President Obama tries to get credit for his bailouts while promising not to do it again (I wonder about what he asked from Solyndra and the banks…) But if his policy was so successful, why not again?  It is all politics, he wants to take credit for bailing out companies while also trying to get the votes of those angry at the bailouts. He said that if it weren’t for his way of bailing out, the auto industry would have been a failure. He “demanded responsibility” from the auto industry and twisted their arms to “retool and to restructure.” Yes, all they need was money and a tweak. How clever the wording of things!

It is FALSE that the Bush administration demanded “nothing in return”. When Bush authorized the auto loan of $17.4 billion, in October 2008, some aspects of the loan were contingent upon the companies hitting “Restructuring Targets.” To say that it was just a grant without expectations is simply untrue. Of course, the problem is with the bailouts themselves, not with demands for “restructuring.” In effect, Bush simply gave Obama an unlimited line of credit to bail companies out. Instead of $17.4 billion, Obama gave them $85 billion. Was his policy rosie for our country? The Treasury Department announced in November  that “it expects to lose $23.6 billion in the auto bailout, as a result of the sharp decline in GM stock.”

It is wrong for both Bush and Obama to bail them out, demands or not. Period. Who cares what is demanded?  Who gives government (Bush or him) the right to intervene in our private sector to bail out companies?  Instead of praising his predecessor for starting a bailout and giving him a blank check, he derides him and takes credit, while distorting the facts.

He then adds, “Over the past two years, that entire industry has added nearly 160,000 jobs, GM is number one in the world again. Ford is investing billions in new American plants. Chrysler is growing faster. So today, the American auto industry is back.”

First, Ford did not receive bailouts. How can he include them in trying to convince us that his policies are so good? Second, it is incorrect that GM is number one in the world again. According to Motor Trend, there is a good reason to think Volkswagen is number one globally, without bailouts! GM’s numbers include one million sales by Chinese automakers SAIC Motor Corporation and Wuling Motors Corporation, with which GM has joint ventures but no controlling stake.

In any event, no president has the right to choose winners and losers and use taxpayer money to do so. It does not matter if GM is now doing well or not, government usurps our freedom by meddling in a free economy and getting companies to become quasi-government bureaucracies.

Anyhow, the indignation is not warranted as there is a very important function profits serve in the economy.  Yet, the hostility some exhibit toward the one who profits is deep and the admiration or pity toward those who lose money is widespread. The latter are often seen as victims in a game that is rigged. They are in need of “redistribution” and their passion is for “equality.” As Eric Hoffer said, “Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses.” But do not be confused here, as I said, the redistributists believe there is no freedom in the market.

But I digress. Profit is the recompense for those who risk. They exercise their freedom to invest and produce and, sometimes, they gain. Yes, we hear again the cry of the losers in the economic game: “Your profits are obscene!” You only hear this from those who profit less or work for a wage as long as their gains are small. Let them get a piece of that obscenity and they immediately lose their puritanism.  The fact remains that when one hears of an extravagant profit made by a firm, the more people invest in it. Why?  Because they see there, efficiency and positive results. Profit is that gauge allowing us to assess where to place our assets as to use them more wisely. It gives us needed information to allocate valuable, and finite, resources.

On this issue, the 1986 Catholic Bishop’s Conference pastoral letter was wrong but Pope John Paul II was right. The bishops recommended redistribution and socialism to heal our economy but the pope dismissed this while praising the essential nature of economic profit:

The Church acknowledges the legitimate role of profit as an indication that a business is functioning well. When a firm makes a profit, this means that productive factors have been properly employed and corresponding human needs have been duly satisfied. But profitability is not the only indicator of a firm’s condition.[i]

The pope understands that profit serves to apportion the factors of production in a systemic fashion. As these factors are innumerable, there is neither singular mind nor enlightened vanguard with the human capacity to direct it. Every attempt to do so ends up imposing an arbitrary will over the freedom of others. The arbitrary limiting of profits in the name of “justice” is not only a violation of freedom but also an ineffective way of allocating resources, energizing production, and creating employment.

Finally, profits functions as a catalyst for creativity and efficiencies in the economy. Most producers do not maximize profit by racing prices but by introducing change and economizing. This needs close attention to real needs of clients and the processes of production. Every economic system attempts to maximize production, minimize cost, and create employment but everyone fails by  seen in profit an enemy.

Why they consult Michael Moore on any social and political issue is beyond my comprehension, but that is the way it is. Moore is a Marxist. For him, race is an epiphenomenon of class. Yes, he delves on the issue of race as it is useful, it serves his purpose of attacking the institutions of our economy.  The simplistic examination of race in America is an excuse, nothing more.

