Column by Scott Lazarowitz.
Exclusive to STR
Many of today’s conservatives speak of traditional moral values and free-market capitalism, and say they are “against collectivism, socialism and communism.” But an examination of the actual policies they support and the way they want to implement their “values” shows that many conservatives are really the collectivist, socialist and communist pots calling the kettle black.
An honest look at actual traditional moral values shows that such values naturally coincide with private property rights, self-ownership, freedom of association and freedom of contract. Many of today’s conservatives, however, support government policies in which the individual and one’s property are really owned by the community, and by the State. They also support an always-growing centralized federal government to impose the will of elite special interests onto foreigners.
In my view, socialism is public ownership of the means of production (that includes the people, thus a collective ownership of the individual), and includes central government control and confiscation and distribution of wealth.
And to me, communism is the cumulative result of the always expanding power and control by the central government over the people, industry and wealth, in which the State is the total owner of all property and the people. (See here [22], here [23] and here [24].)
The reason I am constantly referring to the United States of America as “USSA” is because America today is a Soviet-like, police-state dictatorship, in which the central government in Washington owns and controls all the property and wealth within the territory.
In America now, the federal government has a de facto ownership of all the people, who are slaves of professional politicians and bureaucrats, their hired guns the police and military, lobbyists and lawyers, and big corporations and banks.
So it is the statist conservatives, from their support for State control in domestic social areas to their support for grandiose overseas democratization projects through wars and violence, in which they are true socialists and communists. Here are a few examples:
Marriage and Children: Political columnist Ann Coulter is quite representative of statist conservatives in general. She remarked [25], in her criticism of Ron Paul’s views on separating marriage and State, “If state governments stop officially registering marriages, then who gets to adopt? How are child support and child custody issues determined if the government doesn’t recognize marriage?” And conservatives in general are also in favor of using the government to prevent homosexuals from marrying one another.
These views show that Coulter et al. believe that individuals and their relationships and contracts are ultimately owned by the State, and that individuals must therefore get the State’s permission to marry, and to sign on to a mutually beneficial and voluntary contract, even though it is none of the State’s business who the parties are and what the terms of the contract are. This is an example of State ownership of the people, their associations and contracts.
On the child adoption issue, a free-market system would not only be more honest, but better for the children involved. Private, competitive agencies in adoption and foster-care would be based on word-of-mouth, proven competence and so on. Giving the State the authority to approve or disapprove of these situations, means the State owns the people and their children. The State-employed social workers’ loyalty has been to the State, certainly not to children. (See here [26], here [27], here [28], here [29] and here [30], for examples.)
Immigration and Zoning Laws: Statist conservatives get very emotional on the immigration issue. They are not rational. That is because these conservatives are collectivists who view the entire territory as being collectively owned. These conservatives align themselves with the Almighty State that owns all the territory, all businesses and all the people. Because the State owns your business, it has the right to dictate to you whom you may or may not hire at your business, regardless of whether or not you believe that a particular job applicant would be better – better for your business and better for your customers – than the other applicants.
In contrast, with free-market, private property ownership, the businessperson is sole owner of one’s own business, and has a right to hire and fire whomever one wants, for whatever reason. For example, a Mexican sees a job opening posted for a restaurant business located in Arizona. Unless you really want to say that the State owns this individual’s life, then, otherwise he has a right to travel freely to that restaurant (as long as he doesn’t trespass on private property [31], of course) and interview for the job. And the business owner has a right to hire the Mexican if the owner foresees that his business will prosper with more pleased and better-served customers, which will result in higher wages for the workers there and probably, ultimately, lower prices for the customers. The competition across the street will be outperformed, and perhaps become a laundromat.
Statist conservatives believe in socialist central planning in immigration, even though central planning has screwed up immigration in America for decades. (See here [32], here [33], here [34], and here [35].)
The statists oppose the right of all individuals to own one’s own life and have the freedom to trade one’s labor or wealth with others in a voluntary contract. When these conservatives say, “You can’t come into our country,” they not only assert a belief in collective ownership of all property within the territory, but they want the State to control labor and production.
