FDR Goes to War by Burton & Anita Folsom Part 2

Roosevelt needed to pay for the war. America had already buried itself deeply in debt before the war began. FDR's ready solution - raise taxes. When the income tax was implemented in 1913, it affected very few Americans and was only paid annually. Seeking to maximize tax receipts the first year, the bill was applied retroactively. Giving the very wealthy time to gather the payment, tax day got pushed to March 15. FDR lowered the tax burden to include millions of Americans in the 1930s and he found it increasingly difficult to wait until March 15 to collect. The ever-brilliant FDR determined to combine raising taxes with paycheck withdrawals. However, trying to collect the previous year's taxes while simultaneously withdrawing the current year's taxes led to cries of double taxation. For some citizens, it would result in a taxes exceeding 100% of income. Although FDR had coveted a 100% tax rate throughout his presidency, even some of his most loyal supporters balked at 100%+.  Withdrawal promised less painful payment of taxes, a pay-as-you-go system, and this in turn would allow the government to raise taxes with less resistance. FDR threw in the illusion of "tax forgiveness" for the previous year. No one would actually see any savings, taxes would begin being withdrawn immediately, but it sounded good! Besides, for the wealthiest, a hefty estate tax would absorb anything left over at death.

The tax debate led to a class warfare debate. Some, like FDR wanted a 100% tax for incomes over $25,000. That failed, but taxes still reached up to 90% on the very wealthy. Progressives in Congress argued against giving the richest citizens a "gift" of hundreds of thousands of dollars by "forgiving" the 1942 taxes.  Yet, because their tax rate well exceeded 50%, their rate for the 1943 tax year would, in some cases be up to 180%! Many in Congress contended this was fair since they shouldn't be making that much anyways. Conservatives and businessmen reacted violently. Never in American history had the well-off been so vilified and abused. America had no right to limit incomes. Rights came from God and inherent in our Declaration was the right to what you most naturally own - life, liberty, and property. FDR, however believed rights came from government and in times of war, the government remained well within its right to take most, if not all, of a man's earnings. The final bill reflected FDR's desire to take as much as he wanted with no respect for the rights of individuals to keep what they earned. Three-forths of either 1942 be 1943's taxes would be cancelled. This would help the lower classes who could pay the 25% still required in installments, but the higher classes would see their taxes raised to 100% or beyond for the year 1943. The resulting monstrosity had even its authors flummoxed when  trying to explain how someone could pay more than they earned.

"FDR amazed friends and enemies alike by his willingness to break laws and bend the Constitution." His was a view that considered right and wrong rather than legal and illegal. Since his motives were deemed to be pure, of course what he did was always in the right, legal or not. Although declared illegal by the Supreme Court, Roosevelt openly defied the law and wiretapped both friend and foe alike. He not only bugged phone lines, but used the Secret Service and FBI to conduct investigations of any who piqued his interest. Political enemies were threatened with blackmail and newspapers intimidated. Many who knew themselves to be in FDR's crosshairs overpaid their already hefty taxes to elude the unavoidable IRS investigation and subsequent penalties to be unleashed upon them. However, FDR not only punished his enemies and kept his friends in line with threats, he used the millions of federal dollars at his disposal to reward acquiescent citizens. No list of FDR's offenses would be complete without the mention of the internment of Japanese-Americans, which shames not only FDR, but his modern cheerleaders who overlook this most blatant violation of civil rights.

Being a fellow man of the left, Roosevelt always looked to Stalin for inspiration and direction. Of course the brutal tactics repulsed him, but one of his closest advisors, upon visiting the Communist nation stated, "I have seen the future and it works." Even if it meant throwing Churchill under the bus during negotiations, FDR would surreptitiously work to get into the confidence of Stalin. He believed the communists to have a good heart, was seeking to do the Lord's work and help society while Americans only looked after themselves! In fact, it was Churchill, as the head of the British Empire, who appeared to be the imperialist to FDR.  Roosevelt even deluded himself so far as to believe Stalin a Christian and Russia tolerant of religion! Delighted that Russia was finally our ally, Roosevelt sent supplies and arms to Russia at astonishing levels. FDR undercut Churchill in the historic meetings that took place between the three leaders. Stalin convinced FDR to allow Russia an unimpeded path directly to Berlin over Churchill's strenuous objections. Roosevelt chose to play his "hunch" about Stalin rather than rely on facts provided to him by the British and his own administration. The result became the Soviet Eastern European Bloc after the war and untold death and misery.