For such men, race as a social construct is immersed in the dialectics of history moved primarily by economic forces more than it is about our skins. After all, the most fundamental truths about human existence are founded on the theoretical understanding of human consciousness developed by Marx. Yes, we have a “race problem” but the war is about economics. In A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy Marx lays down the deterministic view:^[1]

The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political and spiritual processes of life. It is not the consciousness of man that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness.

Marxist German poet Bertolt Brecht once wrote that ‘art is a hammer with which to shape reality.’ Art has only blunt instrumental value and cannot be spoken of as an expression of a basic human good. In a class society, all aspects of culture are partisan and instrumental, as they bare, as all of reality does, the indelible mark of class struggle. Similarly, race and ethnicity become hammers with which we shape reality [or deny it]. They are means toward the ultimate end of a classless society, the only true end.  Race, ethnicity and culture are scenes in an ‘epic form’ drama, as Brecht would say.^[2] Race is the ‘dialectical theatre’ of class warfare enabling the characters in the play to stage humanity in interaction with the ‘supra-personal dynamics at work in history.’ Simply put, race is a weapon. Those who believe in the irreducibility of race are welcomed on the path of ‘the struggle’ as useful idiots

Similarly, Gus Hall, former head of the Communist Party USA, held that culture must be utilized for ideological purposes: ‘Some have indicated that we should not try to use our ideology to influence cultural developments. However, this is an integral part of the ideological struggle–to influence thought patterns…The ideological struggle in the field of culture is very sharp. It takes place on the stage, the screen, in music, art and poetry. It pervades fiction and non-fiction, especially history.’^[3] Especially history, that is just right up the alley of Michael Moore’s myopic understanding of the building of our nation.

The use of ideology to shape historiography is evident also in the rejection of integration embraced by some in the black leadership immersed in the politics of the left and the cultural transformations affecting America during the Great Disruption of the 60s.  In typical dialectical thought, the opening of opportunities for progress and integration was seen as just another skirmish in the war of class struggle, a plot in the great scheme of “The Plan.” As the immediate effects of the conferring of formal rights did not produce the expected rise in black achievement, the dialectic was confirmed: the structures of a capitalist and “white supremacist” system are designed for oppression and integration must be rejected as part of the evil scheme to control the means of production and labor. Now they could confidently preach how structural racism is embedded in the fabric of the very culture we are supposedly invited to join.  The only valid responses to such a shift in the dialectic is “resistance.” The “racial part of this” is very useful and those insisting on race serve a purpose in the revolution.  You are being used…

Blogging for El Nuevo Dia Online, a Puerto Rican newspaper, Fufi tells us that violence is a learned behavior. It starts with babies whose needs are not immediately met and violently cries and is solidified by being exposed to the world of competition. Private property promotes egotism and struggle among neighbors and siblings. His solution? “Everything belongs to all and nothing belongs to anyone.” His communist solution (his words, not mine) supposedly brings harmony and peace.

He defines his “Christian” communism as being happy by making others happy. I can just hear the sound of harps and the flapping of heavenly wings.  Where are these angels Fufi describes?  “When we compete, someone always loses but when we share we all win.” It sounds so good.  But, is it true? Is this cosmic brotherhood a reality that can be brought to bear or a dream depriving us of the real possibilities available to real human beings?

Fufi blames the market. “The dictatorship of the market has been cruel to the poor” says Fufi. Really? How are those who live in non-market driven societies live?  Are they better off than those living under Capitalism?  Fufi knows the answer but I bet he has many excuses for the deficiency of evidence his theory suffers.  Let me give you just a glimpse of the problems Fufi has to show us things are that way. According to the Economic Freedom of the World Report 2010 Annual Report from the Fraser Institute, all indicators of well-being are better in countries where Capitalism flourishes.

Nations in the top quartile of economic freedom had an average per-capita GDP of $32,744 in 2007 while nations with the least economic freedom had a per-capita GDP of $910. In fact, the average income of the poor in Capitalist countries was more than double the median income in countries where Capitalism is absent!  Life expectancy is higher under Capitalism than wherever it fails to obtain (79.3 years to 59.9 years) and the reports of life satisfaction are better under Capitalism (7.5 out of 10 vs. 4.7). Corruption is also higher in countries with less Capitalism (7.4 out of 10 versus 2.6).

Where are those angels?  The reality is that Fufi is a utopian; he is talking about a kind of society that does not exist and will never be brought to bear. He can have his dreams but they often end up producing a nightmarish existence for the very people he hopes to help.  Utopians like Fufi attack Capitalism  and call it “savage” only to offer a collectivist alternative where government is supposed to embody their lofty ideals but ends up in despotism.

The societies these utopians form are desolated prisons where individuals become disposable tokens used at will in a futile effort to create their idyllic nonsense. Ironically, they end up creating the very condition they despise: rabid individualism. When the dream of collaboration and harmony fades and the reality of a wasted existence dawns on people, they becomes hoarders, scraping whatever they can at the expense of whomever gets in the way. They realize that there is no beloved community being formed but instead a new tyranny. So, they pretend to be align with the dream but  spend their lives coping with everyday life by any means necessary.