Also, many conservatives, independents and progressives become emotional regarding the concept of citizenship. To me, to be a citizen of a country means you belong to that country, which means the country – really, the government, or the community as a collective – owns the individual within the territory. Citizenship cancels out self-ownership as well as any notion of private property ownership. One of your most important aspects of private property is your own life. The individual’s most important private property is one’s own person, labor and what one honestly acquires through voluntary trade. But what the statist conservatives want, and what most people seem to want, unfortunately, is for the collective of the territory to seize ownership and control of the entire territory and all property, capital and resources within it. That includes the people themselves. If the inhabitants of a territory gather together as a collective and assert that an “outsider” must get the collective’s (or government’s) permission to travel within the territory in order to voluntarily trade one’s labor, wealth or property with others already within the territory, then they are asserting a collective ownership of those already within the territory.
The anti-immigration people are true socialists in their opposition to the right of all individuals to property transfer. Someone who lives in, say, Texas, and owns a home, has a God-given right to sell the property to whomever one wants, including to someone who has arrived from Mexico, and the Mexican has the same right to make that purchase and live in the home. Now, if you want to assert that the other neighbors may prevent that from occurring, then you believe in the socialism of the neighbors sharing in ownership of that property. If you believe that the State shares in the ownership of that property, then really the State is the true owner.
Besides immigration, another example of statist conservatives’ belief in collective- and government-ownership of all property is their love for zoning [36] laws. The anti-Muslim conservatives’ opposition [37] to the “Ground Zero Mosque” in New York was a perfect example of that. Many people wanted to use the armed force of government to prevent the Islamic community center from being built there, even though it is privately owned property.
Private property is not collectively owned [38] by the other people in the neighborhood. You don’t share in ownership of your neighbor’s property. If your neighbor has something within his property that you don’t like, and if it bothers you, then you have the choice of communicating your thoughts and feelings to the neighbor and hoping that he’ll make changes to suit your needs, you can offer to buy the property, or you can move.
Local Police: The statist conservatives’ authoritarian love for police has shown its sickening face in their widespread support of cops committing acts of violence against peaceful protesters. This is an outcome of local governments’ communist ownership of the means of production in community policing and security. The statist conservatives support this communism, in which private production of security in competition to or as an alternative to the government-monopolized police is forbidden. In such a monopoly, in which the government police are armed but the civilians are not, the monopolists are not accountable. These conservatives’ support for this lawless scheme shows that they can’t possibly believe in the rule of law, the right to free speech and the right to protest your government. That is because they believe the government owns the people as its property, and its monopolized police have a right to physically keep the people subjugated (and imprisoned).
In contrast, in a free-market society of voluntary groups and competitive policing and security firms, anyone engaged in policing activities would be held accountable under the rule of law. The “bad apples” would truly be ostracized or put out of business, or jailed. One would think that conservatives would support this moral, free-market alternative. But the truth is, most of today’s conservatives are authoritarians and do not believe in individual liberty, voluntary exchange and the rule of law.
National Security and Wars vs. The Rule of Law and the Truth:
Statist conservatives are devoted to central planning in national security [39], regardless how flawed, failed, counter-productive and destructive such a grandiose, socialistic scheme has been. Giving a centralized government the monopoly of protecting an entire population from foreign aggressors [40] in a territory spanning thousands of square miles is an impossible task. Not surprisingly, given human nature [41], and the fact that men are not angels [42], such empowerment of central planners has only encouraged them to provoke foreigners to act against the people.
The purpose of the government’s monopoly in national security had long ago become to expand the government’s power and its reach territorially, particularly overseas. It is not freedom to be protected, but government to be expanded. That is what the Nazis and the Soviet communists did. They centralized their governments and expanded their reach. The U.S. government has expanded itself into foreign lands for decades, in the name of “American Exceptionalism,” the euphemism for moral relativism [43].
