What’s Changed in America Since the Revolution?

Of course, many things have changed in America—technical things come instantly to mind. But the things that come to my mind as most important, are the things having to do with the basic attitudes, values, and abilities of our people. As an example, many have commented on the difference between the beliefs, purposes, and values between the founding fathers and the present day politicians who run our United States.

Many books are in print, which would seek to tell us that the founders of America were self-seeking bigots who had no altruistic purposes in mind when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. The books propounding these views began to appear in 1896 in an essay called “The Political Depravity of the Founding Fathers,” by John Bach McMaster. These books and writings continued for more than a century and seriously called into question even the things we take for granted about the founders’ desire to seek the democratic will of the people in establishing a representative form of government. In particular, many writers have claimed that the founders were not Christian to any great extent. They are said to have established a government completely separate from Christian faith and practice.

On the other hand, writings are in print, which tend to paint the founding fathers as near perfect, demigods with only the good of the country at heart. The truth is somewhere between these two extremes.

Gordon Wood, a professor of history at Brown University has written a book entitled "Revolutionary Characters, What Made the Founders Different." In that book, he points out that the founding fathers of our country were strongly influenced by the culture and the intellectual forces of their day. They were sons of the enlightenment. They sought to establish a country where freedom would prevail and where civil society would rein without hostile and harmful influences to destroy the hopes and aspirations of men and women of good intention. They appealed to reason as a foundational building block. They were always aware of a higher law than the "natural law" or "common law" of their day,i.e., the implicit and explicit laws of the Bible. . They strove to epitomize good manners and good faith among their co-workers in this project of establishing a new nation. For the most part, they would act in a respectable and honorable way toward those around them; and they always tried to leave the impression of being gentlemen in their actions.

The American founders knew well that the polite and sophisticated metropolitan center of the empire was steeped in luxury and corruption. England had sprawling, poverty-ridden cities, over refined manners, gross inequalities of rank, complex divisions of labor, and widespread manufacturing of luxuries, all symptoms of over-advanced social development and social decay. It was said of this society by Samuel Stanhope of Princeton University, “that human society can advance only to a certain point before it becomes corrupted, and begins to decline.” To many, England in the 1760’s and 1770’s seemed to be on the verge of dissolution. The North American colonists who came in direct contact with London were shocked at the notorious ways in which hundreds of thousands of pounds were being spent to buy elections. This “most unbounded licentiousness and utter disregard of virtue” could only end, as it had always had in history, in the destruction of the British Empire. The American founding fathers wanted with all their heart and energy to avoid such a society.

As a result of this motivation, our founders set up a system of government which was, at the time, the beginning of egalitarian democracy. The voices of ordinary white people began to be heard as never before in history. The founders, were, themselves, an elite aristocracy imbued with high ideals and aspirations for the good of the country. What they could not have suspected, however, was that when the voices of the common people were considered, many of their high-sounding ideals would be trampled underfoot; and political preferences, partisan politics, and the influence of social and economic pressure groups would overwhelm much of what they were so valiantly trying to achieve.

We are seeing this effect, today; and the high ideals of our founders will probably never, again, be visible in our American society. It has been posited by knowledgeable observers that as soon as the voting majority see that they can vote themselves significant benefits, they will do so; and social freedom and entrepreneurship will disappear from our society. I fear that those days are upon us.

It is my personal opinion that much of the gain in societal management which was so very salutary to our country in the beginning will never, again, be seen in its pure form. I believe that one reason for this is that the effect of Christian religion will not likely be infused into our behavior and policies as it was in the lives and actions of our founders. Such statements as the one uttered by John Adams, our second President, are not likely in our present day political climate. “The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”

What Can America Learn From Europe’s Problems?

This blog post is largely excerpted from a speech made by Václav Klaus, the President of the Czech Republic in a speech given to a group of Americans in Berlin on 11 June 2011.

Mr. Klaus sees Europe’s problems as an economic structural problem, which has embraced social permissiveness, anti-market practices, and a principle of money redistribution. Europeans have believed that the most favorable form of government is one of weakened nation-states with the concomitant strengthening of supranational institutions. He pointed out that only within states can democracy function effectively. The unification of Europe in the “Euro zone” was intended to accelerate economic growth, reduce inflation, and protect member states against external economic disruptions—it has failed in all three goals. Europe’s developing social democratic system with its generous social benefits, weakened motivation, shortened working hours, and lowered retirement age, have all diminished the labor supply and resulted in decreased productivity.

He said, “…we have witnessed a gradual shift away from liberalizing and removing barriers and towards a massive introduction of regulation from above, an ever-expanding welfare system, new and more sophisticated forms of protectionism, and continuously growing legal and regulatory burdens on business. All of these weaken and restrain freedom, democracy, and democratic accountability, not to mention economic efficiency, entrepreneurship and competitiveness.

“Europeans today prefer leisure to performance, security to risk-taking, paternalism to free markets, collectivism and group entitlements to individualism. They have always been more risk-averse than Americans, but the difference continues to grow. Economic freedom has a very low priority here. It seems that Europeans are not interested in capitalism and free markets and do not understand that their current behavior undermines the very institutions that made their past success possible. They are eager to defend their non-economic freedoms—the easiness, looseness, laxity and permissiveness of modern European society—but when it comes to their economic freedoms, they are quite indifferent.”