These dreamers are dangerous not because they are bad people but because they sacrifice the good that can be done even amidst evil for a perfect that is simply nowhere.

As it turns out, Mrs. Ruth Williams said she was praying for God to guide her with a payment of a late electric bill. Unexpectedly, she saw the Romney tour bus. After talking to Romney about her troubles, we learned that Romney gave the woman approximately $50 to help her pay the electric bill.

Incredibly, Ann Reid called Romney’s act condescending and patronizing.  What was Romney supposed to do?  What would satisfy the MSNBC guest. According to what she said, nothing short than offering full support for more government programs!  Here you can read it yourself:

“As an African-American woman, it galls me. I don’t even like to watch it. I felt like it plays into every sort of patronizing stereotype of black people. Oh, here’s this little lady, let me give her 50 bucks. I mean, this is the guy who offered a bet of $10,000 on stage, you know, to another candidate, but, you know, here, let me lay off 50 bucks on this woman. And I think it plays into that conservative meme that you don’t need actual programs that the government puts in place to help people in need, we’ll just give them charity. The church will take care of them, I’ll give them 50 bucks.”

As Romney has money, he could have given thousands to the woman. But that would not do. In fact, Romney would be accused of more condescension as what we need is social justice, not charity. Only by becoming a leftist, big-government advocate would Romney cease to be an anti-poor racist. Most conservatives do not say we do not need social programs, we just simply reject Federal intrusion on these issues, as there is no constitutional mandate. That something needs to be done does not mean the Federal government needs to do it. Besides, we believe that these needs are best attended by basic communities such as churches, non-profits, and local governments.

How is this a stereotype?  A woman approaches Romney asking for help. She did not go to a government agency but to Romney. The Democrats are in charge and they are all for these government programs, no? Well, what is she doing asking for help?  We do not know but she asked for help. Are we aware of anything else Romney may choose to do?  No. Was Romney taken by surprise by the unusual request and acted immediately moved by compassion?  Maybe.

We all have been approached by people asking for help. It happens all the time. Must we take such instances as evidence for a great need for increases in Federal involvement with programs offering subsidies or cash gifts? No. The manner we choose to attend the needs of people is certainly an important area of discernment about how to help those in need. Some people who ask are truly in need, others are looking for an enabler. But for those captive by race consciousness, every instance is an opportunity to score a cheap point.

What say you?

I read with interest an article in the local newspaper, News-Press, concerning the arrest of an individual who was conducting a pirate radio station in the local black community of Dunbar. I do not know the man.  Apparently, multiple other people in the community knew well of the illegal activity. The story begins recounting the arrest and describing the community by appeals of segregation-era pictures of a railroad dividing blacks from whites.

According to the story, the station exists because black voices have supposedly been excluded and even derided in regular radio. The argument goes the traditional way of victim-focused storytelling: Blacks are in the News only when there is a crime and no positive stories are available in the regular press about people of color. I know that to be an outright lie in the SW Florida region, where a good amount of positive coverage of minorities is indeed available on a regular basis.

In our area, by the way, there are legal Hispanic radio stations and multiple radio  and TV programs. The reason given for stealing a radio signal someone else is paying for, is that there is a great need for the service, as assessed by those supporting the activity. If one does not like that Dunbar is in the news for crime, why commit a crime to change such perceived reality?

“Local voices and the voices of people of color have been left out in particular”, tells us an advocate for “community radio” with the Prometheus Radio Project. We get it, racism is the reason for committing a felony. After all, it seems to be an act of fighting for social justice, an act of civil disobedience. That is the party line. Again, there are several radio stations ran by “people of color” in our area, as well as TV programs prominently hosted by minorities. Several black and Hispanic churches conduct services on TV and radio. Local black personalities have run radio programs for years. There is no such exclusion. The gentleman who was arrested, I am sure, is a good guy. He skipped his arraignment to go to Washington to “tell his story.” Some community leaders praised the illegal action in the name of some good supposedly done; the end justifies the means.

The story goes into the absurd when we read that at a local Family Dollar store we can only hear the air conditioning hum as there is no longer the possibility of good Hip Hop music on the radio. I mean can’t they buy an inexpensive system and a few CDs?  By the way, I remember listening to this local radio signal running at times the most foul Hip Hop music. It was the lofty community radio station. The same story tells us that a year ago the Local Community Radio Act was passed easing restrictions for licensing applications for new community-based radio stations. The good news apparently did not deter the radio signal stealing.  A petition supporting the gentleman is ongoing and the apparent purpose is to support the community station.  Why not do this before breaking the law?  No, this is not the way to advance the good name of the very good people of Dunbar. This is playing the victim and justifying the unjustifiable by appeals to erroneous visions of “social justice.”

