It’s worth repeating and reminding your friends and relatives that capitalism is the only economic system that respects individual rights. All alternatives to capitalism instill some form of master-slave relationship in which (to paraphrase Ayn Rand) people deal with one another by blood, whips and guns instead of voluntary free trade (dollars).

It’s worth repeating because the socialist are launching another volley in the quest to enslave humanity by trying to convince people to reject money, and instead embrace new socialist dictators who will force people to carry out their socialist whims. This volley is in the form of another Michael Moore regurgitation that blames the current recession not on the governments’ restrictive anti-capitalist policies, but on capitalism itself.

With the recent historic examples of the squalor and death-tolls of the Soviet Union and China, it’s amazing that the likes of Michael Moore are not condemned for the poison they vomit. It’s hypocritical that they have not already moved to a more “moral” country where more of their wealth is stolen away by some other special interest group, union or dictator. I suppose that the fuzzy-thinking products of teachers’ union education are ripe to accept these schemes in spite of all evidence.

If people want prosperity and wealth to share and spread around, people should be telling the governments to leave us alone, not tightening the chains on our freedoms.

The media reports that socialized medicine is imminent.

Intense public-relations research has long concluded that the term “socialized medicine” should never be spoken and instead be replaced with terms such as “healthcare reform” or “national healthcare”, but reality doesn’t care what people label it: it will result in longer-lines, rationing, indifferent doctors, drowsy administrators, and more class conflict (think DMV or post office).

Today’s health care industry is a mix of free-market innovations and existing socialized medicine. Where companies can still find reward in creating new medicines and procedures, the industry is flourishing. However, the burden of the Medicaid/Medicare social schemes has resulted in increasing wait times, ballooning prices, and depleted government coffers.

Their solution? Enslave the entire industry and devour the entire medical profession.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that people blindly follow politicians to this end. Younger generations are no longer taught to think critically, but are instead filled with labor union and Al Gore propaganda. Any moocher will gladly support any social program believing (in error) that smart politicians wish to improve his life.

However, it’s never too late. Society rose from the dark ages of religious tyranny to (for a while) build the great civilization of freedom and capitalism that culminated in the United States. From the ashes of another painful attempt at self-sacrifice and “brother love,” people will eventually relearn the virtue of reason and individual rights and rebuild another greater society.

Hopefully at that time, their government Constitution will be more explicit in defending individuals against the looting hordes.

In the mean time, anything that will slow society’s decent in to social or religious slavery is worth attempting. Be vocal where appropriate, and contact your elected representatives to defend everyone’s individual rights.

The EPA has just declared carbon dioxide a “major hazard to Americans’ health” paving the way for legislators to further penalize and/or prohibit its production. I can hardly believe it’s happening in a free society—humanity is truly in trouble. We now have a government agency declaring the very air that we exhale is hazardous to our own health.

Ideology matters. Hitler believed that Jews were hazardous—in the beginning, he passed laws to censure their activities. Today, environmentalists have humanity in their cross-hairs. All that humans do to thrive, and now even living itself is deemed officially harmful.

I must remind the reader that this is all based on Gore’s “consensus of scientists” (a consensus of government workers seeking more funding) and ignorant hoards ready and willing to (a) forget that the climate has always changed, (b) accept his story on faith, and (c) vote for their own destruction.

The biggest threat to humanity is the environmentalist movement itself.

The AIG bonus compensation issue illustrates why governments and politicians must stay away from the private sector.

Instead of allowing AIG to enter bankruptcy (thus allowing their “frozen assets” to be used by other more competent companies), US government politicians chose to steal unprecedented billions from US citizens and hand it over to AIG and other failing companies. These politicians stated that AIG and other bail-out recipients would be expected to stay afloat and eventually repay the government-stolen money. The very fact that these companies were failing should have been enough evidence that they have been fundamentally flawed and would have no means of recovering (without further government edicts that force people to deal with them).

To add insult to injury, the government is now dictating how these companies should operate. President Obama has no experience in running or managing a successful business—he has never been an entrepreneur or a CEO, and yet he declares that AIG employees must not receive bonuses. He hasn’t a clue about whether bonuses are necessary for employee retention in a thriving financial business.

If these businesses were failing before politicians forked over other people’s money, they are sure to fail with these same politicians acting as corporate managers.

It’s past time for the US government to stop feeding our wealth in to the cesspools of rotting companies (and other socialist schemes) and get out the way so that free-market capitalism can let these companies die while rewarding other companies that are run efficiently and profitably.

A “man on the street” recently told me that the government has to “do something” about the economy.

This “do something” rally cry has turned in to an excuse for everyone to abandon what little sense they have and essentially run around in circles while flailing their arms and screaming. This has lead to a seemingly endless stream of new destructive government policies that will only create future debt, bubbles and recessions while putting more of our freedoms under the control of government politicians whose only qualification to make critical decisions is their ability to say what people want to hear.

