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Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Healthcare: Reform it, Not Repeal it



John R. Houk
© March 31, 2010


I have noted in the past I am the rare and near non-existent Conservative that believes in some form of universal healthcare. As a Conservative though, I believe Obamacare is the first level of the Marxist socialization of America.

I just finished reading an awesome post by Judge Bob concerning his disapproval of not only Obamacare but also all or any forms of universal healthcare. The post is an excellent argument for a Liberty conscious Capitalist insurance/healthcare reform. The meaning being providing purely market driven solutions to reform that uses competition to keep insurance premiums down.

There was a time that I would absolutely agree with Judge Bob. The history of my health has modified my outlook on the reliance on purist Capitalism as a solution for all things needing fixed in America.

Judge Bob includes in his post an excerpt from Imprimis published by Hillsdale College which goes like this:

(1) Today's business-government partnership or "crony capitalism" model, in which bureaucratized insurance companies monopolize the field in most states;

(2) the progressive model promoted by the Obama administration and congressional leaders, in which federal bureaucracies tell us which services are allowed, and

(3) the model consistent with our Constitution, in which health care providers compete in a free and transparent market, and in which individual consumers are in control.


The models of healthcare reform can roughly be summarized as:

    1. The Capitalist/Government cooperation in healthcare model.

    2. The Leftist-Obamacare model of pseudo-socialism leading to outright socialism.

    3. The purist Capitalist model relying solely on markets and profits.



Model 2 is a path that will destroy America’s Judeo-Christian culture as well as diluting or eliminating the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. That is unacceptable in my book.

Model 3’s description in the Imprimis article is awesome but I believe is in the realm of Slanted Right utopianism. By “utopianism” I mean a good idea that I believe is impossible to implement in American politics.

As you have guessed I lean to Model 1 described as “business-government partnership or crony capitalism”. For the business-government partnership to work effectively with Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness of the Founding Fathers still the foundation of our nation; Slanted Right impetus must be the managing tool. If a business-government partnership is managed by Leftists then model 2 will eventually evolve with the same outcome of model 2. Leftist management of a business-government partnership will indeed lead to crony Capitalism in which business complies to government designs. This is the kind of socialism espoused by one of the most heinous regimes in world history. This was the one-party government political system known as National Socialism but better known as Nazism. Under Nazism the State did not own corporations yet all means of production was for the sole benefit of the State.

Nazism does not employ the Marxist illusion that the people or the proletariat is the government. Rather Nazism is a form of socialism in which the people are collectivized to serve the State and its leader.

If the Left attempts to manage Capitalism the goal in mind might be the Marxist utopia; however for any kind of market business to survive in a socialist model it would have to be more akin the Nazi Corporate State.

If the Slanted Right manages healthcare/insurance reform in concert with business it is more likely that competitive markets will be in mind with certain aspects like affordability and the elimination the reprehensible practice of not insuring pre-existing medical conditions being regulated.

With my two-cents worth of thoughts, READ Judge Bob’s post entitled, “You Need to Know, Part One”.

JRH 3/31/10
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You Need to Know Pt. 1

Judge Bob
Mar 28, 2010 at 11:09 PM
Judge Right

REPEAL IT


This article begins a series designed to bring you information and instruction you need to act on now to redirect the American trajectory toward greater liberty and away from the natural inclination of governments to sink into ever greater regulation and control. Gianna personally requested I post an article which could help her, her friends and family prepare for the coming fallout from the abolition of American exceptionalism and government absorption of another 1/6 of our economy for a total of approximately 1/2 of all U.S. production now in radical leftist/liberal (those with the idea that they must overcome the awkward limitations of the constitution to create a tight community to live really equally) control via the health care reform package laws. All 1500+ pages of it. She has inspired me to do a short series because we don't yet have to accept this legislation but its going to take a lot of work to turn it around from here. Subsequent articles will deal with what we can do to prepare if the legislation is allowed to stand. But let's not give up on the U.S. yet. As with the New Deal, we have recovered from devastating regulation and tax law before, and we can do it again.

One of my favorite scriptures is Psalm 127:1

"Unless the Lord builds the house,
they labor in vain who build it.
Unless the Lord guards the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain."


In application to these circumstances, one always begins with prayer and request for guidance from the Spirit rather than men. This is not to say that you cannot find wisdom with some men, but that you should exercise your judgment to recognize wisdom. A mentor is good to find, even having found one, the judicious disciple will continue to exercise discernment for the best mentor among men is still a man and thus fallible and prone to err. Let the Spirit be your primary Guide.

To start out with, educate yourself. Everyone needs to get a very easy education. Read the Constitution. Read the Bill of Rights. Read the Preamble. Read the Declaration of Independence. Read the Federalist Papers. Do your best to memorize them and keep a little copy of them with you at all times for those discussions you'll inevitably find yourself in with your peers. If a lot of you have this information memorized, others will feel they must at least give it a serious look rather than appear more ignorant than their debating counterparts, and can then decide for themselves whether Congress and the President or the Supreme Court are acting outside the bounds of their authority. By the way, these used to be taught in our schools as basic grade school education. The more people understand how this legislation undermines these founding works, the more likely this economy killing legislation can be turned around within 3 years. You can go further and link, subscribe to, or favorite sites like Hoover Institute, Hillsdale College, Cato Institute, Liberty Pen, Prager University, ACT for America, FORA TV, Wallbuilders, PJTV, etc., but start with the founders' documents and from there, you're equipped to go get involved with your local Tea Party demonstrations and answer advocates of bad policy with authoritative knowledge. Its not too late to stop this administration's colossal damage to our economy or our rights in liberty rather than a legislative perversion in the form of nanny security which cannot help but return a net loss in both security and liberty as well as personal opportunity for wealth. You and I are the ultimate guardians of the Constitution of the United States of America. It is critical that we understand this and begin acting like it matters to us.

If one understands the necessity to engage their second stage thinking before advocating any policy, one understands the great harm most policies have on our culture because most legislation is produced for the purpose of behavioral control. "What happens if this policy is implemented?" "What happens if that regulation is repealed?" All federal policies are inherently a question of good vs. best national intentions because all policy must be sold to the American people. We are after all, a nation of people power. Our original purpose as stated by the founders is definitively laid out. "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union--establish a government by the people, for the people." We are a nation formed on the impetus of eliminating governmental abuses. As such, we are responsible for governing ourselves primarily. That is, we must be 'self' disciplined to act with integrity in our personal behavior and that carries over onto our national behavior. And we are responsible to ensure our representatives are representing our informed communal desires rather than their own political or personal interests seeded and sold on the power of ignorance.

Recent events and some not so recent, display a people disinterested in their government or their governance. The most recent events are changing that rapidly. But it will mean nothing or rather, it will mean a violent revolution unless you are each educated enough to make a difference among a lot of ignorant citizens, ie. your neighbors, your family, your friends, etc., This does not mean you have to get a constitutional law degree, it just means know what the Constitution says and make sure every bad policy idea which stands against it is exposed for its direct effect on your personal liberty and rights. Whatever affects you personally also affects the investors and employers who grow our economy and spread their wealth by means of production and reward. Don't let any advocate of a bad policy get away with making bad policy sound good. The liberty to work and travel and speak, and the right to keep what you earn, and move up the social ladder with success or down with failure and loss, these create the environment for economic growth and success.. One is rewarded for successfully serving others and one is not rewarded by unsuccessfully serving others and therefor losing market share. These are what the founders envisioned and what they handed us to keep and maintain. This is the environment that produced the greatest economic and inventive engine of all time. Ask the medical professionals of any socialist society and they will dutifully inform you that America provides the vast majority of medical advancement in both procedures and medicines even with the burdensome and deadly regulations of the FDA. Socialized medicine has little funding allocated to research and implementation.

Socialism was formed on the impetus of equalizing the wealth of all national citizens, but second stage thinking looks at the results of each work in history and asks, "which is best, which is sustainable, which is going to give the best and bring out the best for the most people?" The good 'intention' of equalizing wealth is not and cannot be the best policy because (a) incentive to produce is created by desire for rewards and that incentive is destroyed when the rewards are stolen and further removed when the producers' rewards are then passed out to non-producers, (b) someone is charged with making wealth equal and that person, though they may be smart, may be perfectly benevolent and well intentioned -- can not know beyond their own, even 1% of any one individual's needs much less have the knowledge or capability to meet the needs of 300,000,000 people with equality and justice. Aside from that fact, a perfectly benevolent authority will shortly be replaced by an abusive one. Those who would claim to be equipped for such a responsibility demonstrate a copious and profound lack of understanding with regard to our need to reward sacrifice and risk sufficiently to motivate producers and risk takers to further production and service. In the best scenario, the individual knows their own needs far more expertly and have the freedom to pursue them rather than do social engineering experts. The level of each individual's comfort or willing acceptance of their circumstances motivates him to production of wealth and the reward brings a return motivation to greater achievement and greater comfort and better circumstances, or they do enough to maintain the status quo or sometimes refuse to serve others in any way regardless of reward or loss.

