We are Losing Our Right to Property and With It Our Right to Life

As we watch our government dedicated to the proposition that all property rights are secured by the goodness of government it is a good time to re-read the philosopher Ayn Rand's famous writings on this issue.

The right to Life is the source of all rights-and the right to property is their only implementation.  Without property rights, no other rights are possible.  Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life.  The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.
Bear in mind that the right to property is a right to action, like all the others:  it is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object.  It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it.  It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values.  ("Man's Rights,"  The Virtue of Selfishness, 125; pb94).

We need schools (or parents) that will teach our children the rights bestowed on us by our Constitution and that government that rules least is best.  Government is so much in every aspect of our lives that we are seriously running the risk of becoming ever more slaves of the state.

"Happy Birthday, Ayn Rand" by Don Watkins

Although Ayn Rand's influence is felt everywhere...there is still a long way to go before people realize the great achievement of Rand's code of morality.  The world could sure use the knowledge.

Today, on the 107th anniversary of her birth, it’s hard to doubt that the world has indeed heard of Ayn Rand. Her books—including titles like "The Fountainhead" and "The Virtue of Selfishness"—have sold nearly 30 million copies, with sales of her 1,100-page opus, "Atlas Shrugged," surpassing a million copies in the last three years alone.

Rand has clearly inspired millions. But a debate has emerged over the question of Rand’s political influence, with many commentators claiming her ideas have played a key role in shaping the political landscape. As former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend said in 2011, “Ayn Rand has a large and growing influence on American politics.”

But to gauge Rand’s influence, we need to know more about her views than the sound bytes we’re typically offered.

Rand is usually thought of as a political philosopher, but that is not how she viewed herself. “I am primarily the creator of a new code of morality,” she once said. Whereas previous moral codes bestowed sainthood on those who served and sacrificed for others, Rand’s morality extolled “the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.”

This is the philosophy embodied by fictional characters such as Hank Rearden, the industrialist in "Atlas Shrugged," who—in the tradition of Thomas Edison—creates a new metal that’s stronger and cheaper than steel, and who—in the tradition of countless entrepreneurs—struggles to produce his revolutionary product in the face of government obstacles. At one point, Rearden is brought to trial for violating the government’s economic edicts, and he proudly defends his right to produce and prosper:

 READ HERE  "Happy Birthday, Ayn Rand"  Printed in 

Politicians Promise Heaven and Deliver Hell

Thomas Sowell always gets to the core of any issue....

How long do politicians have to keep on promising heaven and delivering hell before people catch on, and stop getting swept away by rhetoric?

Have you noticed that what modest economic improvements we have seen occurred during the much-lamented "gridlock" in Washington? Nor is this unusual. If you check back through history, doing nothing has a far better track record than that of politicians intervening in the economy.

With all the talk about people paying their "fair share" of income taxes, why do nearly half the people in this country pay no income taxes at all? Is that their "fair share"? Or is creating more recipients of government handouts, at no cost to themselves, simply a strategy to gain more votes?

Some people are puzzled by the fact that so much that is said and done by politicians seems remote from reality. But reality is not what gets politicians elected. Appearances, rhetoric and emotions are what get them elected. Reality is what the voters and taxpayers are left to deal with, as a result of electing them.

Instead of following the tired old formula of having politicians and bureaucrats give college commencement speeches, in which they say how superior it is to follow a career as politicians and bureaucrats — "public service" — why not invite someone like John Stossel to tell the graduates how much better it is to go into the private sector, supplying what people want, instead of imposing the government's will on them?

In politics, few talents are as richly rewarded as the ability to convince parasites that they are victims. Welfare states on both sides of the Atlantic have discovered that largesse to losers does not reduce their hostility to society, but only increases it. Far from producing gratitude, generosity is seen as an admission of guilt, and the reparations as inadequate compensations for injustices — leading to worsening behavior by the recipients...READ here.

The Only Men Who Count

What's To Celebrate about Obama Killing COAL?

Everyday Obama confirms with both his words and his actions that he WANTS the demise of The United States.  We have to confess that we made a huge mistake that will cost us in precious time and precious dollars to fix.  He is ravaging this economy and tilting our government drastically to the left - in other words to less freedom.  Americans are realizing more and more that this is a call to fight for our liberties and our Constitution.  The latest idiotic act by Obama's regime?  Kill Coal. Why?  There is only one answer and it's not the environment.  The reason that more and more people are thinking of is the unthinkable.  We voted into office and anti-American plain and simple.

Enviro-Whack jobs are celebrating the demise of America‘s most abundant energy resource, coal. Because coal has just been given the death sentence by Obama and the EPA just as Obama planned.

“So, if somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can,” said candidate Obama “it’s just that it will bankrupt them, because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”

The EPA has issued new proposed rules on carbon emissions that will help Obama keep one campaign promise: Builders of new coal fired power plants won’t be prevented from building coal-fired power plants, they’ll just go bankrupt if they try...

“Proposed emission rules for new power plants unveiled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on March 27 spell the gradual demise of coal-fired power generation and entrench the current cost advantage for natural gas,” reports Reuters’ John Kemp.

If Obama can’t get the tax portion of the Cap and Tax, I guess he figures he might just as well get the cap portion done. The problem of course is that you and I are going to pay higher electric rates because of it.   

“The agency's proposed rule, signed yesterday, would set a standard well within the capability of modern gas-fired plants but impossible for coal-fired units to meet unless they employ (unproven) carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.”

Even before this proposed new rule, Obama has been using a variety of stratagems to stop the construction of new coal-fired plants.

“Power developers have scrapped plans for more than 100 coal-fired electricity plants over the past decade,” says a Reuters newswire report, “due to difficulty obtaining construction and pollution permits or because they were simply too expensive.”  READ HERE