Eulogy For America

The country that once elected leaders whose ideas upheld liberty now elects leaders whose sweet-sounding platitudes and woozy promises are all that is required, and whose actual, dangerous ideas need not be examined until after Election Day.

The country that defended property rights now seizes 40-percent of our income in a myriad of taxes imposed by all levels of government — with even larger levies on incomes, profits, investments, and savings on the horizon.

The country that championed capitalism now vilifies our industries, cripples them with regulations, seizes their profits, then declares that the free market has failed and government must take over.

The country that made possible the great industrial titans—the Henry Fords, Thomas Edisons, and others whose productive genius moved mankind forward—now thinks that government can run things better, and that government should own, operate, and finance our corporations, deciding which will survive and which will die, creating a new kind of soup kitchen where emaciated companies stand in a bread-line waiting for their bailout.

The country that protected the individual now protects polar bears, spotted owls, caribou, and the wilderness at the expense of human life.

The country that fought a revolution to end the abuse of power now elects politicians who wallow in power like hippos in mud, such as members of congressional subcommittees who hold hearings threatening the prosperity or very existence of American business firms, and then let the hearings end with little or no result when the hapless firms make sufficient contributions to the reelection campaigns of the congressmen.(*)

It is the mighty that have the farthest to fall. Most often, that fall is not precipitated by one great clash with the enemy but, as Mark Steyn explains, "by a thousand trivial concessions, until one day you wake up and you don't need to sign a formal instrument of surrender because you did it piecemeal."

Is it too late to slam on the emergency brakes? Observe the altruist-collectivist rhetoric of high-ranking members of the Obama administration. Or witness the moral depth of the government's representatives. Or study the soundness of the state's economic policies.

Americans are up to their necks in the quicksand of statism and the more they struggle - the more they cram their destructive 'stimulus' packages through congress and the closer they crawl to universal health care - the harder they will find it to claw back out of the mire.

Steyn's thousand trivial concessions are upon us. Tomorrow Canadians may wake up next to the world's biggest welfare state, trillions of dollars in debt and begging for the self-esteem it once deserved.

Regarding The Issue Of Immigration

Thomas Friedman points us towards a unique panacea to our economies woes:

"All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans,” said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express newspaper. “We will buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate — no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans."

I'm particularly opposed to what I have identified to be a distinctly anti-immigration strain in the North American conservative movement. The situation is particularly bad in the United States where, under current immigration laws, many of the great "Americans" of the past century would have been turned away at the border before achieving their fortunes or fame.

A truly moral immigration policy must be an open one, which is not to say an unregulated one. A strict screening process is an absolute necessity in order to prevent the enemies of the West, the criminal element, and individuals who have certain contagious diseases from entering the country. This is the only way to consistently apply the idea that every human being is free to act on their own rational judgment so long as they do not violate the individual rights of others.

The choice to immigrate to Canada or the United States does not directly violate anybody's rights. To deny non-criminal individuals access to our country is to employ state coercion for the wrong ends, since there can be no rational justification for the initiation of force against another human being. As a policy, then, restricted immigration violates the rights of both potential immigrants and the citizens who would like to associate with those immigrants, whether through friendship or commerce.

In the comments section of the Friedman article, Maxime Rainville parodies a typical argument against open immigration that we're hearing more and more often in these trying economic times:

Instead of worrying about creating jobs for people from abroad, Senator X should worry about creating jobs for Americans first. Americans are already suffering because of the current crisis and shouldn't have to compete with cheap labor imported from foreign countries. This is the same laissez-faire attitude that got us into this mess. Government must devote its energy to creating millions of new green collar, high paying, unionized jobs. That's what's best for America. Why does Senator X want to destroy America?

We hear this very same tune being sung by certain Canadian conservatives as well. The argument assumes, however, the profoundly statist premise that citizens have a "right" to employment and, what's more, that the government should be permitted to use force to keep competition from foreign countries from crossing the border.

But no such right to employment exists. The basic principles of liberty oblige us to consistently recognize the right of any individual to form a contract with any other individual. As such, an employer is perfectly justified in both hiring foreigners and firing native Canadians.

Another typical argument against open immigration is demonstrated by commenter Glen:

Out of those 2 million immigrants that claim they are going to work 18 hours a day, I wonder where exactly that might be, and how many of these 2 million will just come here to collect welfare or unemployment insurance.

The idea that immigrants come to our country merely to collect welfare cheques - besides being largely untrue - is not an argument against open immigration but an argument against the welfare state. This kind of reasoning is tantamount to the suggestion that, because of the immorality of our welfare state, moral individuals should be barred from entering it. This is both absurd and indefensible.

Regarding Friedman's proposal, however, I cannot claim to be altogether convinced that an open immigration policy holds the key to restoring our financial health. The reason that we are currently experiencing one of the worst recessions in the past century can be summarized in two simple and familiar words: government intervention. Accordingly, the key to our health moving forward will be found only in massive deregulation and a commitment to the principles capitalism. It is crucial to note, however, that these principles of capitalism demand an open immigration policy as well.

A Quick Thought For Kathey Montague

Before today, I wasn't actually aware that it is illegal in Canada for a woman to carry pepper spray for self-defence.