The end of the investigation into forms of government and goals of government, changes the question from, "What is best and what is good?" to "What is right and what is wrong?" The politicians who sell equivalent reward cannot help but know they are not equipped for such a task. Rather they have to be seeking a means to control behavior rather than wealth. This is about power, not about equalization, not about helping the poor and downtrodden. It is a means to an end, but the end is hidden behind the veneer of philanthropy and if we are ignorant enough to buy that sales pitch, we will know a net loss of security, liberty, and wealth. I have oft stated, real philanthropy is personal and local. I give, but I only give when I know the gift will not further the ill behaviors which in many cases (not all) have brought the person or family to their lowly circumstance. If I give to a philanthropic organization, I see to it the organization handles my gifts with accountability to do the same. Governmental philanthropy has little to no accountability and its history reveals the most abused form philanthropy has ever taken with little to no real regard to the effects those policies generate.

So, politicians must sell their agenda to the people in order to have public support and maintain their seats of power through elections. Some of that people power has been subverted by jerrymandering districts to be partisan and therefor safe for the incumbent politicians and by purchasing popular support in the form of ever more entitlement programs. One of these districts was recently lost to the Democrats due to their ever decreasing popularity via the extreme left takeover of their party by radicals successfully planting radical policy without popular support. Said lost 'safe' seat was occupied by career politician Ted Kennedy until his recent demise and the subsequent election shocked Democrats when left leaning Republican Scott Brown was elected instead of their candidate, another extreme left radical, Martha Coakley. With the advent of the Tea Party (which consists largely of conservative Republicans, Libertarians, independents and disenchanted 'moderate' Democrats) and the subsequent attempts by all the left wing extremist powers to besmirch their character and message, uninterested and too busy citizens are sitting up and taking notice. The Tea Parties' simple message is uniform across all those political demographics. "Stop spending America into oblivion!" Many like Gianna are ready to wade into the action and go about the hard work of setting things back to a reasonable pace in our march toward socialism. My position is, "WE HAVE TO SET THEM BACK TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY." This can be accomplished by a radical outcry by all parties interested in putting government in its rightful place with the Enumerated Powers Act.

I have subscribed to the monthly Imprimis publication produced by Hillsdale College. This is one of the few academic institutions left in America in which I can hold any respect. In light of the recent health care reform package passing through both houses of Congress and the POTUS via partisan politics of the worst sort, I wanted to bring a little more clarity to the topic. This issue was from February 2010 - Volume 39, Number 2.
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Entitled [Health Care in a Free Society]

The publications are usually somewhat of a transcription of a guest speaker's speech. This guest speaker is Paul Ryan. He is serving in his sixth term as a member of Congress, representing Wisconsin's First Congressional District. He is the ranking member of the House Budget Committee and a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee. A graduate of Miami University in Ohio, he and his wife Janna have three children and live in Janesville, Wisconsin.

This speech was delivered on January 13, 2010, in Washington, D.C., at an event sponsored by Hillsdale College's Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship.

Speech begins:

[Someone once said that before there was the New Deal, there was the Wisconsin Deal. In my home state, the University of Wisconsin was an early hotbed of progressivism, whose goal was to reorder society along lines other than those of the Constitution. The best known Wisconsin progressive in American politics was Robert LaFollette. "Fighting Bob," as he was called, was a Republican -- as was Theodore Roosevelt, another early progressive. Today we tend to associate progressivism mostly with Democrats, and trace it back to Woodrow Wilson. But it had its roots in both parties.

The social and political programs of the progressives came in on two great waves: the New Deal of the 1930s and the Great Society of the 1960s. Today, President Obama often invokes progressivism and hopes to generate its third great wave of public policy. In thinking about what this would mean, we need look no farther than the health care reform program he is promoting along with the leadership in Congress.

Let me say here at the beginning that even though survey after survey shows that 75 percent or more of Americans are satisfied with the quality of their health care, no one I know in Congress denies that health care reform is needed. Everyone understands that health care in our country has grown needlessly expensive, and that some who want coverage cannot afford it. The ongoing debate over health care, then, is not about whether there should be reform; it is about what the principle of that reform ought to be.

Under the terms of our Constitution, every individual has a right to care for their health, just as they have a right to eat. These rights are integral to our natural right to life -- and it is government's chief purpose to secure our natural rights. But the right to care for one's health does not imply that government must provide health care, any more than our right to eat, in order to live, requires government to own the farms and raise the crops.

Government's constitutional obligations in regard to protecting such rights are normally met by establishing the conditions for free markets -- markets which historically provide an abundance of goods and services, at an affordable cost, for the largest number. When free markets seem to be failing to meet this goal -- and I would argue that the delivery of health care today is an example of where this is the case -- government, rather than seeking to supply the need itself, should look to see if its own interventions are the root of the problem, and should make adjustments to unleash competition and choice.

With good reason, the Constitution left the administration of public health -- like that of most public good -- decentralized. If there is any doubt that control of health care services should not have been placed in the federal government, we need only look at the history of Medicare and Medicaid -- a history in which fraud has proliferated despite all efforts to stop it and failure to control costs has become a national nightmare. In 1966 the cost of Medicare to the taxpayers was about $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee estimated that it would cost $12 billion (adjusted for inflation) by 1990. The actual cost in 1990 was nearly nine times that -- $107 billion. By 2009 Medicare costs reached $427 billion, with Medicaid boosting that by an additional $255 billion. And this doesn't take into account the Medicaid expansion in last year's "stimulus."

The health care reform bills that emerged from the House and the Senate late last year would only exacerbate this crisis. The federal takeover of health care that those bills represent would subsume approximately one-sixth of our national economy. Combined with spending at all levels, government would then control about 50 percent of total national production.

The good news is that we have a choice. there are three basic models for health care delivery that are available to us: (1) today's business-government partnership or "crony capitalism" model, in which bureaucratized insurance companies monopolize the field in most states; (2) the progressive model promoted by the Obama administration and congressional leaders, in which federal bureaucracies tell us which services are allowed, and (3) the model consistent with our Constitution, in which health care providers compete in a free and transparent market, and in which individual consumers are in control.

We are urged today -- out of compassion -- to support the progressive model; but placing control of health care in the hands of government bureaucrats is not compassionate. Bureaucrats don't make decisions about health care according to personal need or preference; they ration resources according to a dollar-driven social calculus. Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the administration's point people on health care, advocates what he calls a "whole life system" --a system in which government makes treatment decisions for individuals using a statistical formula based on average life expectancy and "social usefulness." In keeping with this, the plans that recently emerged from Congress have a Medicare board of unelected "specialists" whose job it would be to determine the program's treatment protocols as a method of limiting costs.

President Obama said in December: "If we don't pass [this health care reform legislation]...the federal government will go bankrupt, because Medicare and Medicaid are on a trajectory that are [sic] unsustainable..." On first hearing, this argument appears ludicrous: We must stop the nation from going broke by enacting a program costing $800 billion or more in its first decade alone? On the other hand, if the President means what he says, there is only one way to achieve his stated goal under the new program; through deep and comprehensive government rationing of health care.

The idea that the government should make decisions about how long people should live and who should be denied care is something that Americans find repugnant. As is true of the supply of every service or product, the supply of health care is finite. But it is a mistake to conclude that government should ration it, rather than allowing individuals to order their needs and allocate their resources among competing options. Those who are sick, special needs patients, and seniors are the ones who will be most at risk when the government involves itself in these difficult choices--as government must, once it takes upon itself management of health care.

The very idea of government-run health care conflicts with the American idea of a free society and the constitutional principals underlying it--the principles of individual rights and free markets. And from a practical perspective it makes no sense, given that our current health care system is the best in the world--even drawing patients from other advanced countries that have suffered by adopting the government-run model.

But if one begins with the idea that health care reform to reduce costs should be guided by the principles of economic and political liberty, what would such reform look like? Four changes to the current system come immediately to mind.

One, we should equalize the tax treatment of people paying for health care by ending the current discrimination against those who don't get health insurance from their jobs--in other words, everyone paying for health care should receive the same tax benefits.

Two, we need high-risk insurance pools in the states so that those with pre-existing conditions can obtain coverage that is not prohibitively expensive, and so that costs in non-high-risk pools are stabilized. To see the value of this, consider a pool of 200 people in which six have pre-existing heart disease or cancer. Rates for everyone will be through the roof. But if the six are placed in a high-risk pool and ensured coverage at an affordable rate, the risk profile of the larger pool is stabilized and coverage for the remaining 194 people is driven down.

Three, we need to unlock existing health care monopolies by letting people purchase health insurance across state lines--just as they do care insurance and other goods and services. This is a simple and obvious way to reduce costs.

Four, we need to establish transparency in terms of costs and quality of health care. In Milwaukee, an MRI can cost between $400 and $4,000, and a bypass surgery between $4,700 and $100,000. Unless the consumer is able to compare prices and quality of services--and unless he has an incentive to base choices on that information, a he does in purchasing other goods and services--there is not really a free market. It would go along way to solve our health care problems to recreate one.

These four measures would empower consumers and force providers--insurers, doctors, and hospitals--insurers, doctors, and hospitals--to compete against each other for business. This works in other sectors of our economy, and it will work with health care.

So why can't we agree on them? The answer is that the current health care debate is not really about how we can most effectively bring down costs. It is a debate less about policy than about ideology. It is a debate over whether we should reform health care in a way compatible with our Constitution and our free society, or whether we should abandon our free market economic model for a full-fledged European-style social welfare state. This, I believe, is the true goal of those promoting government-run health care.

If we go down this path, creating entitlement after entitlement and promising benefits that can never be delivered, America will become like the European Union; a welfare state where most people pay few or not taxes while becoming dependent on government benefits; where tax reduction is impossible because more people have a stake in welfare than in producing wealth; where high unemployment is a way of life and the spirit of risk-taking is smothered by webs of regulation.