Here are a few points that the shrieking public should remember:

Please remember that there are always real consequences to government intervention in to free markets, and “doing something” is no excuse to create more economic devastation.

This weekend in New York City is the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change. It will be a “consensus of scientists” (many with genuine facial hair) who will present scientific reports contradicting the global warming hysteria that is consuming so much of our wealth and freedom these days.

You can read more about it here: http://www.heartland.org/events/NewYork09/newyork09.html

This is just a simple reminder that long before humans existed on this planet, the climate has constantly and drastically changed. Since the ascendency of humanity, the climate continues to change just as it did before.

The only difference today is that environmentalists want you to believe that any changes in climate are due to nefarious human activity. The term “climate change” is quickly becoming synonymous with “we need green socialist dictators to put humans in their place.”

Please use your reason. The free world depends on it.

Socialist politicians presume that rich people take their wealth from the poor (or so called middle class) and it’s thus somehow fair and just for politicians to steal it back. While few politicians publicly say this, these socialists rely on this assumption in their arguments to prohibitively tax the rich.

This is blatantly false.

The world’s wealth is not a fixed value that happens to be unfairly distributed to some and not others. In a free market, wealth is CREATED. Some people create more wealth than others.

Some people choose to spend years cramming information in to their minds to make their actions and choices more effective. Others spend their evenings watching TV and drinking beer. Some people stay up at night reading more books and learning new skills while others stay up at night partying and birthing more children.

There is nothing unjust about the wealth creators keeping the wealth that they create – they typically develop unique skills for creating wealth, and their ability and opportunity to manage more wealth is a win-win for everyone. After all, the wealth wouldn’t exist at all if they didn’t put forth their effort.

In spite of this, today’s politicians are trying to further loot families who create more than $250,000 worth of wealth each year on the false premise that this $250,000 has largely been stolen from those who chose to live their lives irresponsibly or at a slower pace.

When the wealth creators finally give-up and to cap their capacity to create wealth at $250,000/year (or whatever number the politicians arbitrarily decide is rich), then humanity is in BIG trouble. (The socialists don’t seem to have a problem with this; a topic for a future post.)

NASA has spent nearly $300 million of your (forced) tax money on a satellite to monitor your CO2 emissions. Overtly, this is on the false premises that (a) CO2 causes temperatures to rise, (b) humans are producing significant amounts of this poisonous gas compared to non-human sources, (c) the earth should remain at a temperature determined by Al Gore, (d) human livelihood should be sacrificed to everything that is not human, and (e) the ideal earth contains no humans.

To add insult to injury, this satellite has crashed in to the ocean, so the value produced by this program is now exactly $0. However, there will likely be a second attempt in which even more of your (forced) tax money is used to further Al Gore’s conspiracy theories.

Ideas matter. Your government is robbing you, and then spending billions of dollars, and imposing laws to severely restrict the productive potential of humanity based on criminally flawed reasons. Please spend at least 10 minutes today reading about the ongoing debate between Al Gore and his “consensus” and the other consensus of climate scientists who do not support his fantastic claims.

You don’t need to be a scientist to employ reason. Most people simply believe Al Gore’s hysteria, and that’s good enough for them.

I watched The Godfather movies again recently. Its story touches on the gangs’ hidden relationships with elected officials, and how the gangs manipulate the government to achieve their goals. Ironically, at the end of the film’s credits appeared the ubiquitous sentence “This film made under the jurisdiction of the AFL-CIO” under the IATSE logo (pictured here).

Ironic because one could easily replace the character of Michael Corleone with most any modern union kingpin and the story would be the same: how people deal with one another by force, instead of voluntary free trade. Today’s unions have deeply permeated the government and routinely use the government’s monopoly on the use of force (courts, law enforcement, guns) to force individuals to give union members unearned wealth, and more government power.

Mobsters offer people “protection” for fees and allegiance (or else). Unions offer people unearned wealth for fees and allegiance. They obtain that wealth from anyone and everyone who doesn’t join the union (e.g., in the form of artificially expensive automobiles, films, and steel). Like mobsters, unions don’t engage in running businesses, they simply engage in malignantly looting businesses until they collapse (as with the American auto industry).

Since the unions are so embedded in to governments, they no longer need new businesses to loot, they simply convince government officials to tax and/or print more money, thus robbing society at large—particularly the most productive people.

Unions are also deeply embedded in the education and film industries. Because of this, you will almost never hear a disparaging word about unions, their means, or their purposes. Imagine a film-maker trying to produce a film critical about unions. Can you imagine Dom Corleone or any union official “allowing” such a film to get made?

There has been some effort recently to get Ayn Rand’s classic novel Atlas Shrugged adapted to a feature film. Given the novel’s defense of individual rights and voluntary free trade (as opposed to force), I bet that for the unions to allow it to get produced, the screenwriter will have to severely deform its message.