Engaged on these thoughts, I arrive at Anthony’s small apartment to spend some time with him. He is now a handsome 23-year old man. Anthony received me with joy and kindness and I set in. The apartment is small and modest, but very clean. After some small talk, we go back again to dwell in the past. I heard sad revelations given with no sense of grief or despair. Anthony  offered them with the urgency of revelation and a need to be understood.

Fighting and drug dealing were common at Sward Village. The neighborhood was a shattered one, a place of sorrows. Turmoil and death were there, surrounding the lives of the many good people who lived in constant terror. Anthony talks of the demise of childhood friends, one after the other, due to drugs, fights for girls, or forever gone to serve life prison sentences for some stupid reason. Always teased due to his color, Anthony learned to cope and survive by continually acting out and fighting. With no one there to lead him, Anthony thrust himself well down the slippery slope that leads to misery.

At thirteen, he first got in trouble with the law and was forced to leave the somewhat stable environment of his grandmother’s home at the projects to move into a nearby house with Uncle Charles, a school bus driver who tried his best to take care of him. Less supervised then, he continued to get in trouble. After recovering from an illness that left him paralyzed from the waist down, Anthony’s life went downhill even more. He was just fourteen. It is now that he begins to hang out with the wrong crowd and steal cars for joyrides. The acting out got out of control at home and at school and he was sent to an alternative learning school for “the bad kids.” Later, he ended at the local juvenile detention center. Five or six times he went back to Price Half-Way House juvenile jail for violating his probation. Anthony remembers the fights, the anger eating up every soul, and the lack of even a single peaceful moment. At one time, a guard grabbed him violently by his dreads after he refused to take off his shirt. On the back of shirts, inmates often wrote down their nicknames and, apparently, the guard did not like Anthony’s: ‘white boy.’  The whimsical act of violence was captured on video and the guard was fired on the spot. The fear of violence remained with Anthony wherever he went.

At sixteen, he started using marihuana and cocaine and found himself back in jail with a more charge of possession of narcotics. While driving with big brother Lorenzo, whom otherwise Anthony considered a father figure, the police stopped them. Unbeknown to Anthony, Lorenzo, who already had an extensive criminal record, had some drugs with him. Anthony took the charge for his brother to prevent Lorenzo having to serve a long sentence. Out of love for his brother, Anthony threw himself again squarely into an existence of suffering behind bars. To save Lorenzo he chose to enter a place where human pettiness leads to death and where, in the presence of constantly frustrated desires, people launch at each other.

In effect, Anthony’s entire family was in total disarray. Not only was Lorenzo repeatedly in and out of jail but his other brothers and a great aunt were heavy drug users.  Yet, the burden grew even closer. Only now do I detect any sadness or pain in the young man’s semblance. Anthony quiets down for a moment and his words are no longer flowing with ease. From the long list of human calamities and ghastly experiences of wretch, none can compare with those affecting our mothers. Anthony’s mom was a prostitute and a drug user. The ‘dude’ living with her pimped the woman for many years and she seemed unable to detach herself from his vicious treatment. Hooked on drugs, she found the binding power of that urge too powerful to abandon. The whole focus of her life seemed to be the avoidance of pain. Compounding such shame was the fact that his brothers at times would give her the drugs! They rather see her doped than walking the streets. Anthony tried to justify their action but I could tell how uncomfortable and disgusted he was with the whole scenario. After telling me these things, Anthony paused for a minute to tell me without hesitation how much he loved his mother. ‘Mr. Ismael, in spite of all, I always treat mother with respect.’ In all of this, I became amply persuaded that I was in the presence of a noble soul. Anthony is the first to admit his weaknesses and the struggles still present in his life but I am convinced of his integrity, however.

Beside the turmoil of the domestic world of pain, Anthony experienced another world of happiness, an escape valve allowing the pressures of life never to totally overwhelm his young psyche. This place was the tiny St. Peter Claver Catholic Mission on Michigan Avenue, where I first met him. Church was for him a good place to be, with good thoughts to think and with decent people to love, especially Mrs. Judy. When he talks of her, you can see that his face lights up.

Judy Peck is a middle-aged white woman who served as the youth minister and do-it-all employee at the mission. A true living saint, in my view, the lady was beloved by all in the housing projects and deeply respected by us at the mission. Even to this day, Judy receives letters of gratitude from many inmates she met at the local jail where she ministered. Her work in the black community spawns for over 20 years and has brought comfort to many families in desperate need. Anthony met her when he was about ten years old. She was handing out Christmas cards and inviting people to church. She would pick him up every Sunday for mass, counsel him, and treat him like a son. At times, Judy would take Anthony to her home so her entire family became like the family he never really had. The encircled domain of darkness following Anthony had no power over the radiant country of love that Judy and her family offered; as from there seemed to stream a deep river of peace whose powerful flow washed away the pain.