America today is not as far from this tipping point as we might think. While exact and precise measures cannot be made, there are estimates that in 2004, 20 percent of households in the U.S. were receiving about 75 percent to their income from the federal government, and that another 20 percent of households were receiving nearly 40 percent. All in all, about 60 percent of American households were receiving more government benefits and services, measured in dollars, than they were paying back in taxes. It has also been estimated that President Obama's first budget alone raises this level of "net dependency" to 70 percent.

Looked at in this way, I see health care reform of the kind promoted by the Obama administration and congressional leaders as part of a crusade against the American idea. This is a dramatic charge, but the only alternative is that they are ignorant of the consequences of their proposed programs. The national health care exchange created by their legislation, together with its massive subsidies for middle-income earners, would represent the greatest expansion of the welfare state in our country in a generation--and possibly in history. According to recent analysis, the plan would provide subsidies that average a little less than 20 percent of the income of people earning up to 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Level. in other words, as many as 110 million Americans could claim this new entitlement within a few years of its implementation. In addition to the immediate massive increase in dependency this would bring on, the structure of the subsidies--whereby they fade out as income rises--would impose a marginal tax penalty that would act as a disincentive to work, increasing dependency even more.

And before I conclude, allow me to clear up a misperception about insurance exchanges; it makes absolutely no difference whether we have 50 state exchanges rather than a federal exchange, as long as the federal government is where the subsidies for consumers will be located. In other words, despite what some seem to believe, both the House and the Senate versions of health care reform set up a system in which, if your are eligible and you want a break on your insurance premium, it is the federal government that will provide it while telling you what kind of insurance you have to buy. In this sense, the idea of state exchanges instead of a federal exchange is a distinction without a difference.
Speech ends

* * *

Further commentary by the publication's editor;

Americans take pride in self government, which entails providing for their own well-being and the well-being of their families in a free society. In exchange for this, the promoters of government-run health care would make them passive subjects, dependent on handouts and far more concerned about security than liberty. At the heart of the conflict over health care reform, as I said at the beginning, are tow incompatible understandings of America; one is based on the principles of progressivism, and would place more and more aspects of our lives under the administration of unelected "experts" in federal bureaucracies; the other sees America as a society of free individuals under a Constitution that severely limits what the federal government can rightfully do.

We have seen many times over the past 100 years that the American people tend to be resistant to the progressive view of how we should reform our system of government--and I believe we are seeing this again today. Americans retain the Founders' view that a government that seeks to go beyond its high but limited constitutional role of securing equal rights and establishing free markets is not progressive at all in the literal sense of that word--rather it is reactionary. Such a government seeks to privilege some Americans at the expense of others--which is precisely what the American Revolution was fought to prevent.

Americans understand that the problems facing our health care system today, real as they are, can be addressed without nationalizing one-sixth of the American economy and moving us past the tipping point toward a European-style social welfare state. They know that we can solve these problems while at the same time remaining a free society and acting consistently with the principles that have made us the greatest and most prosperous nation on earth. It is our duty now as their representatives to come together and do so.] Douglas A. Jeffrey

Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College. Subscription free upon request. 1 (800) 437-2268

ISSN 0277-8432
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This video was mentioned on the same publication and in general curiosity, I dug it up and was supremely pleased to find a powerful commentary on the vision Hillsdale has carried since their separation from government subsidies and mandates. It is a powerful recitation of the Constitutional design and purpose as well as an expos'e of the Obama administration's stated, pointed opposition to that purpose.

"Education, Self-Government and Our Current Crisis" (Lecture by Larry P. Arnn)

Now since the bill has been forced upon us, though the majority yelled and screamed at Congress and the President to stop this, some things need to be addressed. First, it does not matter that the federal government did not take on a public option. The regulations on the insurance industry will drive the insurance industry into the ground and government will then 'have' to take on not only a public option, but universal health care. (again, their stated goal) Second, subsidized health care plans necessarily result in rationed care and the model is Medicare and Medicaide which are already bankrupt and rationed. Third, Medicare and Medicaide are being absorbed into the new expanded plan based on those failed models but boosted by a mass tax expansion which will not begin paying on its promises until 4 years from the tax initiating. That's how they projected a balanced budget 10 year plan. Even so, the Congressional Budgetary Office estimates vast cost over-runs within ten years.

The crux of the problem is, not one of those elected officials are going to be in office or accountable when this program's fruit is revealed 10, 15 or 20 years down the road, meanwhile the next generation will have already accepted this radical departing from the American vision and ideal set forth by the founders. The older representatives will have died or retired and the younger ones don't have the 'safe' seats so will likely be the first to suffer the blowback against the radical policy implementation. The effects of this legislation on our economy will have set our economic recovery back decades with business owners and investors vacating the American industrial complex or sinking into uncompetitive decline due to cheaper operating costs by competitors abroad. The job market will have greatly declined and the average American citizen will have become, (a) more dependent on government and (b) less productive and (c) less inclined to risk wealth and energy investment to start his own small business. Government's revenue stream will steadily decline with the declining market strength and increasing need, therefore government's ability to meet the debt promises to foreign debt holders or national entitlements (health care, unemployment insurance, welfare, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaide, etc.,) means these entitlements will be continually declining in allotment. In other words, you supporters will know a net loss of health care provision by government and since government now controls it all, the entire health care industry. Doctors and pre-med students have pledged to quit, to seek another line of work, ergo fewer health care providers. Hospitals are presently struggling to keep their doors open, with the added regulation and limiting of charges many will have no option but to close up. Again, the end result of centralizing power, wealth and knowledge always results in net losses for the whole society.

next article: save and buy

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Healthcare: Reform it, Not Repeal it
John R. Houk
© March 31, 2010
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You Need to Know Pt. 1
Judge Right Profile Page

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Virginia Politicians and Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center

John R. Houk
© March 30, 2010


Federal and State prominent Democrats are on an invite list to Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center fund raiser. You may think, “So what you Islamophobe you?”

Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center is notorious for being associated with America’s central Islamic enemy al Qaeda. Also Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center is a supporter of radical Islamic causes which implies an agenda to undermine Constitutional government of the United States of America in favor of an Islamic Caliphate and the imposition of Sharia Law.

YouTube description at Secure Freedom:

The Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center is holding their annual fundraiser on Saturday April 3, and they advertise the event using the names of seven Virginia elected officials as invited guests.

We decided to make sure they knew that their good names were being used to raise money for a terrorist-linked organization, and to find out whether they really did plan on attending the banquet.




JRH 3/30/10 (From Occidental Soapbox)

Supporting Palestinians is to Support all that is Negative in Islam



John R. Houk
© March 30, 2010


President Barack Hussein Obama’s public stand that Jerusalem, Samaria and Judea are occupied lands at the instrumentation of Israeli conquest is either a display of acquiescence to Arab/Palestinian propaganda or willful ignorance of the reality of who conquered what.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded to the Obama Administration that Jerusalem will not be a part of any negotiations of allowing the Islamic terrorists of the PA (which is primarily the PLO ran by Fatah) and potentially Hamas establishing another Arab sovereign nation to be known as Palestine. Netanyahu said at a recent AIPAC speech:

Jerusalem is not a settlement, it’s our Capitol.”


Now this is a strong statement by Netanyahu especially since Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was on before Netanyahu. So I applaud Netanyahu for standing up to the political pressure of a super power nation administered by President Barack Hussein Obama. And yet there is a political concern that Netanyahu wittingly or unwittingly indicated that Judea and Samaria are on the table for negotiation for a Palestinian State.

The problem I have with politically indicating Judea and Samaria are open for negotiation is because that area also known as the West Bank is no more occupied by Israel than the area was occupied by Jordan between 1948 and 1967. In 1948 Jordan’s Arab Legion was actually trained and commanded by a British military officer who led his British trained Jordanian troops to the eastern side of Jerusalem. The eastern side of Jerusalem was known as “Old Jerusalem” and there was a huge property section within the Old City of Jerusalem that was known as the Jewish Quarter. After Jordan secured Old Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria they officially annexed the area and gave ALL Jews living in the area the boot and proceeded to allow the desecration of ancient Jewish holy sites as well as Synagogues.

If BHO is ignorant of these facts it is another display Foreign Policy ineptitude, UNLESS … BHO is aware of the facts and is heartily courting Muslim Arab nations because of the power of petro-dollars. Either instance is gravely insidious for an American government to be a part of. It is not only abandoning an old ally in the Middle East that effectively supported the American National Interests, it is abandoning the only Western style democratic nation that is surrounded by despots, monarchs and an inimically intolerant Islamic Sharia mind set.

There are Conservatives and Liberals alike that are preaching the politics that Israel’s National Interests no longer match-up (See this about CNI) with American National Interests. This kind of American political thought places developing a relationship with intolerant and an intolerant culture of Islamic Sharia above the traditional American Way of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. How can choosing an evil society’s way of life as friends that are a direct contradiction of the American Way of life be good for America and the American National Interests?

My fellow Americans, you have to wake-up to the reality there are some powerful adherents of Islam that believe America is the great Satan. The Muslim solution for the great Satan is to destroy the American Way of life via two lines of thought:

    1. Jihad-minded Islamic terrorism

    2. The Trojan-Horse and Fifth Column method of infiltration and the utilizing of American laws to bring America down gradually from within.