In 1944 Roosevelt ran for an unprecedented 4th term after an unprecedented 3rd term. However, Roosevelt had to contend with hiding his rapidly deteriorating health. A friendly reporter who visited him in March stated, "He had lost a great deal of weight. His shirt collar hung so loose on his neck that you could have put your hand inside it. He was sitting there with a vague, glassy-eyed expression on his face and his mouth hanging open." In addition, polls had him losing to Dewey 30 to 51. Roosevelt decided to shake up his campaign, drop Wallace as VP and bring in Harry Truman instead. His wartime committee tasked with ferreting out waste and fraud had succeeded quite well. However, FDR still faced Republicans in congress who had dismantled most of his vote-buying machine as well as his propaganda arm. Therefore, Roosevelt helped unions organize the first-ever PAC to "educate" and mobilize union workers. He avoided the press and photos in order to hide his decaying health, citing pressing war business. While Dewey savaged Roosevelt's inability to better the economy, Roosevelt hammered home his plea not to entrust the war to a novice. Dewey also pressed the issue of the Communist infiltration at all levels thanks to Roosevelt's infatuation with Stalin. Roosevelt's health rebounded and he appeared in an open car to put to rest all rumors. He also began offering another New Deal to take place after the war. Between playing classes and ethnicities against each other and union support, he went on to defeat Dewey.

Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, only 3 short months after his fourth inauguration. His condition had been hidden from the public with such skill that the nation was totally unprepared. The stunned new President Truman found himself negotiating the surrender with the Germans and faced with the decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japan.

With the war won, what was to become of the economy as millions of soldiers returned home? Truman had a plan, but so did the Republicans in congress. Truman favored the ideas of John Maynard Keyes who argued for more centralization and government control. Large taxes and large deficits would stabilize the economy and set it on the right path. Truman pushed for passage of Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights, guaranteeing such things as a job, food, clothing, a home, health care, education and old age/disability/unemployment insurance. In short, he desired to turn the foundational rights the founder's recognized as those things which you naturally own (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness/property) into a government giveaway of other people's money and resources. Thomas Jefferson would have been horrified to see his carefully worded founding document so trashed! Government, not God, was Roosevelt's guarantor of rights.

Fortunately, the sudden surrender of Japan after the dropping of the bombs left Truman no time to implement the progressive policies he favored. "The sudden end of the war startled the planners. Few government programs were in place to give jobs to retuning veterans." The Keynesians frantically sounded the alarm. Democrats in congress and the president scrambled to implement a "full-employment" bill - calling it the Fair Deal. Although called fool-hardy and worse, the Republicans instead cut taxes across the board. Knowing Roosevelt had strangled businesses with taxes as high as 90%, they believed an agenda of freedom would return America to prosperity. Many remembered the examples of the Warring and Coolidge presidencies and the resultant "Roarin' 20s." While Truman pleaded for the Second Bill of Rights, the market created the 60 million jobs in one year that the Keynesians believed could only be created with government stimulus. Meanwhile, the tax cuts led to record federal revenue as the authors predicted they would. The Keynesians, however, were unrepentant, blaming the booming economy on luck! Nothing has changed!

The elections of 1946 vindicated the Republican efforts as they took both houses of congress for the first time since 1928! The New Deal officially ended. Of course Truman took all the credit for the amazing economic recovery and  ran in 1948 on class warfare rhetoric and threats of a return the Great Depression if Republicans were allowed to continue cutting taxes. The famous "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline shows how that ended. Quietly, Truman begin implementing Roosevelt's "rights" and we are dealing with the fallout today of a huge entitlement state. Too bad Dewey did not in fact defeat Truman!