The radiant light remains on Anthony’s face as he remembers the horseback riding, the family gatherings, the trips, and all the stuff wholesome families do. Judy became the anchor where Anthony could rest in the midst of a tumultuous existence. The incidental nature of the encounters, however, could not totally remove the deleterious influence of the projects. So, by the time Anthony was seventeen, he was back in jail to serve another sentence. But, who was there to console and counsel him? Mrs. Judy, of course!  He enrolled in one of Judy’s classes at the jail and made a concerted effort to get away from a life of crime. Men often prefer to keep their vices in full bloom to avoid the hard work it takes to get detached. A profound aversion to anything that smacks at effort prevents many from ever experiencing a different way of life. Why is it, we may wonder?  I think that refusing to change offers the psychological advantage of alibi. It enables people to continue in the fiction of incapacity and victimization. If the world is unjust and I must resign myself to an imposed fate,  I need not attribute my misfortunes to myself. We see this clearly when a drug user tries to convince his benging partner not to go to treatment, as his possible success places a shadow over all. Yet at times, men get courage and choose otherwise.

To accomplish that task, Anthony had first to survive life behind bars first, not an easy task. There he saw a man stabbed in one eye with a pen for a simple disagreement, mortal fights to avenge old and often meagre street debts, and brutal beatings on people for ‘disrespects.’ The disrespectful offences were things like not flushing the toilet or passing gas in front of others. Ironically, he survived incarceration due to brother Lorenzo’s bad reputation. Other inmates knew well who Lorenzo was and offered the brother ‘respect’ due to his connection to a ‘bad dude.’ Once out, Anthony began to take steps toward a better life.

By the end of our long conversation, Anthony tells me, ‘Mr. Ismael, life is what we make of it.’ For someone like him, who could excuse himself of responsibility at every turn, his wisdom is a powerful witness against victimhood. He tells me that one of the first things he needed to do to save his life was to leave the projects. ‘You need to leave that place, break the cycle, move somewhere, anywhere, and stay away.’ Another important decision of his was to go back to church. ‘Last Easter Sunday my girlfriend and I walked four miles to attend services at Mount Olive Church. I want to go back to church.’ He knows well where the oasis of life remains.

Yes, at times our purpose to change remains a weak and momentary impulse lacking true determination. I have many times witnessed the rousing decisions to change; only to observe as those proclaiming them soon return to their evil ways. And yet, I think Anthony can make it. His determination seems steady and his inner self appears not to be of common order. More importantly, his actions are following the expressions of resolve. He is working two jobs and wants to go back to study at a vocational school and maybe one day open his own restaurant. In addition, he left the projects behind; or so he thought.

In spite of his resolve, the inner man at times needs to fight the errors of government ill-thought ‘solutions’ to Inner City problems. After leaving the Ghetto, Anthony moved to an area not far from where I live. It is poor but clean and peaceful. Unfortunately, because of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s ongoing Hope VI initiative, the latest failed attempt at a new model for subsidized housing, the Ghetto is being brought back to Anthony’s life. HUD is tearing down the old projects and replacing them with new town houses. In the mean time, they have offered worthless Section 8 vouchers to former residents. As most renters shy away of Section 8 tenants afraid that they will destroy their appartments, only the owners of hard-to-rent properties in marginal neighbourhoods are willing to accept the vouchers. Those trying to maintain the decorum of the area find themselves in a bind.^[1]

The importation of social pathology hurts those like Anthony who thought they have left the inner-city behind. Built on the deterministic ideology of victimhood, the system assumes that the market cannot provide for unsubsidized housing for the poor. Vouchers then allow residents of subsidized housing to get a better home in better neighbourhoods. The central planners tell us that in turn those with dysfunctional lifestyles will learn from the functional and successful and turn their lives around. The analysis buys into the lie of environmental determinism; assuming that granting a better home in a better neighbourhood is uplifting when, in reality, it is the effort and determination of the individual to achieve the buying of a home in a better neighbourhood what is truly uplifting.^[2]

The area where Anthony lives now has been inundated with people from the Michigan projects bringing with them the very temptations and perils he has been fighting so hard to avoid. They bring with them a set of values that end up destroying good communities inhabited by people, like Anthony, who are achieving on their own what the bureaucrats of victimhood say is not possible. His home has been robbed. Once he came back home only to find three strangers on his garage and found that his door had been trampled with. A few houses down, two individuals were murdered by intruders. All of this turmoil made possible courtesy of the fake compassion of government bureaucracy.

Victimizing victims are now the greatest threat against conquerors like Anthony who represent the best we have to offer.

─ Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in Jesus of Nazareth

Error may not have rights but erroneous people do. The temptation to command a social system is present in Christians like me. Our adherence to a comprehensive system such as Christianity exerts powerful influence on us to fill the canopy of society with a Christian vision of social order. A temptation it is.

