I Was Not Looking For Paradise; I Was Trying to Escape Hell

The above quote is from the new Svetlana Kunin: Perspectives of a Russian Immigrant series which runs from time to time on the opinion page of the Investors Business Daily newspaper. Many of you do not get that fine daily so I run the links here as an ongoing feature.

Readers from all over the world come to this small blog to use the links so they can benefit from her fine editorials. It's not an exaggeration. Some return over and over and others come across this blog by "googling" her name. I am happy to provide the service even though my writing suffers embarrassingly by comparison to hers. But I have to "class up" the site somehow so I frequently try to associate myself with talented writers and thinkers.

The title comment was made to Kunin by a friend of hers who also emigrated/escaped from Russia and came here, not with hopes of Utopia, but simply seeking a freer life. It's the same reason the vast majority of people immigrate to here and why so few leave. These people know what many native born Americans have forgotten or never were taught, namely, that simple but eloquent statement Ms Kunin made in her first "letter to the editor" which has graced the top of this page for a long time now.

"There is no perfect society. There are no perfect people. Critics say that greed is the driving force of capitalism. My answer is that envy is the driving force of socialism. Change to socialism is not an improvement on the imperfections of the current system."

The new editorial, which ran today in the above named paper deals with the problem of the unbalanced education system here, a system that gives short shrift to history. That problem could explain why only people who have escaped from tyranny can appreciate how dangerously close this country is to sliding beneath the waves in an ocean of lost potential and lost souls.

It only takes one or two generations for national memories to fade into meaninglessness, and from there into the fate which has befallen every free society in history when security becomes more important than freedom. It's individual liberty and personal responsibility which made this nation exceptional, not a government nanny with a bushel basket of carrots and sticks.

And it's more than a shame that few but the immigrants know that in searching for paradise we may very well get lost in hell.

Now That I’m a Racist

After over four decades of experience in the financial markets, having a good understanding of profit motivation has made it fairly easy to ignore being called a racist by the usual race and poverty extortionists like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. But now that the media and an ex-President have jumped into the dumpster with them and the third rate actress who was already in there for reasons of insanity, it may be time to close the lid and call Waste Management.

The good thing about this situation is that it gathers the tactics, the practitioners and the ideas they champion all in one place for easier disposal. The bad thing is, we never seem to be able to pile enough clay on top of them to keep them from crawling out of the landfill every so often when people forget how bad the stench actually is.

There is an old saying that “the first one to invoke Hitler’s name in any argument, automatically loses the debate”. I’ve never believed that to be true in all cases, but the idea that associating your opponent with a vile ideology can change the subject when losing an argument is certainly not new. Lawyers and spin meisters are well acquainted with the concept and employ it all the time. You’d think more people would catch on, but once you become addicted to hopiates, you can start hallucinating that people who disagree with your dreams aren’t merely stupid after all, they are actually evil racists as well.
And since those who rode Obama’s “return to Camelot” train in the greatest number were the youngest passengers and didn’t understand it was a disastrous return trip to a dangerous illusion, they don’t have the advantage of hindsight.

At least I’m in good company now that you can be put on the racist list without actually being white. As a kid, it was my understanding that only white people could be racists. Of course that wasn’t true, but the new racism definition includes anyone who disagrees with liberal dogma on “healthcare reform” and the “failure” of capitalism and freedom. Our recalcitrance stems from a racist hatred of President Obama according to Billy Carter’s slower brother.

To stand as a fellow racist with the likes of Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Ward Connerly and Larry Elder is an honor. Anyone who is familiar with these luminary Americans and still utters racial epithets about others doesn’t have a problem with political correctness, they have a problem with rational thought.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have been in the same room and actually spoken with three of them (I’m still waiting for the chance to shake hands with Dr. Sowell) but until this connection was established by our rabbit fearing ex-President, the personal association ended there. They have graced the page on this blog, not because they happen to be black, (and now are fellow racists) but because they share my love for freedom and happen to be smarter and better at communicating that virtue than I am.

A few years ago I had the privilege of a short chat with Larry Elder after hearing him speak at a dinner gathering. I asked him a question which had puzzled me since I became a “born again” freedom advocate many years ago. It seemed to me, I told him, that the most natural constituency for the ideas of liberty in this country ought to have been the people to whom it had been systematically denied. That is to ask, why aren’t black people as a group the most vocal proponents of freedom in our society? After all, some of the best spokesmen for liberty today, are immigrants from Eastern European countries and various other kleptocracies around the globe. Those who have been abused the most, often defend it the best. Witness Svetlana Kunin, etal.

Larry's answer then was as honest as he is, he didn’t know. And I still don’t know. So I guess it’s only logical that as individuals, the above named people are some of the best defenders we could hope for even if the group's political leanings still have me befuddled.