FDR Goes to War by Burton & Anita Folsom Part 1

As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to read this latest book by Burton and Anita Fulsom. FDR Goes to War is a good companion book to their previous book New Deal or Raw Deal. While that book deals with the domestic economic policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, this book focuses solely on the other Roosevelt, the war president.

FDR was reelected in 1936 because he used domestic policies that literally bought votes, because he rabidly demonized business as the cause of the Depression, and because of American's growing fears of what was happening in Europe. After the bruising battles of WW1, Americans, quite understandably felt fairly isolationist. In addition, seeing Stalin and Mussolini rise to power with their brutal, fascist regimes caused Americans much trepidation. Could this be America's future? Credit to FDR for not going down either path and keeping America a republic, but at the same time, he had no problem ignoring the Constitution (see: wiretapping). Navigating these confusing and dangerous times, FDR knew takes a strong hand.

Unfortunately, recognizing the isolationist bent of Americans, while Roosevelt knew war was coming, he did not prepare. How could he ask the very companies he tried to punitively tax simply for being successful to now switch to building war materials and help him prepare the country? His extreme spending on New Deal programs had drained the coffers and led to dismaying borrowing. In the butter or guns question, he knew guns would be necessary, but butter got him the votes.

By 1940, Europe was already in the midst of WWII. FDR faced businessman Wendell Willkie for an unprecedented 3rd term. Willkie ran against FDR's devastating attacks on business and his failed economic policies, however FDR outwitted him. In the months running up to the election, FDR made up with business, paying them to ramp up making supplies to help Britain. While still claiming isolationism, he turned his presidency on a dime to get ready for war under the veil of helping our allies. Additionally, the accomplished genius Roosevelt knew how to distribute tax dollars in the most politically beneficial, if not most efficient, manner. His reconciliation with business and the focus on the very popular doctrine of isolationism for us and help for them, sucked the wind out of Willkie's campaign and FDR went onto victory.

After the election, FDR came to terms with how unprepared for war the US was. His New Deal would have to be sacrificed. As Secretary of War Stimson summed it up, "The whole thing is a great clash between two big theories and interests. If you are going to try to go to war, or to prepare for war, in a capitalist country, you have got to let business make money out of the process or business won't work, and there are a great many people in Congress who think that they can tax business out of all proportion and still have businessmen work diligently and quickly." But one thing would not be sacrificed. Despite their direct interference with Roosevelt's attempts to prepare for war, unions continued to strike and amass power. However, after awhile, even Roosevelt lost patience with the strikers and sent the Army into a plant to bust the strike.

Despite statements to the contrary, the U.S. was not ready for war in the Pacific when Japan hit us at Pearl Harbor. The people in charge had underestimated the Japanese capabilities and 3000 men died as a result. It was clear by early December that the Japanese would launch an attack somewhere in the Pacific, most likely in the Philippines or Singapore, yet we had no way to disseminate the growing warnings efficiently. The telegram informing Hawaii of an imminent attack was in a messenger boy's bicycle pouch when the bombs hit. While Roosevelt was looking for a good excuse to get the U.S. into the war, he believed the attack would be minor. The extent of the damage shocked the administration. Churchill could not hide his relief that the United States was finally, officially in the war.

In the initial stages of the war, due to lack of preparedness, the U.S. lost battle after battle. However, FDR controlled the reports getting out to the public with his Office of Censorship. It was almost a year before the tide began to turn and the U.S. began to drive back the Japanese in the Pacific and the Germans in Africa.