Now I am convinced that a majority of Muslims love and take advantage of the good life available to Liberty-minded citizens and legal residents in America. On the other hand I am convinced that a majority of Muslims residing in America will not condemn any radical agenda espoused by a minority of Muslims. Why? The scriptures of Islam command that the kafir (infidels) be made into Muslims. As long as Muslims in America do not become targets from the radical Muslim few, then the Muslim majority will not participate in any major public denunciation of Islamic terrorism.

Experts that recognize the potential Islamic evil that often emanates on global history, the global present and probable global future; have indicated that the truly good Muslims are those that practice the scriptures of Quran, Hadith and Sira.

In America it is tempting to step into the realm that freedom of religion protects the practices of Islam. This is particularly the case in Europe in which the reigning concept of multicultural diversity has diluted Liberty and Freedom to allow harmful societal religious and contra-normal secular thoughts to be protected by counter-productive hate-crimes laws.

When an ideology or religion becomes the same as yelling “FIRE” in a crowded theater when in fact there is NO fire, then it should be criminalized. The scriptures of Islam do not obey Western rule of law or Western social norms. Islam only benefits Muslims and in this case ONLY the Muslims that do not insult Islam by apostasy or by criticism of anything considered holy by Islam. Those outside of Islam are subject to the cruelty scriptures inherent Islam. Those inside of Islam that insult Islam and Mohammed are subject to cruelty to bring a Muslim back to Islamic approved thinking or to death itself assuaging Islamic honor.

President Barack Hussein Obama is attempting to force Israel to divide its cultural Capitol city to Muslim Jew-haters in the name of peace. You have to know that has a 1938 “Peace in our time” ring to it. Forcing Israel into an existentially threatened State will only make it easier for either a global conflict to ensue or worse – The West looking the other direction as Israel is obliterated off the map and millions of Jews go through yet another Holocaust.

JRH 3/30/10

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Sarah Palin Says "Thank You!"



The Tea Party Express Searchlight, NV gathering in Senator Reid’s hometown was an immense success. Sarah Palin was just one of the speakers at has been dubbed by many as the Conservative Woodstock.

JRH 3/28/10
**********************************
Sarah Palin Says "Thank You!"

Sent by:
Tea Party Express
Sent: 3/28/2010 5:06 AM


We'll have a complete rundown on Saturday's "Showdown in Searchlight" tomorrow, but for now, we wanted to pass along Gov. Sarah Palin's message from Twitter thanking all of you for helping to make it such a fantastic event:

SarahPalinUSA

Thanks Searchlight! You’re shining the spotlight on the wayward ways of Washington. Keep the god work, the Tea Party Express rolls on …


So how big was the event? Well, here's an aerial view of the rally - showing JUST ONE section of the crowd:


And here's one more picture for you for now - it's another aerial shot, this time of Highway 95 leading to-and-from Searchlight. Get this: the photo was taken at 1:35 PM Pacific - more than 1 1/2 hours after the rally ended, and yet thousands of cars still were trying to get to the rally location:


(Photos courtesy of AmericanPatrol.com)

This was all made possible solely because of YOU. To all of you who donated to pay for this effort, and to all who traveled from throughout Nevada and across the U.S. to come we say: "THANK YOU!" as well.

We now have 42 more Tea Party Express rallies that will take place across the country on this Tea Party Express III: Just Vote Them Out tour, and many more "worst offenders" in Congress to target and defeat.


If you like what we did in Searchlight, then please consider making a contribution to the Tea Party Express III tour. You can donate as little as $5 all the way up to the maximum allowed $5,000.
Contribute Online - HERE.
_____________________
Paid for and authorized by the
Our Country Deserves Better PAC, a federal political action committee. Our Country Deserves Better PAC is responsible for the content of this message. This message is not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Contributions are not tax deductible for tax purposes.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

To only say Iranian nukes are unacceptable is to accept them



Bill Kristol takes a historical look of the analogous similarities between nuclear-arming Iran v. USA, Israel and the appeasers of Europe to Hitler’s Germany v. an appeaser Europe roughly led by France and Britain.

JRH 3/27/10
________________________
To only say Iranian nukes are unacceptable is to accept them

By William Kristol
Sunday, March 28, 2010; A15
Washington Post


In March 1936, Hitler occupied the Rhineland. The French prime minister, Leon Blum, denounced the act as "unacceptable." But France, Britain and the rest of the world accepted it. Years later, the French political thinker Raymond Aron commented, "To say that something is unacceptable was to say that one accepted it."

In March 2010, as Iran moved ahead with its nuclear weapons program, the American secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, speaking at the policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee last week, said no fewer than four times in one paragraph that a nuclear-armed Iran would be "unacceptable." It would be unacceptable simply, "unacceptable to the United States," "unacceptable to Israel" and "unacceptable to the region and the international community."

Then, perhaps sensing the ghost of Raymond Aron at her shoulder, Clinton hastened to add: "So let me be very clear: The United States is determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons."

But this attempt at reassurance merely conjured up (at least for me) another ghost: that of Richard Nixon. Didn't Nixon always say, at moments of utmost insincerity, that he wanted to make something very clear?

What is becoming increasingly clear, from the Clinton speech and from the overall behavior of her administration -- and for that matter from the action or, rather, inaction of the "international community" -- is that we are all moving toward accepting an Iranian nuclear weapon.

Consider Clinton's speech.

The secretary of state devoted six paragraphs out of 52 to Iran.

She began by acknowledging that "for Israel, there is no greater strategic threat" than the prospect of the current Iranian regime with nuclear arms.

She explained how threatening such a prospect would be to Israel, the region and the world, culminating in the cascade of "unacceptables."

She then briefly defended the Obama administration's decision to try engagement, acknowledged (basically) that engagement had failed, but claimed that at least "[t]he world has seen that it is Iran, not the United States, responsible for the impasse." She noted that "with its secret nuclear facilities, increasing violations of its obligations under the nonproliferation regime and an unjustified expansion of its enrichment activities, more and more nations are finally expressing deep concerns about Iran's intentions."

And what are the newly perceptive and ever more deeply concerned nations of the world doing about Iran? "There is a growing international consensus on taking steps to pressure Iran's leaders to change course." What kind of pressure? New U.N. Security Council resolutions with "sanctions that will bite."

Now, these won't be quite the "crippling" sanctions Clinton promised last year -- but they'll be biting ones. (Then we learned, late in the week, that the sanctions were being adjusted so they wouldn't bite too much -- so as to get the "international community" on board.) Of course, three Security Council resolutions seeking to pressure Iran's leaders were passed during the Bush administration, before the great international awakening brought about by President Obama's engagement policy. Clinton had to acknowledge that "it is taking time to produce these new sanctions." But she maintained that "time is a worthwhile investment for winning the broadest possible support for our efforts." And she reiterated that "we will not compromise our commitment to preventing Iran from acquiring those nuclear weapons."

Notice what Clinton conspicuously failed to mention as part of that "commitment" -- another word, by the way, about whose unhappy diplomatic history Raymond Aron would undoubtedly have had mordant comments. What the secretary of state did not say is that all options are on the table. What she did not say is that force remains a last but credible resort against this regime's nuclear plans. What she did not say is that we would try to help the opposition change who "Iran's leaders" are.

So: Nothing about regime change. Nothing about the possible use of force. Just broadly supported "sanctions that will bite," but not too much.

Then Clinton turned -- one can almost hear the sigh of relief -- to other issues, because, after all, "Iran is not the only threat on the horizon. Israel is confronting some of the toughest challenges in her history." And we were off into the maze of the peace process, the settlements, and other ephemera and trivialities.

The Iranian regime and its pursuit of nuclear weapons constitute the dominant threat to the security of Israel and to the national security interests of the United States in the Middle East. While presidents Bush and Obama have proclaimed that this Iranian regime obtaining nuclear weapons would be unacceptable, they have done nothing effective to stop it. Now we are also apparently pressuring Israel not to act to stop Iran from getting nuclear arms.

Is it so hard to remember what happens when liberal democracies accept the unacceptable? Is it too much to hope that, for the government of the United States in 2010, accepting the unacceptable should be unacceptable?

__________________________

William Kristol is editor of the Weekly Standard.
© 2010 The Washington Post Company


Middle East Chess



Leslie J. Sacks delves into the realm of geopolitics involving Israel, America, Russia, China, Iran and the Arabs that call themselves Palestinians.

JRH 3/27/10

Friday, March 26, 2010

Coulter Whips up a Leftist Frenzy in Canada



John R. Houk
© March 26, 2010


On March 22 Ann Coulter was at a Q & A at London, Ontario, Canada. There was a question by a Muslim gal full of sarcasm to the Queen of political sarcasm. If you have seen a clip of this incident it is probable you have seen the Leftist media version that is edited to make Coulter look like a petty hate-speech bully. Which by the way I still found amusing: Laden with sarcasm the Muslim gal was upset with the Coulter no-mincing of words that Muslims should take a flying carpet so flying would be safe again (yes, it is a rough paraphrase of the Coulter position). The Muslim gal asked a question something like this: “I don’t have a flying carpet so how is a Muslim girl to travel?” (Another rough paraphrase) Coulter responded: Take a camel.”