In conclusion, he pointed out that “…the way your American government has been going, you might be able to catch up with us—in terms of our problems—very soon. But you are not as far along, yet. So, maybe seeing Europe’s crisis today will at least help you in America turn back toward freedom.”

I would observe that our American system with its increasing regulation and taxation of business and its promotion of moral laxity is well on the way of adopting Europe’s problems.

What’s the Answer to the Immigrant Problem?

On 6 September 2100, I specified the reason we are having a problem with illegal immigrants in the United States. Today, I intend to give my answer to this problem.

It must be realized that under the present circumstances with millions of illegal immigrants in the United States, they are collectively sending about $15-20 billion dollars home to relatives in Latin America yearly in the form of remittances. These illegal immigrants are facing increasing difficulties here in the U.S. finding jobs. States are cracking down on them; and even the Federal Government is taking some steps to discourage their presence here. From years of personal experience with these immigrants in southwest Denver, Nancy and I have seen first-hand the miserable circumstances in which these poor people live. It has seemed to me that there must be a better solution to this problem of illegal presence than allowing all the random chaos at the border, which we see today.

We need to find a win-win situation for these poor people as well, for Mexico, and for the United States. Fortunately, there is just such a solution to the problem.

I believe that the United States should start by building an impenetrable fence all the way across the southern border. Then, we should institute an immigrant guest worker program with specified numbers of workers allowed into the country to operate our agricultural and service industries. These guest workers should have temporary legal visas to stay here and work for a specified period of time, at the end of which, they must go home or get the visa renewed. Then these workers should be allowed to send as much money as they wish back home to Mexico; and that amount of money should be documented. Then, yearly, that amount of money should be subtracted from the $20 billion that is already flowing to Mexico and difference should be used to stimulate the Mexican agricultural, educational, and law enforcement economies under very strictly supervised programs. Employers who hire illegal immigrants should be severely fined and/or penalized.

As a corollary to this program, the practice of declaring “anchor babies” here in the states American citizen should be discontinued. (At present, any baby born to illegal immigrants in the United States is automatically designated as a legal citizen of this country. These babies are called “anchor babies.”) This practice is absolute nonsense; and it should be discontinued immediately!

I believe that measures such as the ones I have outlined would greatly mitigate the problem we have with illegal immigrants in the United States.

Why Do We Have an Immigrant Problem?

Every day, hundreds of illegal immigrants pour across the Mexican border. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, there are approximately 500,000 illegal entries into the United States yearly. Even considering that, however, the total number of illegals in the U.S. has been decreasing slightly in recent years—due to the fact that some of them are going home for one reason or another.

The main reasons for illegal immigration into the U.S. are several. First, there is not enough arable land in Mexico to support their food supply needs.
Mexico has two agricultural systems, operating parallel to each other. Producing foods as cash crops for export is the primary goal of large-scale farmers. Although only about 15% of Mexico's land is arable, or suitable for cultivation, 88% of the arable land is used for cultivation of export crops and for grazing cattle. What large-scale farmers produce is determined by what brings the highest prices in international markets. Since the 1970s, most large-scale farmers have been producing the non-traditional crops such as fresh flowers; fresh and processed fruits such as tomatoes, melons, pineapples, strawberries, and mangos; also produced are fresh vegetables such as artichokes, cucumbers, cabbage, cauliflower, green beans, peppers, broccoli, snow peas, and asparagus. Additionally, there are the traditional exports that feed Mexico's northern neighbors, such as sugar, coffee, bananas and cattle. During winter and spring, more than half the fresh vegetables consumed in the United States come from Mexico. They sell to transnational corporations that process or directly transport the products to warehouses and eventually to grocers.

Among those who benefit from the large-scale agricultural system are local wealthy farming cartels and transnational corporations such as Del Monte, Green Giant, Heinz, United Brands, Castle and Cooke, PepsiCo, Ralston Purina, Campbell's, General Foods, Beatrice Foods, Gerber, Kellogg, Kraft and Nestle. Rarely do these corporations own land. Instead, they contract with large-scale farmers. The corporations have capital to invest in technology, seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, transport systems, and marketing.

In recent decades, more and more of Mexico’s arable lands have been converted into the food export industry, so that Mexico is having a hard time producing the corn, beans, and cattle which are needed for the feeding of Mexico’s people, especially, the poor people. It is estimated by the World Bank that half of Mexico’s rural children are malnourished.

In other words, Mexico’s people are starving. Is it any wonder, then, that many young Mexican men are emigrating to the United States to find money to support their families back home? Of course, some of them end up in the larger Mexican cities working in the illegal drug and crime industries. Many Latinos, however, emigrate just because of the crime and violence they find at home. Recently, drug dealers have begun to demand half of the salaries of teachers in the public schools in some districts. They make these demands under threat of death.

Police and government corruption is rampant in Central America, even more than in Mexico, if that can be imagined. With all these incentives, we can understand why poor Mexican and Central Americans will do just about anything to escape such terrible circumstances.