On the homefront, FDR implemented price and wage controls. Groceries became rationed goods and counterfeit ration books became the rage. The halls of Washington D.C tightly controlled production of all goods in our country. With raw materials in short supply, goods such as copper and rubber were highly regulated by the federal government. Shortages resulted from the controls put in place by FDR and by the sudden increase in demand for items such as blankets and guns for the military. Uncharacteristically, Roosevelt put the needs of the country above his own famous hard-line politicking. Having to wind down his Depression-era programs like the WPA which had always delivered him votes, cost the Democrats dearly in 1942. He stopped demonizing the business world and offered an olive branch to get their help if he was ever going to win the war. His fear, however, was that if he didn't buy votes and castigate the "fat cats" the Republican would win the Presidency. Believing that the only way for him to be reelected in 1944 required winning the war, Roosevelt drastically shifted his priorities.

"If 1942 had been a year of disorganization and defeat, 1943 became the year that American and its allies began to win the war."The Nazis surrendered in Russia, and in Africa, America finally made progress. In 1941 the race to develop an atomic bomb began. Using the huge stockpile of silver which Roosevelt had bought at above market prices to appease the West to replace the extremely scarce copper, American scientists scrambled to build the necessary equipment and facilities to succeed.

Shortages characterized much of the wartime. The administration set up the Controlled Materials Plan, the War Productions Board and others like it to regulate scarce resources. In addition to price and wage controls, food rations, and usurpation of various industries, jobs began to fall under Roosevelt's control. As is always the case when government steps in to regulate and limit, scarcity resulted. The Democrats took the blame for the deficiencies and Republicans went onto win state elections in 1943, raising hopes of defeating Roosevelt in 1944.

The war would not be won without the enlistment of business. "Many New Dealers were outraged to see billions of dollars thrown at large corporations to build their factories, swamp them with business, guarantee their profits and remove their risks." Roosevelt, too, hated to cater to the very industries he had just so effectively demonized in the previous election, but winning took precedent above all. He actually pressured the Justice department to abandon anti-trust lawsuit against DuPont because the weapons they produced were so desperately needed. The lawsuit could wait until after the war. In fact, Roosevelt actually  encouraged businesses to collude in order to most effectively innovate and create the materials needed. Principles fell when a war/reelection hung in the balance. Unleashed from the suffocating New Deal policies, business produced amazing results. In their respective roles in the war efforts, future presidents Eisenhower and Truman both recognized that had New Deal regulations stayed in place, America would have either lost the war or seen victory far delayed. "The war business - with its subsidized factories, cost-plus contracts, and guaranteed markets - was the only game entrepreneurs could play in the United States in the 1940s. Thus, the played it. Even with the hight tax rates, it was a better game than FDR had offered them in the 1930s - when he denounced them as 'economic royalists' and created perpetual uncertainty." Is it any wonder the Depression lasted 10 years?

After America by Mark Steyn

After America by Mark Steyn is another one of in a long series of books detailing America's decline and looming destruction. I loved it! It's the lighter, wittier version of Ameritopia. If you only read one, figure out if you want the philosophical underpinnings of America explained or if you want the hyperbolic wit from a foreigner's perspective. I think they make a great set.

He begins by laying out the fact that we are broke. Already. Not some looming future brokeness or possibility of default, but actually, factually, broke. He uses a metaphor from Daniel to say that after partying too hard, the writing is already on the wall. Stating facts and figures to show how the interest on the national debt will be our undoing, Steyn gives the alarming fact that by 2020, only 8 short years away, the interest on the debt will consume 15-20% of federal revenues up from 9% today. Unsustainable.  He sums up the depressing prologue with a great quote from economist Herbert Stein, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." That stop will be painful, but it is inevitable. We WILL stop borrowing and spending one way or another.

Steyn starts off right away in Chapter One stating that we are in fact already in decline. We are not going to decline or face the possibility of decline, we are in decline, but just don't realize it yet. He brings up things like our lack of innovation. A visitor from 1880 would be amazed to see the technology of 1950, but perplexed to see the lack of forward movement between then and now. In fact, Steyn quotes a professor stating that he believes the reason we haven't returned to the moon is because we can't! We have lost our ability to innovate. We have been overwhelmed by bureaucracy that has frozen all technical creativity in its stifling labyrinth of rules. See: 911 memorial.