O boy did the Leftist (and undoubtedly Muslims) heads and Mainstream Media explode with indignant hypocrisy. Her next speaking engagement was supposed to be at the University of Ottawa. It was cancelled because 2000 Leftist and/or Muslim students spurred on by open letter from the University Provost and undoubtedly the tit-for-tat “Take a camel” comment the day before. The 2000 chanted physical harm slogans over Coulter followed up by striking fear in the local police that riot was imminent.

Appropriately Coulter wrote a scathing column on March 24 taking her sights on the University of Ottawa Provost Francois A. Houle. I like Coulter because she does not back down from Leftists. Read her Column.

JRH 3/26/10

Thursday, March 25, 2010

The Gramsci Influence on Alinsky



Who Influenced BHO
John R. Houk
© March 25, 2010


Most Conservatives acknowledge that President Barack Hussein Obama is a Leftist. Some reduce the term of “Leftist” to Socialist. Some others reduce BHO’s ideology down to Marxism itself. Most Democrats would be offended to be labeled a Marxist or a Communist. Marxist theory has proven itself to be a bloody and failed ideology that was decimated by Capitalist economics and the success of a few high profile individuals such as President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II. Thus Leninist/Stalinist Soviet hegemony came crashing down freeing Russia and Soviet satellite nations to choose or discover a less repressive path for the public good. (It may be debatable pertaining to Russia’s future since old Communists have transformed themselves to nationalist Russian pride individuals who may return Russians to the only form of government they have known most of their history – despotism.)

BHO has had many radical influences on his life. The influence of Saul Alinsky seems to be the path BHO has chosen to attain the Office of President of the United States of America. Alinsky seems to have been influenced by what I would call the father of Eurocommunism – Antonio Gramsci.

From my brief catch-up reading on Gramsci it appears there is a bit of controversy about how much he actually contributed to Eurocommunist thought as mostly espoused by the Italian Communist Party (PCI). Nonetheless, undoubtedly the interpretation of Gramsci utilizing democratic institutions to transform a culture in order for Marxist theory to become nationally dominant and hegemonic is the thoughts that Alinsky latched onto.

Take a gander at Gramsci’s concept of hegemony.

JRH 3/25/10

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[SlantRight Editor: The time frame of how long the SlantRight.com archive site is up in the air. Here is the rest of the post linked there.]


Antonio Gramsci

By Monica Stillo
Part 3: CONCEPT OF HEGEMONY


"It was Gramsci who, in the late twenties and thirties, with the rise of fascism and the failure of the Western European working-class movements, began to consider why the working class was not necessarily revolutionary, why it could, in fact, yield to fascism." (Gitlin, 1994: 516)

Gramsci was concerned to eradicate economic determinism from Marxism and to develop its explanatory power with respect to superstructural institutions. So, he held that:


    • Class struggle must always involve ideas and ideologies, ideas that would make the revolution and also that would prevent it;

    • He stressed the role performed by human agency in historical change: economic crises by themselves would not subvert capitalism;

    • Gramsci was more "dialectic" than "deterministic": he tried to build a theory which recognised the autonomy, independence and importance of culture and ideology.


"It can be argued that Gramsci's theory suggests that subordinated groups accept the ideas, values and leadership of the dominant group not because they are physically or mentally induced to do so, nor because they are ideologically indoctrinated, but because they have reason of their own." (Strinati, 1995: 166)

From Gramsci's view, the supremacy of the bourgeoisie is based on two, equally important, facts:

    • Economic domination

    • Intellectual and moral leadership


What exactly is the meaning of "hegemony"?

"...Dominant groups in society, including fundamentally but not exclusively the ruling class, maintain their dominance by securing the 'spontaneous consent' of subordinate groups, including the working class, through the negotiated construction of a political and ideological consensus which incorporates both dominant and dominated groups." (Strinati, 1995: 165)

    • A class had succeeded in persuading the other classes of society to accept its own moral, political and cultural values;

    • The concept assumes a plain consent given by the majority of a population to a certain direction suggested by those in power;

    • However, this consent is not always peaceful, and may combine physical force or coercion with intellectual, moral and cultural inducement;

    • Can be understood as "common sense", a cultural universe where the dominant ideology is practiced and spread;

    • Something which emerges out of social and class struggles, and serve to shape and influence peoples minds;

    • It is a set of ideas by means of which dominant groups strive to secure the consent of subordinate groups to their leadership;


"...the practices of a capitalist class or its representatives to gain state power and maintain it later." (Simon, 1982: 23)

Can we conclude that "hegemony" is a strategy exclusively of the bourgeoisie?

No. In fact the working class can develop its own hegemony as a strategy to control the State. Nevertheless, Gramsci stated that the only way to perform this labour class control is by taking into account the interests of other groups and social forces and finding ways of combining them with its own interests.

If the working class is to achieve hegemony, it needs patiently to build up a network of alliances with social minorities. These new coalitions must respect the autonomy of the movement, so that each group can make its own special contribution toward a new socialist society.

The working class must unite popular democratic struggles with its own conflict against the capital class, so as to strengthen a national popular collective will.

How does the hegemonic class manage to maintain its ideology over time?

Hegemony is readjusted and re-negotiated constantly. Gramsci said that it can never be taken for granted, in fact during the post-revolutionary phase (when the labour class has gained control) the function of hegemonic leadership does not disappear but changes its character.

However, he describes two different modes of social control:

    • Coercive control: manifested through direct force or its threat (needed by a state when its degree of hegemonic leadership is low or fractured);

    • Consensual control: which arises when individuals voluntarily assimilate the worldview of the dominant group (=hegemonic leadership).


How does the process of mutation from a dominant "hegemony" to a new one occur?

Periodically there may develop an organic crisis in which the governing group begins to disintegrate, creating the opportunity for a subordinate class to transcend its limitations and build up a broad movement capable of challenging the existing order and achieving hegemony. But, if the opportunity is not taken, the balance of forces will shift back to the dominant class, which reestablishes its hegemony on the basis of a new pattern of alliances.

"The key to 'revolutionary' social change in modern societies does not therefore depend, as Marx had predicted, on the spontaneous awakening of critical class consciousness but upon the prior formation of a new alliances of interests, an alternative hegemony or 'historical bloc', which has already developed a cohesive world view of its own. (Williams, 1992: 27)

Is violence the only way to subvert dominant "hegemony"?

No. The way of challenging the dominant hegemony is political activity. But we must understand a distinction that Gramsci proposed between two different kind of political strategies to achieve the capitulation of the predominant hegemony and the construction of the socialist society:

War of manoeuvre:

    • Frontal attack;

    • The main goal is winning quickly;

    • Especially recommended for societies with a centralised and dominant state power that have failed in developing a strong hegemony within the civil society (i.e. Bolshevik revolution, 1917).


War of position:

    • Long struggle;

    • Primarily, across institutions of civil society;

    • Secondly, the socialist forces gain control through cultural and ideological struggle, instead of only political and economic contest;

    • Especially suggested for the liberal-democratic societies of Western capitalism with weaker states but stronger hegemonies (i.e.: Italy);

    • These countries have more extensive and intricate civil societies that deserve a longer and more complex strategy.


"The revolutionary forces have to take civil society before they take the state, and therefore have to build a coalition of oppositional groups united under a hegemonic banner which usurps the dominant or prevailing hegemony." (Strinati, 1995:169)

In this context, how do we understand the notions of culture and ideology?

    Culture: a whole social process, in which men and women define and shape their lives.

    Ideology: a system of meanings and values, it is the expression or projection of a particular class interest. The form in which consciousness is at once expressed and controlled, as Raymond Williams has defined it: "...a mistaken interpretation of how the world actually is." (Williams, 1992: 27)


‘Hegemony’ goes beyond 'culture', as previously defined in its insistence on relating the 'whole' social process to specific distributions of power and influence. To say that 'men' define and shape their whole lives is true only in abstraction. In any actual society there are specific inequalities in means and therefore in capacity to realise this process. In a class society these are primarily inequalities between classes. Gramsci therefore introduced the necessary recognition of dominance and subordination in what has still, however, to be recognised as a whole process." (Williams, 1977: 108).

Hence, having everything we just said in mind, one could take it that, first, you have a class "building" a specific and concrete ideology -- based in its specific and concrete interests -- that will dominate the rest of the society because of the unavoidable influence of capitalist relations. This set of ideas will constitute the hegemony that will be expressed as the nucleus of culture. If these assumptions are correct, we can conclude that the media are the instruments to express the dominant ideology as an integral part of the cultural environment.

_______________________
The Gramsci Influence on Alinsky
Who Influenced BHO

John R. Houk
© March 25, 2010
___________________________
CONCEPT OF HEGEMONY
(Presented in seminar for Communications Research Methodologies, MA in Communication Studies, University of Leeds).


Wednesday, March 24, 2010

GALILEO AND GEERT WILDERS: EPPUR SI MUOVE!



I am a huge fan of the cryptic Norwegian writer with the pseudonym of Fjordman. I am on the Think-Israel email list and thus I discovered this short essay published on Think-Israel’s January/February postings. The original post was February 1 at the Gates of Vienna blog of whom another pseudonym of Baron Boddesy provides an introduction.

JRH 3/24/10

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Is Neconservatism the Villain or Alinsky Radical Transformation?