While the war conservatives have been chanting about “Christian moral values” (“Do unto others what one would want others to do unto you” and “Don’t do unto others what one would not want others to do unto you.”), they have utterly abandoned such values.
While calling it “American Exceptionalism,” the war conservatives and other war supporters have been defending and promoting government’s criminality, pure and simple: coveting other people’s lands and resources, terrorizing and tormenting whole foreign populations, and murdering countless innocents.
Since 9/11 and the Bush era, many conservatives have passively bent over backwards to allow Bush and Cheney, and now Obama, to commit criminal acts of aggression overseas, even more provocations of foreigners than were committed prior to 9/11 [44], and Soviet-like abuses of due process domestically.
But Americans have been numbed by decades of TV-viewing, by government-controlled schools that indoctrinate the people to obediently [45] love the State and never question the word of government.
And now, the Senate has treasonously [46] passed more tyrannical [47] legislation in which agents of the State [48] may – at the agents’ own personal discretion – designate any American a “terrorist,” apprehend someone from one’s home and detain and even torture him, hold him or her indefinitely without charges, without trial or any due process. As I noted here [49], such crimes against the people immediately violate the individual’s inalienable rights to life and liberty, which include the right to presumption of innocence and due process. Someone who grabs you out of your home and holds you indefinitely without charges is a criminal, regardless of his being employed by the government, military or police. Our own government is now treasonously [50] very Nazi-like in its threats against innocent American civilians.
Because “there’s a war going on,” we will now see how an individual’s speaking out against the Regime, criticizing U.S. government foreign policy, or criticizing or satirizing our bumbling, buffoonish and incompetent government officials will be viewed as a “threat.” Such suppression of dissent is typical of corrupt totalitarian governments.
Already, when people try to discuss the truth about what our government has been doing, they are shouted down, smeared, slandered and referred to as “un-American” and “unpatriotic.” In the minds of the obedient masses, anyone who challenges the word of those in power is to be silenced [51]. Yet, it has been our government officials whose actions against us [52], and against foreigners, have been thoroughly un-American.
But the “conservatives,” who have been approving of this kind of banana republic society, know what the Wall Street Occupiers want (to use the force of government to covet their neighbors’ wealth and property), the conservatives know what the unions and their gangster henchmen are all about, they know about ACORN, AmeriaCorps, and the “alternative” army that Obama spoke about before being elected President. The “conservatives” and other obedient government supporters have given the Obama-Left carte blanche to arrest and detain those who have criticized [53] the Obama Regime, those who have “anti-government” views, on the radio, in the newspapers, on blogs and comments, Twitter and Facebook, and even those who have Ron Paul bumper stickers [54].
With Homeland Security’s campaign to “say something if you see (or hear) something,” people are encouraged to snitch on their neighbors. An anonymous tip by a disgruntled neighbor who heard that you oppose the Federal Reserve? You don’t think that’s possible?
You think your views are safe to express “anonymously” on blogs or in comments to a blog? Try preventing your IP address from being known.
“It can’t happen here”?
You see, the “conservatives” and other obedient government supporters have paved the way to the tyrannical, communist Total State, USSA, with their support of Bush’s exploitation of post-9/11 fears and paranoia.
The “conservatives” – along with the Left – in their merging of their identities with the centralized, authoritarian regime in Washington, have gotten to be just like the communists they thought they opposed and hated. And in their supporting the U.S. government’s terrorizing of Americans for ten years now, they have become just like the terrorists [55] with whom they think they are at “war.”
Conclusion
Many of today’s conservatives may talk about “freedom,” “moral values,” “free-market capitalism” and “private property,” but in reality they believe that the people and property are owned by the collective and by the State.
And the statist conservatives do not really believe in moral values. If they did, they would either support Ron Paul, or they would be anarchists and support an all-private property [56] society without monopolist rulers.
But most of all, many of today’s conservatives just love their central planning! (However, if God carved out Washington, D.C. and let it float out to sea, it wouldn’t bother me too much.)