My next blog post will specify what I envision as an answer to this problem.

The Legacy of the Blame America First Bunch

American exceptionalism has been a target of liberals in America for decades. They have eschewed the whole idea ever since the 1960’s and the rise of the hippy generation. That is the generation that spawned our president, Barack Obama and others who came under the spell of such as Saul Alinsky in Chicago. These days, there are many in our country who carry a burden of guilt feelings about supposed social errors America has committed. They would prefer to call attention to America’s mistakes than to promote the good things that America has done.

America has been a beacon of security in a very unstable world. Nancy and I have seen how very beneficial the presence of American soldiers has been in stabilizing volatile situations in Africa. We have all seen the benefits of promoting free enterprise and entrepreneurism in the economies of many countries. America has been exemplary in its demonstration of the rule of law in a society. We have shown the world that a stable government does not need to change by shooting the political leader. Our economy has shown how to produce goods and services leading to the highest standard of living in the world.

Some would say, however, that these demonstrated benefits of the American way of life have come accompanied by an indulgence in militarism, racism, sexism, corporate greed, and environmental disregard as the means to a broad economic, military, and even cultural supremacy in the world. Those are the ones who would denigrate the American ideal.

Mr. Obama has made it clear that his idea of how and where to apply presidential power was shaped precisely by this brand of liberalism. He has shown this by his devotion to big government, his passion for redistribution, and his scolding and scapegoating of Wall Street and capitalism, in general. He would give up the whole idea of American exceptionalism.

That policy should make the liberals happy, but they should realize that the Obama administration is mediocritizing the United States in the view of the rest of the world. If this keeps up, nobody will come to us for support and encouragement in a difficult world. His policy of downgrading the United States will not make the world a better and more secure place for the peoples to live.

Ludicrous Conclusion by Scientist

I have lately read a very interesting book by Ward and Brownlee entitled “Rare Earth.” The book is about the origins and life of the Earth. In it, the authors posit their belief that the factors that allow life of complex animals (including humankind) on Earth are so rare as to be practically impossible to reproduce elsewhere in the universe. They believe that very primitive life forms, such as bacteria and certain other one-celled organisms can probably live on other planets in the universe. However, they are convinced that complex life cannot exist on other planets in the universe. So far, so good. I can buy all that reasoning.

After describing all the complexity of animal and humankind development and all the factors that have allowed life to evolve on earth, the authors come to an astounding conclusion. They conclude that life so complex and of such a high order could not possibly have come about by means of an intelligent creator! !) They believe that all this interwoven and extremely complex world of ours must have come about by means of random chance and natural selection. It is unbelievable to me that such sophisticated and obviously skillful observers as these two could come to such a conclusion. I think the logical conclusion that would explain all this interactive complexity we see on the Earth would have had to arise as a result of a super-intelligent being. (Guess Who)

The authors point out that scientists have still not been able to synthesize a molecule of RNA or DNA. I would not be surprised to see, some day, that biochemists have finally synthesized that molecule; but of one thing I am sure: If scientists ever do accomplish this task, it will not be done as a matter of chance or “natural selection.” It will be accomplished by means of intelligence.

Keynesian Economics vs. Regular Economics

This blog post is largely excerpted from an editorial in the Wall Street Journal of 24 August 2011 written by Robert Barro, an Economics professor at Harvard.

John Maynard Keynes was an economist of the 1930’s who propounded the theory that if the national economy begins to flag and recession is in the offing, the Federal Government should pump more and more dollars into the system. This supposedly will stimulate the economy and cause the recession to go away. To Keynes, it mattered not if the government had the money in the bank to spend on things in the economy. All the government had to do in such a situation was to print more money and spend it. He thought that by adding or subtracting dollar bills from the system, the government could control the economy and prevent radical swings from recession on the one hand and inflation on the other. He thought that the wealth of the government did not depend on how much gold it had in the bank; it depended only upon the strength of the general economy.

This economic philosophy has governed the fiscal decisions of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal government since Franklin Roosevelt to the present, and it is very much alive and well in the present administration.

The present government has posited that it is necessary to transfer wealth to the people, in such things as food stamps, believing that this transfer of money will cause the people to use the influx of money to consume more and thereby stimulate food producers to make more food and hire more people, thereby increasing per capita income and stopping the recession.

“Regular economics” denies that this effect is a true conclusion of the matter. “Regular economists” believe that food stamps and other perks from the government only serve to motivate less work effort because the incentive to work is less if the government will just give the money away.

The problem with Keynesian economics is that there is no evidence that it works. Actually, we know something specific and concrete about the effect of one such transfer of deficit-sourced money. In 2009, the government raised the unemployment eligibility to 99 weeks—a significant increase from the previous eligibility period. After that, the long term unemployed (more than 26 weeks) jumped to over 44%. This pattern suggests that the dramatically longer unemployment insurance eligibility period adversely affected the labor market. The message people received was, “If they are going to give away the money, why should I work for it?”

I think the Obama Administration should rework their thinking about stimulus and transfer money. It is not working.