One of the reasons for such temptation is that Christian values and ideas are, for the most part, not only consistent but also necessary for the proper functioning of a truly free society. Although it has taken long for Christianity to learn the lesson of restraint, it continues to be the great source of important values and conception of rights nurturing free societies.

To command the system and impose a vision of the good, however, implies a unitary and traditional vision of society that does not sit well with the pluralism needed in free market economies and could become a violation of conscience.  A “Christian” society is, for the most part, a mirage in a pluralistic polity. Of course Christians have a right to present and defend their views in the marketplace; pluralism is not the same as indifferentism. Yes, we must stand against certain acts such as abortion and euthanasia precisely because these are a violation of human rights.

But the empty canopy at the heart of a free society must remain empty as, in trying to impose a vision, we will cause more harm than good; destroying freedom in the name of the good. However, a truly Christian society will allow the thriving of basic communities that manifest a commitment to values. A free society is nourishes by these values and they may systemically emerge as a free expression of who we are as a people.  These institutions are the ferment shaping the ethos of freedom and, at the same time, preventing Christianity from imposing a vision.

There is a tension here between freedom and Christian conceptions of the good. One of the reasons is that, as Christianity is comprehensive, it may lure some of its adherents to try and control. It is difficult to rescind from that inclination before the demands of merely particular systems. But that is exactly what is expected of us. This humility in rescinding protagonism from the center is necessary to ‘frustrate the totalistic impulse.’[1] That there is alignment between the Christian view of values and history and the underlying philosophy of freedom does not imply a unitary vision of society.

One of the reasons why a free economy is not directly dependent on a unitary vision of values is that it is a good of order, created in a way that it works as a system. It is a system that relies less on intentions and more on specific conceptions of the good and more on the application of practical intelligence and the power of cumulative human rationality. This “natural system of liberty”, as Adam Smith called it, allowed nations to create great wealth by placing emphasis on results, not on intentions or moral purposes. When one exercise the capacity to pursue one’s rational self-interest, there is a natural inclination towards cooperation and, paradoxically, a better chance for a moral outcome.

It is very simple. A system that allows each person to pursue what they choose to pursue and work hard towards achieving goals dear to one’s heart, on the whole, is a system that works much better than a system that imposes a unitary vision of the good.  In allowing liberty to flourish this system well understands that evil will lurk around. That is why a sound economic system benefits from a cultural and institutional structure that nurtures certain values without imposing them. Churches and places of worship are essential to freedom not because they have the answer to all social situations but because they provide the ethical flavor benefitting free men.  It is not that those advocating a free economy do not care about values but that they understand the reality of unintended consequences. The actions of virtuous people may produce negative consequences if the economic systems they support are not the best. It is better to create a system that better unleash human creativity than to create one based on piety but weak on intelligence.

In the productive process the number of actors involved prevents any rational discernment of intentions. As every step in the productive process is important, and no human mind is capable to weigh intentions at every step, a system based on intentions suffers from the problem of commensurability.  A better system focuses on the makings of processes based on looking at the consequences of human action.

Adam Smith looked at what systems created better results for the greater number of people and found that a system that allows pluralism to flourish and men to pursue their interest as they see fit is better at economic production. It is that simple…

As systemic processes are oppressive, intentional action by those with the necessary knowledge and the good intentions is essential. We must then concentrate that knowledge and good will in an institution ready and able to effect the greatest change: government. Increasing government power is seen as absolutely necessary if we are sincere about change. The hoopla about hope requires our willingness to give power to the state. A managed economy becomes essential to progress when solutions can be found by the action of the anointed ones.

The world of those who believe in such expansive understanding of our capacity to change the world is a neatly arranged one. If something bad happens we can fix it and we must find the culprits of the awful condition to make them pay. What we need is the will to see the possibilities of a brand new universe controlled by cosmic justice; everything has an answer and it is in the palm of our hands. The world of expansive rationality is one where, if we just concentrate knowledge and power to “invest” enough, we can solve every problem at hand.  This is a world where systemic injustice can be remedied by intentional direct action. Heaven on earth is a real possibility.

If crime exists is because the poor are hopelessly poor. They only need the necessary things in life they have been deprived of by an oppressive system. Systems of oppression are the cause of the trauma suffered by those who then, in desperation, launch at others. They are victims, not criminals. You know who are the criminals? Those who oppress the poor; economic violence breeds physical violence. Can you dig it?

Social justice is what they need, not punishment. If they only can get training, good paying jobs, and counseling, they will not commit crimes. If mothers are irresponsible, we only need to offer them parenting skills classes and more food Stamps, and don’t forget of “affordable” child care. That will fix the problem of abuse and neglect. Poverty exist because vast and seemly inexhaustible resources are not distributed correctly. Just give the anointed the power to fix the ledger. If “people of color” are not properly represented in every area of life, it is due to systemic racism having its roots centuries ago. Let us then fix these historical wrongs by “leveling the playing field” now. (meaning, hammering equal results into the reality of systemic unequal outcomes) If things are tight, let us go and storm Wall Street, they have the money. In fact, as an Occupy utopian put it, let the poor print their own money!  That will solve the problem.