John R. Houk
© March 23, 2010


When President G. W. Bush was elected President in 2000 his political policies were criticized as being influenced by advisors with a Neoconservative slant. The Islamic terrorist attack on American soil on 9/11 in effect gave Bush II war powers in an undeclared war on terrorism. Undoubted a formal Congressional declaration of war was never forth coming because the only thing known of the perpetrating war criminal terrorists were that they were Arabic and Muslim. The discovery of the terrorist-in-chief was aided publicly when Osama bin-Laden’s al-Qaeda organization took credit. The problem with a declaration of war was the transnational decentralized character of al-Qaeda. Hence the face of evil became bin Laden. The hunt for bin Laden ultimately led to Afghanistan in which like-minded Afghanistan head of State Mullah Omar refused to give up bin Laden to America for a criminal trial.

Since Afghanistan harbored the most wanted man in America Bush II ordered an invasion to hunt for bin Laden and take down Afghanistan’s radical Islamic government headed by the One-eyed Mullah Omar.

President Bush II was influenced by Neoconservative ideology to bring democracy to the Middle East by force if necessary. The reasoning is Democratic minded nations do not start wars, they negotiate differences diplomatically. There has been no instance of a democratic nation going to war with another democratic nation. It has turned out that nation building democratic Muslim nations was easier to think of on paper than in reality. Islam is not conducive to Western style representative democracy. Hence the Global War on Terrorism became a terrorist-guerrilla war of attrition that is still around past President Bush II two terms of Office.

The Left used the longevity of the GWOT to spew hate on President Bush II and Neoconservatives in general. It is interesting to me that Neocons are so vilified for an agenda of developing democratic peace rather than despotic client States. The premise of the agenda was a safer world.

President Barack Hussein Obama used this vilification of Bush II Neocon influence to campaign for utopian change. Concepts of transforming America into a Socialistic Secular Humanist moral relativist nation inwardly and an appeasement minded peace at any cost outwardly.

The former cripples America internally. The latter opens America to serious security deficiencies externally.

The American Left’s propaganda campaign to focus on a person and turn that person into a villain is a classic tactic of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Hussein Obama’s mentor in Socialism/Marxism - Saul Alinsky.

An essay at Family Security Matters shows the Saul Alinsky plan to transform America is to destroy the American and Christian legacy slowly with deceptive grassroots activism. It was worse than a Trojan Horse, the Alinsky plan is a slow virus that undermines America then changes it to the equivalent of a Marxist utopia. Alinsky lived this paradigm by carefully making clear that was not an overt Communist by never joining any Marxist organizations yet mirroring the utopian ends of Marxism.

I am for universal medicine but not on BHO terms. Obama Care could be a step toward undermining the American way of life while producing the illusion of State funded insurance reform. Frankly I was cautiously pleased that Obama Care passed, but only with the hope the Republicans take over Congress in 2010 and the White House in 2012. In this way Conservatives can undo the social transformation stages of universal medical insurance to a more competitive market format yet preserving such items as no insurance rejection for precondition ailments. When President BHO speaks and writes about change, it is Alinsky change. The Alinsky radical change is evil for America.

JRH 3/23/10 (SA: Discover The Networks)

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[SlantRight Editor: There is a bit of uncertainty how long the original SlantRight.com will be up as an archive site; hence every so often I update that situation here.]

Updated 11/11/12

Saul Alinsky and the Rise of Amorality in American Politics

D. L. Adams
January 4, 2010
Family Security Matters


Saul Alinsky and his "community organizing" methods and philosophy have had a profound influence on the politics of the United States. Recent history would suggest that this influence is just short of catastrophic.

Alinsky's book, Rules for Radicals, published in 1971 still has enormous effects on our country today. Hillary Clinton wrote her Wellesley College thesis on Alinsky, interviewing him personally for her research. After her graduation Alinsky offered her a job with his organization, which she refused to pursue other opportunities. President Obama worked for Alinsky organizations and taught seminars in Alinsky tactics and methodology during his "community organizing" period in Chicago. Michelle Obama echoed Alinsky’s words in her speech at the Democrat Convention.

Michelle Obama:

“Barack stood up that day”, talking about a visit to Chicago neighborhoods, “and spoke words that have stayed with me ever since. He talked about “The world as it is” and “The world as it should be…”

And, “All of us driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won’t do – that we have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be.”

Saul Alinsky, “Rules for Radicals,” Chapter 2:

“The means-and-ends moralists, constantly obsessed with the ethics of the means used by the Have-Nots against the Haves, should search themselves as to their real political position. In fact, they are passive-but-real-allies of the Haves … The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means … The standards of judgment must be rooted in the whys and wherefores of life as it is lived, the world as it is, not our wished-for fantasy of the world as it should be.”


Alinsky is making a strong case in this quote for the abandonment of morals and ethics as nothing but impediments to political success. For Alinsky, as for Michelle and Barack Hussein Obama, morality and ethics prevent the world from being what “it should be.” The Alinsky end game is likely a global utopia in which the “people” have “power.” Unfortunately, this utopianism has been the foundation of several über-violent movements of the last century which have resulted in over 100 million deaths.

Alinsky’s dedication of Rules for Radicals to Lucifer is easily understood; as a champion of amorality and the abandonment of ethics as nothing more than props that sustain the status quo, Lucifer is the perfect model of the destroyer for the activist Alinsky. The fact that our top political leadership has embraced this amoral set of tactics for political gain should cause all Americans concern.

There is no utopia; those who have strived to make the impossible real in order to implement their grand visions of life have been the agents of death and destruction on a scale surpassed perhaps only by Islam. Alinsky – like the Koran, Sira, and Hadith – represents morality turned upside down or abandoned entirely in favor of cold pragmatism.

ACORN uses Alinsky’s aggressive model of “Community organizing.” It is no surprise that they have been deeply involved in voter fraud and other nefarious practices. ACORN’s transgressions and fraud were so abysmal that the federal government de-funded the organization several months ago.

ACORN operates on Alinsky principles of immorality and total radical pragmatism, after all, they are trying to usher in the people’s utopia; why should they allow mere ethics, legalities, and other such encumbrances to interfere with their mission to save humanity from itself?

Recently, ACORN employees attempted to assist two young people who wanted to start an illegal sex business; unfortunately for the ACORN people, the two entrepreneurs were actually conservative activists who had filmed the entire encounter. Following in the path of Alinsky, what could be wrong with a bit of prostitution and other sex-related “businesses” if it “empowered the people” and could help to de-construct the institutions of society? For ACORN it was a win-win opportunity.

Alinsky’s mission was to incite constant struggle and agitation so that the oppressive “system” would eventually be brought to its knees; ACORN is on the same path, but pretends legitimacy much better than Alinsky ever attempted. In fact, the ACORN “sting” as it is now known is Alinsky methodology put to good use. ACORN and its Alinsky amorality were supported by our current President.

“In fact, Obama’s Acorn connection is far more extensive than we have known. In the few stories where Obama’s role as an Acorn “leadership trainer” is noted, or his seats on the boards of foundations that may have supported Acorn are discussed, there is little follow-up. Even these more extensive reports miss many aspects of Obama’s ties to Acorn.” (Stanley Kurtz, National Review)

Many Americans have read Alinsky's books and understand his methods; this is excellent, as so few read Mein Kampf, and fewer still have read the Koran, Sira, and Hadith. These are the foundational texts of existential opposition to the existence of the United States in its present form.

The fact that our current President and Secretary of State (wannabe President Hillary Clinton), are followers of Alinsky is beyond disturbing. That so many Americans know Alinsky is heartening, but few know the motivations behind the agitation that is so central to the Alinsky method and, further, what it means when a professional agitator acquires the power that he claims to require. What kind of effective governance is possible from the permanent agitator when the reins of power are handed to him/her? We have seen the results.

The problem with the Alinsky method is that the end game is amorphous; the end game is the acquisition of power but little is said of what to do with that power once acquired. The core of Alinsky's method is destruction, destruction of the "system" that allows a disparity of wealth. There is no discussion of what is to replace this system once it is brought down. However, there is little doubt that Alinsky's idea of a better "system" is one that brings forced equivalence or Marxism. Fundamentally, the struggle to get power is the essence of Alinsky, what to do with the power once acquired is another matter altogether.

Just two weeks before his death in 1972, Alinsky gave a revealing interview to Playboy magazine. While this is not a widely known interview it provides great insight into Alinsky, his purposes and, most importantly, his deep alienation from concepts of decency, ethics and morality. In order to understand our current "leadership" we must understand Alinsky.

David Horowitz recently published a small but insightful pamphlet on Alinsky andRules for Radicals. Horowitz understands what few do not: Alinsky was a nihilist. What does Alinsky’s nihilism say about those who follow in his footsteps? The answer is clear.

The current use of the term "change" is directly from Saul Alinsky. This is a term that can mean many things to many people. "Pragmatically, the only hope for genuine minority progress is to seek out allies within the majority and to organize that majority itself as part of a national movement for change." (Alinsky interview)

“Change” is both the tool and the goal, but it is rarely defined in any way that is not strictly local and economic; better housing for the poor, better economic opportunity, better wages, better municipal services, etc. However, at the national level "change" is left undefined. In fact it seems the process of change itself, not the implementation of "change," is the goal.

This is amoral political agitation that appears to be about something positive but is really about deconstruction. Once the institutions of "oppression" that require "change" are destroyed, there is no plan delineated by Alinsky (nor his current crop of followers) as to what will replace them. The goal apparently is "people power" (whatever that means). However, since the concept of destroying the institutions of society specifically to "empower" people is foundational, this is the same message of Marx.