Kathey Montague expresses her concern over the matter in the following video:



"Why do politicians insist they women be defenceless against two-legged predators?"

I can only agree. Pepper spray is a perfectly reasonable weapon to employ for one's self-defence. It is especially helpful to women who are able to carry it in their purse with little difficulty and have quick access to it should a would-be initiator of force present him or herself.

The only thing that I'd like to take issue with in this video is the idea that Miss Montague raises of a "God-given right" to self-defence. Insofar as she intended to convey the idea that human beings have an inalienable right to defend themselves against those who would initiate force against them, she is perfectly correct. However, an individual's right to self-defence is the logical consequence of the right to life and this most basic right is not derived from God's decree or from the words of the Bible but from the very nature of man.

Individual rights are objective and inalienable already. They don't need help from the invocation of God. In fact, such an invocation can only serve to undermine the idea of objective rights to those who are not persuaded by theological arguments.

Miss Montague, I am pleased that you're invested in lobbying the government to stop interference in the life and liberty of Canadian citizens. There is no cause that I'm aware of that is in more dire need of advocacy. But I would encourage you to abandon the safety blanket of religious rhetoric in order to maximize the influence of your message and to deliver a more satisfying and consistent endorsement of the fundamental individual rights of Canadians.

The Difference Between Republicanism & Democracy

I am none too fond of democracy.

I understand that this qualifies as an unusual statement to make in the twenty-first century now that conservatives and liberals alike are so enthusiastic about invoking 'democratic rights' or the best interests of the democratic state to justify their domestic and foreign policy decisions and actions. One can hear them proclaiming from mountain tops that democracy is the root of all good in a political system. Why should the United States invade Iraq, Mr. Bush? Why, to bring them democracy, of course!

The root of all good in a political system - nay, the only proper function of the state - is the protection of individual rights. These individual rights have very little to do with the logically indefensible 'democratic rights' that were invented by the social democrats (I'm thinking here of the right to an education, the right to health care, or the newly discovered right not to be offended, among countless others). Rather, individual rights are the logical corollaries and consequences of the one basic right of every human being: the right to one's own life.

So what does holding this position make me if not a democrat? As the title of this blog suggests - and I know that a lot of my readers have inquired about this - it makes me a constitutional republican. In a Canadian republic, the legislature would still operate democratically but politicians would possess no power to violate the rights of their state's citizens under any circumstances. In Canada, that would mean no Human Rights Commissions violating the right to free expression, no federal confiscation of private property, no coercive taxation, and no compulsory unionism.

I stumbled across this video the other day which does, I believe, an excellent job of distilling the difference between a democracy and a republic down into an easily accessible and relatively concise presentation. Although the video is far from perfect, I hope that it will function as something of an introduction to the idea of a constitutional republic to freedom-loving Canadians.

The One Minute Case For Individual Rights

I recently came across an interesting blog entitled "The One Minute Case". The following post from this site, I think, quite helpfully capsulizes the moral case for individual rights. It should help re-affirm the philosophy behind the rights of man for those who have studied the subject and, for those who haven't, perhaps it will help unpack the concept and set forth the metaphysical propositions upon which it rests.

"The One Minute Case For Individual Rights"

Man Is The Rational Animal:

Like all living beings, man requires certain values to survive, but he is unique in that he must choose the values necessary for his life because he has no automatic means of doing so. It is his ability to experience the world around him and comprehend it by the use of reason that gives him the capacity to understand the values his life requires, and then achieve them. Every value we enjoy in our civilized, comfortable, existence is the product of the application of man’s mind to reality.

There Is No "Collective Mind":

All creative effort, every invention in history, was created by the mental effort of individual men and women. When they worked together, their knowledge was increased by the work of predecessors, but each advance they made was their own. The mind cannot be received, shared, or borrowed.

Man Requires Freedom To Live:

To live, man must achieve the values necessary to sustain his live. To achieve his values, man must be free to think and to act on his judgment. Restrictions on freedom force man to focus not on the absolutes of reality, but on the arbitrary ideas of others. In a free society, a man can choose to not associate with those who do not respect his judgment – by finding a new job, new friends, or a new lover. Even if there is no one to share his ideas, every man is still free to present his own vision – by publishing his ideas or becoming an entrepreneur. However, as soon as he faces the threat of physical force, the possibility of any such alternatives becomes irrelevant. The initiation of force renders the mind useless as a means of survival.

Freedom Requires Rights:

Rights are moral principles defining man’s freedom of action in society. The purpose of establishing individual rights is to protect man from man – to define the basic conditions necessary for social existence. All rights derive from a man’s right to his own life, including the rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. Whether it is by a theft, force, fraud, or government coercion, man’s rights can be violated only by the initiation of force.

Rights Are Inalienable & Non-Conflicting:

Rights are not guarantees to things or obligations placed on others, but only guarantees to freedom from violence (the right to life), freedom of action (the right to liberty), and the results of those actions (the right to property). In a free society, men deal with one another exclusively by trade, voluntarily exchanging value for value to their mutual benefit. The only obligations one’s rights impose on other men is to respect the same and equal rights of others – the freedom to be left alone. A man may have his rights violated by a criminal or a government, but morally he remains, in the right, and the criminal in the wrong.