It is easy to see why this universe is so attractive. Who would want to live in the tragic world of reality?  Who would want to live in a world of diminishing returns, where not every appetite can be satisfied by making it right? Why settle for trade-offs if categorical solutions can be conceived in the mind and effect in the here and now? You see, effects are not tied to systemic causes, they are tied to our imagination. The only need we have is to locate the culprits of inequalities wherever we find them and indict them.  They need re-education or elimination. Let us simply call any undesirable circumstance “unacceptable” and any situation we dislike a “crisis”, and we can fix our problems. The will to change is what moves the engines of history and verbal inflation awakens our consciousness towards activism.

Cause and effect is a trick of the man. Reality is changeable by enlightened human action. We just need to look toward those who are enlightened and let them guide us. We have the answer and evidence to the contrary simply means that we have not done enough yet. Activist government must do more, the stimulus was not big enough, that is why we are in a mess.  Free health care, free education, free food,  a good paying job for all, more “diversity training”, that is what we need! Liberation is at hand if we just incentivize green jobs and spoon feed some healthy snacks to our children.  We can do it, man!

And don’t get me started with this thing about the law.  The “rule of law” must be changed by the rule of “enlightened men.” (and women and LBGTs too, of course) Why should we stick with the letter written by racist dead white males?  Why accept the limitations of their warped vision when we know what to do better? We are in continual evolution, we are the generation of the super men who finally get what we are to become!  Just give us the power or we will take it. The chains of rule of law are the last chains tying us to the Capitalist past and preventing us from bringing about the new and improved world of “evolved standards.” Rule of law got to go! Then we will get rid of the sins of racism, sexism, ageism, genderism, capitalism, whateverelseism. Remember, the Constitution is alive, a “living document” offered a new heart beat by the courageous imposition of a new vision.

Who needs a battle of ideas? What we need is a real revolution they tell us. Why are we wasting precious time?!  Can you dig it?

Can someone please shut off the door of freedom and turn off the lights?

Socialism is, first and foremost, a movement rooted in praxis, not on the intellect. Such praxis flows from a vision of the world, a prism through which reality is filtered. Visions or worldviews are pre-rational and we all have them. Thus, before this becomes a battle of ideas, it is a battle of inclinations or worldviews based on mostly implicit fundamental premises. Enabling us to sort out the complexity of existence, visions offer a general view of how things work; they offer a guide to understand causation. Systematic reasoning and economic thinking arise only much later and are built on this sense of how the world works.[1]

Socialists triumph because the prevailing social vision hovering over the collective consciousness of our time is collectivist. The tendencies settle by cultural osmosis not by careful analysis. As with all visions, the socialist one remains there even if we are not aware of it, giving shape to our thoughts and policy positions. Providing a sense of what causes what, it is first and foremost impervious to cognition and even determines the weight we give to evidence, as our cognition feeds on the “gut-feeling” that visions provide. That is how socialists looking at the pile of corpses specific socialist systems have created can still say, “It has not yet been tried…”

The prevailing socialist vision is so powerful that the assumptions built on it often become truisms, things we take for granted. If one intellectually disagrees, one is not only unenlightened but one is also sinful. If the deciding factors were only dependent on articulated reason, the contention that we are primarily in a battle of ideas would obtain. But if one is sinful, the ideas coming from ones lips are heresy and sacrilege, underserving of a hearing. Moral superiority demands no empirical evidence. As Thomas Sowell states, “[E]mpirical evidence itself may be viewed as suspect, insofar as it is inconsistent with that vision.”[2] The vision is so powerful not because it offers satisfaction to intellectual pursuits but because it offers an impression of wholeness and wellbeing and a sense of higher moral standing; what Thomas Sowell calls an anointing. First and foremost we need to understand the assumptions of this vision before engaging in any “battle of ideas.”

Why disagreement is heresy for a collectivist? Let us briefly examine the vision itself. The socialist vision believes in an expanded human capacity to reason. It focuses on the concentration of reason at the top, exercised by those enlightened. Human nature is not constrained to what it is, it is pliable and we can make it better. Man is perfectible and the horizon before him has no boundaries in terms of what we could become. The fact that some are more enlightened demonstrates the path towards what man can become. Man can intentionally apply intelligence and good will to any problem and solve it. The intention to benefit others is what creates the conditions necessary to change the way things are. Human beings have the potential to consistently act based on goodwill and it is possible to change human nature to arrive at such consistency.