In our decline, we have become a nation of children, wholly dependent on a benevolent government. Tocqueville prophesies all too well what kind of a despot could come to rule in a democracy like America. "...it seeks,... to keep [the citizens] irrevocably fixed in childhood... it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their needs, guides them in their principal affairs... The sovereign extends its arms about the society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of petty regulations - complicated, minute, and uniform - through which even the most original minds and the most vigorous should know not how to make their way... it does not break wills; it softens them, bends them, and directs them... it does not tyrannize, it gets in the way... and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd." I include such a long quote because no one could say it more perfectly. Tocqueville so presciently saw the danger of a republic, we elect our own despots and they lull us to sleep. Those few who still work and contribute to society do so only to provide for the government's favored classes. It's called "fairness."

Steyn compares us to Greece, the only difference being that they are further along on the path to ruin than we are. They have already run out of people to stick the bill for their welfare state to. And like them, we are disregarding the signs of our decline. The generous collectivism of big government makes the individuals more selfish. Who will give up the goodies for something so archaic as the good of the country? He believes that "Europe's economic crisis is a mere symptom of its existential crisis: What is life for? What gives it meaning? Post-Christian, post-nationalist, post-modern Europe has no answer to that question, and so it has 30-year-old students and 50-year-old retirees, and wonders why the small band of workers in between them can't make the math add up." The math doesn't add up over here either!

Using H.G. Wells book, The Time Machine, as a prophetic novel of modern America, Steyn begins to show how we have become divided onto two groups - the small, soft, passive, genderless elites, called Eloi, and the more dark, feral underclass, the Morlocks. Our modern Eloi have transferred large amounts of money to the unproductive underclass as a way to avoid thinking about them. We have become rich enough to be stupid. We are rich enough to enjoy the benefits of property while decrying the very things that make prosperity possible. We like our nice cars but distain the oil that powers them. We are rich enough to elect Barack Obama on a such an ephemeral plan of hope and change, who believes, "We are the ones we've been waiting for." We feel good. We don't have to do good. We don't have to grow up. The embodiment of the Eloi that Wells describes is Oscar van den Boogaard, the Dutch gay humanist. Upon seeing the decay of Europe and the rapid Islamization of the Continent, he states, "I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it." Where are the men? Where are those who would fight this decline? They have become the Eloi. Stupidity has a price to be paid eventually. And the jig is up.

Great Empires decline. Britain did. We are following in her path. Global dominance transferred rather peacefully from Britain to her offspring across the Atlantic. They have in fact sunk so low as to seem to have no point whatsoever in global affairs. Steyn states, "American exceptionalism would have to be awfully exceptional to suffer similar expansion of government and not witness, in enough of the populace, the same descent into dependency and depravity." We are following Britain "into the dank pit of transgenerational dependency, a failed education system, and unsustainable entitlements, even as it makes less and less and mortgages its future to its rivals for cheap Chinese trinkets, most Americans assume that simply because they're American they're insulated from the consequences." To have been born an American was to win the lottery of life. It will not always be so.

"As disastrous as the squandering of America's money as been, the squandering of its human capital has been worse." We are failing in more ways than just economically. Jobs and industries are disappearing. Neighborhood are in decay. Education is in the toilet. See: Detroit. We did this to ourselves. We'd like to believe that if we just get the economy under control we'd be fine. Representative Mike Pence debunks this notion. "To those who say we should simply focus on fiscal issues, I say you would not be able to print enough money in a thousand years to pay for the government you would need if the traditional family collapses." Currently the world is dividing into two extremes: the advanced world increasingly centralized where every aspect of life is micro-managed, and the reprimitivizing world. As the book, The Suicide of Reason makes clear, tribalism will defeat the civilized world in the end. We have sown the seeds of our own destruction in our desire for multiculturalism and tolerance.

