hearst described his own views(above), he can be a tricky one to track down. Like this one for example, who calls Hearst a radical. I suspect a lot of the villification that was done of Hearst back in those days by newsmen was more from a competitive point of view from another newsman's point of view, rather than a strict policy-oriented one. However, 'progressive' was typically the word used to describe Hearst in his own time.

Herbert Croly in his book "The Promise of American Life describes Hearst as a "Reformer". I normally don't say too much about the reformers, because they weren't the generally uniform statists that the progressives became, but nontheless, "reformer" is the chosen label of the progressives before they decided to take the label of 'progress' for themselves. Noting how progressive Theodore Roosevelt also used to be a reformer is important in understanding this concept. They just change their title. 30(roughly) years later, they would change their titles again and call themselves 'liberal'.

Reference magazines like this one described him this way, but what I find to be the most telling outside of his own words is a roster of letters to the editor describing him this way.

In Pearson's Magazine(starting on page 503), they had an election special titled "Who's for Hearst - and why?". What's noteworthy about this is the following:(Page 504)

In talking to progressive people, through a progressive magazine, about a progressive candidate, it occurred to me that the most suitable things to say about Mr Hearst, from the viewpoint of his availability for the presidential nomination, was the record of his activities in the interest of the great principles of democracy which form the basis of the political battle of 1912, and it occurred to me that the letter of Mr Lewis covering this ground was conclusive.

That sets the stage for everything you're about to read from the readership of Pearson's. I'm not about to clutter up my posting with letter to the editor after letter to the editor, but searching the book for 'progressive' returns back what appears to be 31 results which are in the context of Hearst's run for the presidency, from readers at that time. I also highlighted the part regarding his work for democracy, given what we know about what progressives mean regarding the word 'democracy'. See these: 1, 2, and 3. For those who know their history, Greece is the birthplace of democracy.

The letters to Pearson's start on page 514 and end on page 528. Some of the letters are from people in elected office at that time.

And this is why I said what I said during the interview. If the people living during Hearst's time(including himself) considered him to be a progressive, particularly progressive readers to a progressive magazine, then why shouldn't I?

All of this is very much counter to modern revisionist-historians who would have you believe that Hearst was a conservative given his supposed comments regarding the Spanish-American war. The supposed quote is "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war", however, this comment has a very different meaning in the context of the doctrine of Wilsonianism.

http://tinyurl.com/7zet3cr

Progressingamerica interview on WZRD 88.3 FM Chicago

I did an interview with a host in Chicago this morning, on WZRD 88.3 FM. At first, I was very uncomfortable as you can hear with my first couple of responses. But I think I did much better than I thought I would as we got further into progressivism, which is my comfort zone. I still think I made the right choice; recording audiobooks instead of a live podcast of some sort. This interview is a long recording, just short of 1 hour and 10 minutes. I must say that I was surprised that there's conservative content on a radio station that's piped out of a college, but if you're in Chicago you might consider giving this channel a listen from time to time. The website doesn't list this show in terms of time, but it comes on 7-8am, and 9-10 am.

Interview on WZRD 88.3 FM Chicago about progressivism (On Youtube)

Here are some of the specific topics covered, but they will seem out of place if you are just reading them as a laundry list:(they should be in order so you can follow along with the discussion)

Progressivism: The constitution is political witchcraft

Pelosi's actual words: "We will go through the gate. If the gate is closed, we will go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we will pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, we will parachute in."

The Social Possibilities of War By John Dewey

Progressivism and the origins of the tyrannical administrative state(I reference this more than once)

The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution, now on Youtube

Progressivism: The Dictatorship of the Constitution

Who are the people in the Fabian Window?

Obama: I am a progressive(Hillary too)

The STORM handbook is up on Youtube - Sunlight is the best disinfectant

Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection Accountability and Transparency Act of 2011

Amends the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 to remove the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, an independent bureau in the Federal Reserve System, to the Department of the Treasury, where it would not be autonomous.

I mentioned this agency, which takes progressivism to a new level. Typically, these bureaus of experts and masterminds are accountable to congress or the president, but here you have a group of planners accountable to another group of planners.

Progressivism: The purpose of colleges is to indoctrinate and manipulate

Where is the wall of separation when the courthouse is approved for the common temple?

Democracy in America Vol. I

Democracy in America Volume II(these are not my recordings but are very important reads)

In my gut I knew this wasn't a Jefferson quote, but I couldn't remember off hand who it was from: "When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny". This comes from the Barnhill-Tichenor debate. I'm having a hard time bringing up the source at the moment.

If you want to bring true change to a society, print excessive amounts of money

Meet Soros-Funded Domestic Terrorist Brett Kimberlin Whose ‘Job’ Is Terrorizing Bloggers Into Silence

Covered more than I thought we did, now that I'm seeing it listed.

http://tinyurl.com/d38fjtn