“Marxism as a serious political system came crashing down with the Berlin Wall in 1990. Aspects of it certainly linger in European-style “social democracy” and in surviving elements of the New Deal in America.  Every time you suffer an energy blackout, for instance, you are probably suffering from the Depression-era laws that let to a fragmented electricity transmission grid in the name of preserving jobs.

Yet the instinct to broadly and aggressively apply the tools of Marxism–central planning and government control–lives on.  The instinct is the same as it was when Marx articulated it in the nineteenth century, but the old justification just doesn’t fly.  Free enterprise has proven itself not to oppress the working man, but to free him.

If the working man is no longer oppressed, the central tenant of Marxism no longer applies, but surely there must be another victim of capitalism to take its place?  Women and minorities have advanced themselves under free enterprise just as surely as have the working man, and so they are not ideal candidates.

Luckily for the Left they have a victim ready on the shelf.  This time it is one that will not exercise free choice in rejecting the ministrations of those who claim to speak for it.  In the leftist’s world view, the worker has been replaced by “the Environment.”

Iain Murray, The Really Inconvenient Truths, Regnery 2008, pp 210-211.

When you least expect it, the most interesting revelations surface. I was discussing some fundamental differences between my positions and positions of the left with some Democrats yesterday. As usually happens in these situations, they grew increasingly impatient with me as I defended my position from compromise. As we parted, they made a reference to their firmly held belief that the French Revolution was the logical outcome of Laissez Faire capitalism. They all held this conclusion as if it were fact, and they tossed off questions to this assumption as they departed as absurd. (more…)

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. (more…)

Getting to Know John McCain

Messages From John

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“Ships carried the captives primarily to the British sugar islands (where more than 70 percent of slaves were purchased, almost half of these at Jamaica), but sizable numbers were also sent to French and Spanish buyers as a result of special treaty arrangements called the Asiento. About one in ten was shipped to North American destinations.” p. 6.

“[T]he ship-factory also produced “race.” At the beginning of the voyage, captains hired a motley crew of sailors, who would, on the coast of Africa, become “white men.” At the beginning of the Middle Passage, captains loaded on board the vessel a multiethnic collection of Africans, who would, in the American port, become “black people” or a “negro race.” The voyage thus transformed those who made it.” p. 10.

From: The Slave Ship, A Human History by Marcus Rediker. ISBN 978-0-670-01823-9.

No one in America today makes that voyage. No one in America today deserves the burden of “race.”