With the election of Obama, America decided to abdicate our position as a global super power and "city on a hill" for other nations to emulate. "Today we have post-modern, post-great-power rivalry, in which America envies the way the beneficiaries of its post-war largesse have been able to opt out of the great game entirely." We'd like to vote ourselves off the island and be just like everyone else. We begin this process by abandoning our commitment to Israel. "But in leaving Israel to its fate we have told our enemies something elemental and devastating about the will of a decaying West, and of the supposed global superpower." As our foes around the world recognize our decay, we will become the New Jerusalem and finally understand what it means to be the global target of destruction.

Steyn spends an entire chapter describing America after the fall through a letter from the future. Let's just say, it isn't pretty. America has devolved into a balkanized shell of its former self.

Finally he sums up our situation with a chapter entitled, "The Hope of Audacity." We desperately need to become the type of people who make America the type of place where the right thing to do is politically profitable. Remember we did this to ourselves. We cannot blame others for an environment we created that makes it politically expedient to do the wrong thing.

So, what's to be done?

De-Centralize: or as Mark Steyn puts it, "Screw the state. Let's do it ourselves."
De-Governmentalize
De-Regulate
De-Monopolize
De-Complicate
De-Credentialize
Dis-Entitle
De-Normalize
Do get out into the real world and see how reality works.

Finally, my favorite - Move to New Hampshire with the Free State Project! The motto in New Hampshire is "Live Free or Die." It sounds like a battle cry. "We'll win this thing or die trying.... But in fact, it's something far less dramatic. It's a bald statement of the reality of our lives in the prosperous West. You can live as free men, but if you choose not to, our society will surely die."

Live free or die.

Ameritopia by Mark Levin con't

Sixty years later, Alexis de Tocqueville, the French thinker and philosopher, visited America to report on our experiment. He found the American people reveling in their freedom, enjoying their democracy, and taking advantage of a system that allowed upward mobility. Americans believed strongly in the sovereignty of the people, and this belief was deep-rooted and widespread. No one was going to dictate to the very independent minded American people.

Yet Tocqueville recognized a very real threat lurking in the future, the desire for egalitarianism. This abandonment of liberty as the chief ideal and a desire for equality of outcome instead seems to be at the core of man as he looks jealously at the wealthier citizen. Tocqueville was heartened by the lack of desire for equality of outcome among Americans. Liberty remained their chief desire and Americans celebrated wealth as an end to be admired and sought after by every citizen. Tocqueville did not find an America of envious, power-hungry people, but rather a country of freedom-loving, self-governing people who would not abide a government overstepping its bounds in the name of equality.

Tocqueville believed America's free market provided the greatest opportunity anywhere on earth to become prosperous. He realized that American knew their system led to wide disparities in wealth, yet Americans felt that as long as everyone had an equal shot, there was no need to plunder the wealthy. Most Americans led middle-class lives, neither obsessing over wealth nor envying the more prosperous citizens. He saw that the danger democracies faced came in a form of the soft-tyranny of a government inserting itself to "help" the less fortunate. While he could not name the menace he feared, Plato had already identified it - Utopia. Democracies are especially vulnerable to this beast because even when the government controls every aspect of the citizen's life in its never-ending reach for Utopia, the people are lulled into a dull complacency with the belief that they still maintain sovereignty. In short as government interferes more and more, we cannot be trusted pick the type of light bulb to use, but we can vote for our leaders so we believe we are still in charge.

Fast-forwarding to modern times, it is clear we have succumbed to the beast. While our Founders argued among themselves about the best way to limit a government that would most naturally become tyrannical, modern Americans argue about how much bigger the government can get. The anti-Federalist believed the Constitution would not be strong enough to contain power-mad men. They were right.