Now that we have a President of color for the first time, it should have been a slam dunk for freedom based solutions to our various problems. Instead, we elected a man who dines at the statism table and seeks to re-enslave people, this time without regard to skin color. I guess the idea is that, you don’t solve servitude as if it were a problem, but instead ensure that all people are equally enslaved in the name of fairness. The slave masters this time around will be big government czars instead of whip wielding cotton farmers.

It’s the same approach these folks have on poverty and the results will be the same. I’m afraid the people who will suffer most will be the people who support this replay of the horror story with the highest enthusiasm, that is to say, the younger people. That may seem like justice, but it’s like giving petty thieves life without parole. And in this case, the innocent will get the same sentence.

So, Jimmy Carter notwithstanding, the new “racists” mentioned above, the rude "shout out" specialists, and the sign carrying protestors at Washington marches of debatable size, are our best hope to avoid jumping into the historical dumpster with the USSR and all the other failed utopian nightmares that started out as the hopeful dreams of our fathers.

Al Gore, Morality and the Tenth Commandment

President Obama, some members of congress, and now that paragon of morality, Al Gore, have recently and very publicly said that government interference in health insurance is a moral imperative. I am quite certain that it has moral implications, however that is a tad different than being an imperative.

I’m always more than a bit skeptical when a group of people like politicians (who have an abysmal track record on ethical matters) try to make the case for more government based on a moral argument. Living in Illinois can easily turn that skepticism into cynicism.

On a national level as well one could become cynical due to a quick peek at the number of tax cheats who couldn’t pass vetting for Cabinet and other high administration positions. (Although cheating on taxes is more akin to my high school practice of leaving my change in my hall locker to avoid the daily shakedown of the local gym class thugs, than a moral failing.)

But I digress. In my mind, Putting politicians in charge of morality is like putting pedophiles in charge of day camp.

This of course leads to the Tenth Commandment. (Huh?)

Even those who are agnostic towards organized religion generally seem to agree that, although not all of them concern our interactions with one another, most of the Ten Commandments are an excellent set of rules by which to live. You know ‘em so I won’t fuss over the obvious ones. Which brings us to the curious inclusion of the last one.

P J O’Rourke did an essay concerning it some time back which was enlightening as well as hellarious.

It is my belief (which may or may not be shared by real theologians) that there is a popular but mistaken emphasis on the greed aspect of  "Thou Shalt not Covet."

You know the kind of covetousness I'm talking about.  The “Gee, I’d really like to have a car as nice as my neighbor and as much moola as him so I could drive his wife (whom I also long for in sin) to a really posh restaurant on the sly”.

While all of the above are certainly a focus of the rule, it seems to me that there is a form of it that is even more destructive and distracting to us mere mortals.

That form is manifested in this type of thought; “Ya know, I don’t even want a car like my neighbor, it’s a waste of money and I wouldn’t buy a luxury car even if I could afford it. And his wife isn’t nearly as attractive as mine, but that guy doesn’t deserve that house and car and wife.”

Or; “That guy isn’t worth that kind of money, he only works at a bank while I bust my hump everyday working at a job I hate for a boss I hate even more.”  Bank executives, oil company executives, professional athletes and almost everyone at your company (who makes more than you do) fall into that category, they all make "too much" money.

It is the reason people scrape a key along the side of a BMW. Or why indignant teenagers dig up the greens at the country clubs their parents cannot afford to belong to. It’s also the reason people would romanticize Bernie Madoff while detesting his victims if only he had lived in a $500 a month apartment and given the loot to “Save the Whales” or the "Make a Wish" foundations. After all, his victims deserved to lose their money, the arrogant rich bastards probably inherited it. In some circles, his only mistake was in living larger than his marks.

The idea that nobody should have a lot more than anyone else is the basis for the most immoral ideology in all of history, communism. And its first cousin, socialism, is merely a rest stop on the road toward that destination.

While it is always sold as the only truly moral philosophy, in reality, it is the runt of the philosophical litter.

On Friday Aug. 21, 2009, a Russian immigrant, Svetlana Kunin, wrote the best “letter to the editor” of the Investors Business Daily that I have ever read. I recommend that you read it as well.

 In that letter she wrote, "Critics say that greed is the driving force of capitalism. My answer is that envy is the driving force of socialism."

Equal misery may appeal to the intellectual runts, but the water level of humankind has never risen under such thinking. And even the Envy Pimps are starting to sink under the weight of their rhetoric now that the prospect of drowning in a government run sea of health care rationing has even the most distracted among us finally treading water.

So, as long as the politicians brought up the usually taboo topic of morality first, I feel I can comment on it despite the lack of any above average moral bonifides. After all, even a run of the mill sinner knows at least as much about morality as Al Gore knows about global climate change.

Poor Al, the public option fever is cooling even faster than the world is. And morally speaking, that is something I pine for, if not covet.