Alinsky is a Marxist without the red flag. Any institution that allows one group of people to advance at the expense of another is to be brought down even if those who advance within it do so as a result of honest hard work and talent. The essence of Alinsky is a radical idea of universal equivalence, though this has been seen before both in Marxist theory, and in Communist states. In order to agitate for “change,” Alinsky and his adherents require the population to be on edge; "rubbed raw." This desire for endless agitation as a goal is bizarre and disturbing.

"The despair is there; now it's up to us to go in and rub raw the sores of discontent, galvanize them for radical social change. We'll give them a way to participate in the democratic process, a way to exercise their rights as citizens and strike back at the establishment that oppresses them, instead of giving in to apathy. We'll start with specific issues -- taxes, jobs, consumer problems, pollution - and from there move on to the larger issues: pollution in the Pentagon and the Congress and the board rooms of the megacorporations. Once you organize people, they'll keep advancing from issue to issue toward the ultimate objective: people power." (Alinsky interview)

Alinsky believed that the struggle itself is empowering and important, in and of itself. "People power" is another way to say the rule of the people, and not elites or institutions or representatives. This is Marxism. Our president is the greatest acolyte of Saul Alinsky. The influence of Alinsky in our national politics cannot be overstated.

"We'll not only give them a cause, we'll make life goddamn exciting for them again – life instead of existence. We'll turn them on." (Alinsky interview)

Alinsky claims to love the United States, but not in its current form. His love of country is as hollow as that of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

"I love this goddamn country, and we're going to take it back." (Alinsky interview)

“An ABC News review of dozens of Rev. Wright's sermons, offered for sale by the church, found repeated denunciations of the U.S. based on what he described as his reading of the Gospels and the treatment of black Americans. ‘The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing “God Bless America.'” No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people,’ he said in a 2003 sermon. ‘God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.’" (ABC News)

"Taking back" was a popular meme of the radical left during the Vietnam War era. Once the country is "taken back" what is to be done with it? We now have an Alinsky acolyte in the White House, one could say he has “taken back” the country, but it is clear that he does not know what to do with it. He doesn't know because no Alinskyite has ever reached this level of power except for Hillary Clinton.

The ongoing agitation that comes now directly from the White House, most particularly the troubled health care “reform,” shows that the “rubbing raw” method is being followed closely; the popular resistance to “change” that we now see growing across the country is evidence that perhaps this method of “community organizing” is bereft of solutions. Constant agitation is not a solution though Alinsky would have you believe otherwise. “Struggle” itself is the purpose and goal of the Alinsky way.

"All life is warfare, and it's the continuing fight against the status quo that revitalizes society, stimulates new values and gives man renewed hope of eventual progress. The struggle itself is the victory." (Alinsky interview)

This is essentially an anti- anti-revolutionary concept. The idea of fighting for the sake of fighting itself is morally depraved. But this term "depraved" would not have bothered Alinsky for he is the champion of the abandonment of morality. Amorality is fundamental to Alinsky and to his followers; an ideology that justifies the abandonment of morality and ethics is attractive to many – to the detriment of us all. "Integrity! What shit." (Alinsky interview)

In fairness to Alinsky, the above was said relating to a specific local situation, but the dismissal of integrity is illustrative. Alinsky saw the march of history as driven by revolution; without revolution there is stagnation (lack of development of humanity in his view). It is stunning to see someone dedicated to destruction and deconstruction so self-convinced that he is an agent of human necessity and development; Alinsky is deeply confused. Unfortunately, Alinsky’s followers are just as confused on this matter.

"History is like a relay race of revolutions; the torch of idealism is carried by one group of revolutionaries until it too becomes an establishment, and then the torch is snatched up and carried on the next leg of the race by a new generation of revolutionaries. The cycle goes on and on, and along the way the values of humanism and social justice the rebels champion take shape and change and are slowly implanted in the minds of all men even as their advocates falter and succumb to the materialistic decadence of the prevailing status quo." (Alinsky, interview)

Alinsky grew up in Chicago in a very poor Jewish family in the early part of the century. He said that he had "kicked the habit" of Judaism at an early age, but would always say that he was a "Jew." Seeing the corruption of Chicago at the time and the hero status held by Al Capone and his operatives, Alinsky made it his affair to associate himself with them. He saw no difference between the Capone criminals and the corrupt city officials of Chicago at that time. He was successful in flattering himself (his characterization) into the Capone organization and became a trusted fellow traveler for "two years" according to his estimate. In fact, the influence of the Capone gang on Alinsky is substantial and lasted for more than two years.

"He introduced me to Frank Nitti, known as the Enforcer, Capone's number-two man, and actually in de facto control of the mob because of Al's income-tax rap. Nitti took me under his wing. I called him the Professor and I became his student. Nitti's boys took me everywhere, showed me all the mob's operations, from gin mills and whorehouses and bookie joints to the legitimate businesses they were beginning to take over. Within a few months, I got to know the workings of the Capone mob inside out." (Alinksy interview)

Alinsky’s self-identification of Frank Nitti the mobster killer as his "professor" is important. In retrospect one can speculate that Alinsky learned a great deal about pressure and intimidation from his friends in the Chicago mob. But even more enlightening is that the mob killer Nitti is the antithesis of what America is about; amorality and criminality were what Alinsky apparently found so fascinating about Nitti and his gang – they beat “the system” which Alinsky saw as just as corrupt or equally so to the Capone/Nitti gangsters.

This abandonment of morality and ethics and in fact, the identification of morality and ethics as impediments, would become a theme with Alinsky. The two years of training with “Professor” Nitti would reap huge rewards for Alinsky over time. But what it has left as a legacy for this country is a disaster as Alinsky’s followers took this abandonment of morals and ethics as a serious lesson; nothing is excluded as far as tactics and strategy are concerned – this is the lesson of the “professor.”

Alinsky's abandonment of morality and ethics is not difficult to demonstrate. Rules for Radicals is dedicated to Lucifer, the rebel against God's rule and great destroyer of Christian ideology.

Alinsky and his method negate and reject morality and ethics. The denial of history is an important component of the denial of ethics and morality. Alinsky writes in the dedication to Lucifer that history cannot be known. “…Who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins – or which is which…”

Without a knowable historical record there can be no learning from past events, and no trust in previous knowledge. The result of the denial of history is the denial of learning, because no existing knowledge can be trusted. Denial of the capability of people to attain knowledge and understanding from existing sources of information is a component of nihilism. This leaves the future open to radicals and de-constructionists like Alinsky who have made a definitive break with the past.

The institutions of society, the old institutions upon which society and morality are built, are therefore illegitimate and are to be brought down. This distrust in the idea of knowledge itself is a totalitarian, anti-intellectual concept.

Alinsky’s worldview is built then on new knowledge only and experience as the old cannot be known or trusted. This shattering of old orders is completely revolutionary and destructive as the past is therefore inherently unworthy because it cannot be trusted (myth and history are the same). The result of the rejection of the past and of knowledge can best be seen in Pol Pot’s Cambodia where knowledge and wisdom and those who possessed such things were destroyed to make way for the revolutionary Utopia of the Khmer Rouge. Beginning on the day in 1975 when his guerrilla army marched silently into the capital, Phnom Penh, Pol Pot emptied the cities, pulled families apart, abolished religion and closed schools. Everyone was ordered to work, even children. The Khmer Rouge outlawed money and closed all markets. Doctors were killed, as were most people with skills and education that threatened the regime. (New York Times)

The rejection of morality and ethics and the embrace of total pragmatism to achieve the goal of power are characteristic of the “radical” Lucifer so respected by Alinsky. It is not important to Alinsky that Lucifer is the embodiment of the idea of evil and opposition to good; what matters is that Alinsky sees Lucifer as effective; the trains always run on time when Satan runs the show. Effectiveness and success are divorced from issues of morality and ethics; success is its own morality for Alinsky and his followers. Morality and ethics have no value for the "radical" who wants to overturn the institutions of society and save the world. Alinsky was a Utopian dreamer who turned his formidable intellect to de-construction and removed morality from the equation for operational purposes. There can be no place for morality and ethics when the world must be transformed to a Utopia – for Alinsky and his followers this purpose is superior even to any "supreme being" and the morality and ethics which may have originated from such a being.

In fact, this rejection of accepted morality means that anything goes; any "action" is acceptable if it destroys or undermines the "status quo" and brings “change.” This is radical anti-stability for the sake of Utopianism. The Alinsky puddle-deep “philosophy” is incredibly dangerous because it elevates “struggle” and “change” over humanity, individuals, and institutions that, while they may be flawed (but can be improved) must be destroyed simply because they are institutions.

This is anti-intellectualism and a denial of context and history which results in what can only be endless agitation, conflict, and de-construction. This is a philosophy of a great cosmic vacuum in which stability and quality are sucked up forever until there is only "struggle." Utopians believe themselves above morality and ethics because there can be no greater purpose than theirs – the creation of Utopia. Utopians therefore consider their opponents evil.

The cruelty of Utopians toward their enemies is easily understood:

“Over and over again, the firebrand revolutionary freedom fighter is the first to destroy the rights and even the lives of the next generation of rebels. But recognizing this isn't cause for despair. All life is warfare, and it's the continuing fight against the status quo that revitalizes society, stimulates new values and gives man renewed hope of eventual progress.” (Alinsky interview)

Utopianism is at the foundation of Soviet Communism, Pol Pot's Cambodia, Mao's China, Hitler's Germany, etc. We have seen in history that Utopian ideologies resulted in the greatest toll of death of innocents in human history. Jihad and its hundreds of millions of victims is a Utopian effort to bring the world out of jahiliya (non-belief, ignorance) into dar al-Islam (the purview of Islam's deity, Allah). The amorality and moral degradation of Utopianism is one of our greatest threats.