Our downhill journey began with Woodrow Wilson, the Princeton University president and President of the United States in 1913. He despised the idea of limited government as it did not allow him to do all he wanted to do. Our current President mirrors Wilson in this belief as he rails against a Constitution limiting how much he can accomplish. Wilson believed the government to be alive and limiting it or dividing its power would only kill or weaken it. Wilson denigrated Montesquieu's well-thought out insights and valued Hobbes' Leviathan instead. He believed with Hobbes that since man had given up his power to the government, the government was right in all it did. The Constitution had created an inefficient government where someone as wise and all-knowing as Wilson was limited in how fast and how widespread he could change the country into his version of Utopia. Wilson turned the whole idea of Americanism on its head, creating a living, breathing Constitution which could mean whatever he wanted it to mean. Unfortunately as the Founders would agree, a living, breathing Constitution is nothing short of a living, breathing tyrant.

FDR took Wilson's ideas as a blueprint for his own administration. He, too, recognized that the government moved too slowly for his liking and was appalled by the lack of progress he saw. He believed it was the utopians who sought to take our country into a glorious future and the conservatives who fought to hold it back. He rejected the idea of rights given by a Creator and substituted them with government-given rights to things like a house, a job, healthcare, education, and economic security. (This new Bill of Rights, proposed in 1944, strangely mirrored the one proposed by Marx in the Communist Manifesto.) The difference between the view of "rights" that the Founders held and FDR's is that rights given by God cannot be taken away, except by God, and come at no one else's expense. FDR's rights all had a price tag to be paid by fellow citizens. Government-given rights can be stripped away by that same government when it becomes politically expedient, but not without first throwing the populace into crippling dependency. Government, in FDR's view, existed not to protect private property as the Founders believed, but existed to redistribute it. Of course, over time, nothing will be left to distribute by even the most intellectual of leaders.

Today, we have arrived at the dangerous blend of Utopia and Americanism. Levin calls it Ameritopia. We have let the wolf in the gate by allowing our government to take more and more power. Yet we are lulled into complacency since we are still able to vote. In truth, we are only able to vote for which despot we want in office. We have surrendered our liberty for the false promise of perfection. There is no such thing. Man is fallen and society is not perfectible. No mastermind will ever accomplish the goals of the utopians. It is simply not possible for any one man or group of man to have all the knowledges of millions of Americans making decisions in their own best interest. Yet we have given up more and more of our freedom to choose for the ever-illusive perfect world.

Levin states, "The Founders would be appalled at the nature of the federal government's transmutation and the squandering of the American legacy. The federal government has become the nation's largest creditor, debtor, lender, employer, consumer, contractor, grantor, property owner, tenant, insurer, health-care provider and pension guarantor. Its size and reach are vast. Its interventions are illimitable." Levin believes the American character is strong enough to return to our true values. He hopes it is not too late to resist the appeal of radical egalitarianism in exchange for liberty.

He's wrong. It is too late. America as the Founders envisioned it, has failed.

Ameritopia by Mark Levin

I don't think another book has depressed me so much as Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America by Mark Levin, and I am including Who Killed the Constitution and The Suicide of Reason.

Levin begins by reviewing the early purveyors of Utopia and the subsequent revelation that nothing short of totalitarianism would result. He begins with Plato's Republic. Plato describes an Ideal City run by Philosopher Kings. The individual is therefore subservient to the all-knowing and wise state. In his writings, Plato "sought to avoid the disintegration of society and the onset of tyranny but his solution was a totalitarian City destructive of human nature." Traces of Plato's Republic are to be found in subsequent Utopian ideologies.

Next up for discussion is Thomas More's Utopia. He describes a fictional peninsula, cut off from the mainland by a trench and turned into an island, in order to provide the kind of isolation needed for any Utopia to exist. The good King Utopus has segmented his society into cities and neighborhoods each a carbon copy of the other. Citizens are forcibly moved when the population grows too large. All jobs are regulated and assigned.  A small number of people are allowed to hold powerful positions and all decisions are made by them. Every element of daily life is strictly regimented. While well-intentioned and designed to end the more troubling aspects of a free society, More would destroy individual sovereignty and free will and create a tyrannical society.