In effect, the idea of incentives implies constraints and perpetuates man’s current selfish state. What we need is intentional action to change a human nature entrapped in oppressive systems. We must instill in man a sense of social duty that supersedes his self-interest, as each of us is but a drop in the ocean of the collective. Taken all of this, one who stands in opposition must stand because of evil purposes or unenlightened limitations.[3] If you believe you have found an all-embracing solution to the problems of human existence, extreme thinking and doing seems justifiable.

That is why we can say that socialist formulations are utopian to the core, seeing solutions where there are none and limiting the space for pluralism. They proceed from an idea in the mind that is then hammered into reality. History has witnessed the immense evil perpetrated in the name of great socialist ideas flowing from a vision of how things ought to be, lacking feedback from reality. With the foundations in place and in  need of no revision, the prevailing vision of our time focuses on instrumental modes of action to catalyze the emergence of the ideal. As conclusions about the nature of man and the cause of social processes are preconceived, reality only confirms the need for greater effort. Socialism is about the triumph of the will not about the reign of reason. It seldom offers the opportunity to ponder about the basic assumptions of the vision as it is not interested in a battle of ideas, Socialists see the opponent’s arguments not as an opportunity to dialogue but as a confirmation of the lower state of the other’s consciousness. If they fail in raising it, they discard you as “mean-spirited” and as one to be opposed and even eliminated, not as one holding contrary opinions that deserve space in the public square. In the socialist mind, the differential is of rectitude not of knowledge. They honestly believe they have already won that battle. It is better described as a hurricane sweeping away the substance of the present order.

The ideological origin of present struggles is to be found not on an engagement of ideas but on the will of those who defend them to shatter the walls of the opposing vision. I am not making the will a more basic value than being, just describing what is needed now to open space to confront the prevailing vision. We could battle for ideas all day long and win debates here and there but the battle is lost if liberty is not presented in practical fashion and those who trust in freedomdo not  immerse themselves in the lives of the people. We must fight praxis with praxis. The problem with liberty thinkers is that they have a deficit in inclination towards action; activism sounds to them like sitting on a nail.  The same way as facts are mere curiosities of existence, ideas on liberty are interesting cocktail activities if they are not actualized.

Oftentimes, defenders of freedom lack a revolutionary spirit and assume that the battle is one that can be won merely by solid argumentation. They exhibit here a similar attitude as the socialists.  Liberty becomes something you ponder about in academia and defend through think tanks. What is needed, they seem to assume, is to train the future leaders of academic pursuits and, in top-down fashion, liberty will trickle down. In so doing, they give the defenders of socialism the upper hand. Socialists already control academia and filter fields through clear ideological pathways. As said earlier, we run the risk of ghettoizing Liberty by creating many small islands of freedom thinking.

When defenders of liberty talk of a battle of ideas they are being consistent with a tradition of offering the opponent the benefit of the doubt and thinking that reason will prevail. Oftentimes, defenders of liberty see their opponents as well-intended but in error. At worse, the opponent is seen as imperceptive or foolish. In such descriptions we can see a hope that the other may be rescued from error by intellectual engagement. Liberty is seen as embedded in pluralism. Disagree with a leftist and you are simplistic, ill-intended, a dupe, a sell-out, even evil. Your views are to be wiped away, burned at the stake, and opposed with zeal, not with reason. As the socialist idea is the prevailing vision of our time many grow up never thinking there is a need to distrust it; it presents a road map that offers a sense of security. Living in the eye of the socialist storm, they see no good reason to venture afar from its gravitational tug. Shattering that sense of security must precede any intellectual battle.

Moreover, there is another disadvantage here for those who insist in freedom. Freedom is a vision that leaves an empty canopy at the end of choice; it is particular. It is open-ended and amicable to discovery, surprise, goodness and also sin. For those who believe in freedom, even error has rights. Socialism, however, is a comprehensive system of thought that engulfs in certainty the whole of society and even the very nature of man. The way to counter such system is not to be found first in a battle of ideas but in the very praxis the socialist pursues.

Liberty is to be lived and modeled or it becomes a fraud. We must “dirty our hands” and give the prevailing vision a run for its money in the battlefield of life. One of the reasons we call the Freedom and Virtue Institute a movement of community organizers for freedom is because we insist that an institute must be actively engaged in action while remaining intellectually satisfying. Modeling freedom opens the doors of dialogue by dissipating some of the force that tacitly asphyxiates the body politic. When you walk side by side with the poor and those who are most vulnerable to the power of the prevailing vision you may find an opening to get to the heart before you get to the brain. Modeling freedom shows that it works and helps people begin to internalize freedom as a value.  Yes, it helps freedom to sip in by osmosis and offers an opportunity to break the chains of the prevailing vision.

For too long many have spoken to the poor and minorities from afar, telling people about freedom. Freedom is associated often with theories “white people “ believe or “the rich” want to fool you with. A doses of leftist revolutionary praxis will suit well to those so interested in battles of ideas.