David Horowitz' excellent recently published pamphlet "Barack Obama's Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model" offers keen insights into Alinsky and what it might mean when Alinsky followers are in positions of power. The conclusions he reaches are not pleasant but are borne out by current events, public utterances of the president, his history, and the work of Alinsky himself.

What we are seeing is the most radical President in our country’s history who is unable to govern because governing is not his purpose. The Alinskyite, ever the destroyer of institutions, cannot govern because governments and societies are built upon institutions. The cold war is over - but now it is being fought anew under a new name in the halls of our national centers of political power under the multi-colored banner: "Hope and Change." The promotion of socialism though socialized medicine, the constant bowing to foreign leaders, and apologizing for American actions across the world and a new detente with traditional enemies and abandonment of and hostility to traditional friends is evidence that agitation and de-construction is the goal of the present administration.

A small article appeared in the Boston Globe just after the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention in Denver. It was written by Saul Alinsky's son.

"ALL THE elements were present: the individual stories told by real people of their situations and hardships, the packed-to-the rafters crowd, the crowd's chanting of key phrases and names, the action on the spot of texting and phoning to show instant support and commitment to jump into the political battle, the rallying selections of music, the setting of the agenda by the power people. The Democratic National Convention had all the elements of the perfectly organized event, Saul Alinsky style.

Barack Obama's training in Chicago by the great community organizers is showing its effectiveness. It is an amazingly powerful format, and the method of my late father always works to get the message out and get the supporters on board. When executed meticulously and thoughtfully, it is a powerful strategy for initiating change and making it really happen. Obama learned his lesson well.

“I am proud to see that my father's model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday." (Boston Globe, 8/31/08)


While Mr. Alinsky relished the fact that Mr. Obama had learned his father’s "radical lessons," we should not be so sanguine. The anti-morality of Alinsky has brought our national political discourse to a breaking point. This is good for the true believers of Alinsky but bad for those who love liberty, democracy, and the future growth and stability of the United States and the prosperity and security of ourselves and our friends.

Utopians live in a fantasy realm outside of context and history, as if history and its cycles and challenges do not apply to them. Mr. Obama is at war, but not in the way that you might expect.

Our president does not appear to be seriously interested in war in Iraq or Afghanistan, these are but distractions to the main issue which is the homeland. With his oath of office taken on Abraham Lincoln's personal bible the American people thought that the long circle of racism had finally been closed with Obama's inauguration, but it is not so. We thought that we had entered a new era of openness, bi-partisanship, and post-racialism. It is not so; not since Jefferson Davis has an American president been so divisive. The Civil War allusion to Lincoln is appropriate but it is not accurate, our leadership is purposefully divisive because they are Utopians first, Americans second, third, or fourth, or fifth. We live in a time of disunity and radicalism foisted upon us by our leadership. This is not the future for which Abraham Lincoln had labored.

“A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible. The rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.”

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. (Lincoln, 1st Inaugural Address)

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” (Lincoln, 2nd Inaugural Address)

We live in a time of unprecedented domestic upheaval and not any that has been brought upon us by circumstances or international conflagrations but because our Alinsky-influenced, post-modern leadership believes that conflict and struggle is the path to human evolution.

The Obama administration is the embodiment of the failure of politics because it is not about politics - politics involves concession and compromise - it is about victory at any cost. The American people expected hope and change, as that is what they voted for but what they really wanted was stability and prosperity.

"Thus Alinsky begins his text by telling readers exactly what a radical is. He is not a reformer of the system but its would-be destroyer. In his own mind the radical is building his own kingdom, which to him is a kingdom of heaven on earth. Since a kingdom of heaven built by human beings is a fantasy - and impossible dream- the radical's only real world efforts are those which are aimed at subverting the society he lives in. He is a nihilist.

This is something that conservatives generally have a hard time understanding. As a former radical, I am constantly asked how radicals could hate America and why they would want to destroy a society that compared to others is tolerant, inclusive and open, and treats all people with a dignity and respect that is the envy of the world. The answer to this question is that radicals are not comparing America to other real world societies. They are comparing America to the heaven on earth - the kingdom of social justice and freedom - they think they are building. And compared to this heaven even America is hell." (Horowitz, pp.16-17, Barack Obama's Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model)

The United States was founded upon the concept that “the people” rule, not the elites; that is why there are checks and balances built into our system of government. The Alinsky followers, now that they hold the levers of power, are seeing a popular opposition to their endless agitations. The rise of the Alinskyites has been a rude awakening for most Americans, but it has also energized a vocal opposition.

We must return to our roots, our moral, ethical and legal roots, Constitution and Bill of Rights. We must see ourselves in an historical context which the Harvard and Yale dhimmis in positions of authority will not. Our culture and our country are of great value and are worth protecting and saving. We live in a confused time, but the confusion is clearing away; it is clearing away through knowledge and understanding of the motivations of those in power. The Alinsky ideology of nihilism and deconstruction must be repudiated. Those who are his sycophants and fellow travelers must be exposed and shamed for waging war on their own country and their own people in the name of Utopianism and endless struggle.

Our purpose is to learn through the slow, but sound, evolutionary process of trial and error, and to preserve the Constitution its sovereignty over this great land. If our leaders do not concur, if they seek to shortcut the natural process or disrupt the rule of law, they must be voted out or impeached.

Saul Alinsky's message resonated heavily with many intellectuals and activists of the ‘70s and ‘80s including Hillary Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama. Our people naively voted for Mr. Obama and his party. Mr. Obama's agenda is clearly built upon Mr. Alinsky's model and method. Mr. Obama taught seminars in this method; he is a true believer. The message is that the United States is corrupt and must be de-constructed so that the power can rest with the people. But, it already does.

Our system of democracy based upon our Constitution must be slowly and continually perfected, but not de-constructed or destroyed. The United States is the hope of the world; some have forgotten this, or never believed it. The American people believe it still while our academic and political elites appear to have abandoned the idea. We believe in liberty, freedom, and tolerance, we do not believe in totalitarian barbarism like that of Islam. We are expected to preserve these freedoms and our system of Constitutional government that supports them.

There is no utopia, and there is no better system of government in history than what we have here in this country. Our purpose as citizens should be to constantly improve it and aspire to perfect it knowing that absolute perfection is impossible. This is not absurd but an embrace of constant self-examination and improvement.

“Perfection” as a realistic political goal is a Utopian concept. Those who embrace Utopianism, like Saul Alinsky and his followers, believe that it is real – the Utopian idea is the same as the fascist, totalitarian, and communist, and Islamic concept of global conquest. Utopians know what is best, those who oppose them are… evil.

Ours is not a world of global fellowship, and disarmament and universal goodwill. We live in a world of challenges and threats. When we forget that the reality of humanity is the driver of the functioning of the world, we are lost in dreams. Dreamers, utopians, and fantasists do not drive the world; they break it or are broken by it. Pragmatism without morality and ethics to check it is amoral and leads to de-construction and devolution. Alinsky and his followers have confused agitation with growth; the advancement of humanity must by necessity be driven by morality and ethics. Pragmatism without morality and ethics leads to holocaust.

Alinsky has no goal but endless strife, “the struggle is the victory itself,” as he says. This means that institutions must be brought down because stability is seen as immoral in this amoral worldview. This is a bizarre and corrupt ideology for any leader of a nation to embrace.

"If the radicals' utopia were actually possible, it would be criminal not to deceive, lie, and murder to advance the radical cause which is, in effect, a redemption of mankind. If it were possible to provide every man, woman, and child on the planet with food, shelter and clothing as a right, if it were possible to end bigotry and human conflict, what sacrifice would not be worth it?" (Horowitz, p.45, Barack Obama's Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model)

Those having a theological bent might ask where Saul Alinsky is now. The answer is best provided by him.

"Let's say that if there is an afterlife, and I have anything to say about it, I will unreservedly choose to go to hell. ...Hell would be heaven for me." (Alinsky, interview)

We Americans are a people of morality and strong beliefs of our place on this planet and in history. “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” (John Adams, 2nd U.S. President) “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.” (Washington, Farewell Address, 1796)

We Americans believe that we have something of great value; we know it is so because we enjoy liberties that others on this earth do not; we know it is so because so many immigrate to our shores for the freedoms, openness, and opportunity that this country offers. America is no utopia, but we shall do our best to work with the concepts of freedom and good government that Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Washington, Madison, Monroe, and all the rest left to us as their legacy forever. “If there is a form of government, then, whose principle and foundation is virtue, will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form?” (John Adams, 2nd U.S. President)

We hold this legacy as a great responsibility to ourselves and to future generations.

“I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.” (John Adams, Letter to wife Abigail from Paris, 1780)

There is no utopia but the one that we aspire to here with the superb tools which were left to us by our founders. We have not forgotten their gift to us, and we will make it right once again.

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Is Neconservatism the Villain or Alinsky Radical Transformation?
John R. Houk
© March 23, 2010
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Saul Alinsky and the Rise of Amorality in American Politics
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor D.L. Adams is an analyst and historian, and a co-founder of SIOA.

COPYRIGHT 2010 FAMILY SECURITY MATTERS INC.