Hobbes's Leviathan is the next classical work described. Believing that the natural state of man was fear, anxiety, and conflict, Hobbes felt man unable to govern himself. Therefore, a single person or assembly of men must rule over them. Although he sees man as fallen and sinful, somehow he believes a pure ruler(s) can rise and lead them. He believed everyone would willingly transfer all rights to the Sovereign in exchange for protection from the terror of the natural state. Since the Sovereign would be chosen by the people, whatever he did would be definitionally as a representative of the people. No one could disagree with or call anything unjust done by the Sovereign because he would be in effect condemning himself. This all-powerful government, called Leviathan by Hobbes, offers the better of a (false) choice between despotism or anarchy, as man cannot be trusted to govern himself.

Marx and Engels picked up on the Utopian theme in their Communist Manifesto. They believed all the disfunction of society begins in the idea of private property. All material wealth must be eliminated and all property held by the people in common. Knowing this would be an uphill struggle to get people to accept the loss of property, they advocated the complete destruction of all of society - the family, religion, traditions, customs, institutions, eternal truths - and replacing it with Communist indoctrination. Once the people abolished all remnants of the flawed bourgeoisie society, the state would simply fade away as each member lived in perfect harmony with each other. In reality, this utopian ideal worked out somewhat differently. Rather, "the entire society must be brought down to its lowest level. Individual sovereignty must be wrung from the human character; everyone becomes a slave to the state." The pursuit of perfect egalitarianism is merciless and relentless.

After reviewing the literature by those promulgating Utopia, Levin turns to the authors that influenced the Founding Fathers of America in their creation of our country. John Locke sought to counter Hobbes's view of the natural state of man and explored humanity's true nature. Without a true understanding of the human condition, all systems of government are destined to fail. In The Second Treatise of Government, Locke introduces the idea of humans having God-given inalienable rights, and therefore being equal amongst each other and before God, while recognizing unequal outcomes will surely result. He believed that men would generally work together for the common good in the state of nature. It was only when an individual went outside the law of nature and violated one's God-given rights that war and conflict resulted. Government would be created in order to clearly define the standing rules to live by and enforce them in a fair and impartial manner.

Locke also delved deeply into the matter of private property. Believing the earth and all that is in it to be a gift from God, which no man owns, he begins by defining our most basic possession as our own labor. However, once labor has been joined to creation, the man now owns that which he labored over. While the earth is held in common, a farmer my rightfully claim the crops he grew from the earth and the land he tilled as a result of the labor he put into it. Locke believes there will always be enough natural resources and therefore man will never run out of areas to claim as private property once he has invested his labor into it. This labor not only benefits the man, but all of society seeing as he has now improved what was once common. Also, no man may make a claim upon another's property as it rightly belongs to the one who improved it. In addition, every man is free to labor and so gain his own private property. Private property is therefore inextricably linked with liberty, and a government exists to protect both.

Locke argued for a representative, but limited government. He knew his history too well and could see that power is self-perpetuating and eventually destroys liberty. He argued first for a Legislature to create impartial laws, then for an Executive to enforce those laws, and finally for an indifferent Judiciary to adjudicate matters that should arise. However, even a representative government with three branches dividing power can become despotic should it cease to protect private property. In such cases, under the most extreme of cases, the government loses its legitimacy and so must be overturned. Obviously, Locke had a tremendous influence on the Founders, who would have found the Utopian totalitarian models repugnant and against the very nature of man.

A second philosopher to greatly influence the founding ideals of America was Charles de Montesquieu. He also wrote at length about the form of government and the nature of man in The Spirit of the Laws. Montesquieu however, did not have to imagine the natural state of man, he had only to look to the American colonies. Where very little government existed, Americans had formed civil societies and feeling very vulnerable alone on the frontier, men joined together for mutual benefits and protection. Montesquieu, too, argued for a representative, impartial government, but warned of the dangers of desiring egalitarianism, for he knew it would lead to despotism. He observed, "democracy has to avoid two excesses: the spirit of inequality, which leads it to aristocracy,... and the spirit of extreme equality, which leads it to... despotism." He believed in a Constitution that governs the governors. He knew too well the tendency throughout human history toward tyranny and believed that without strong checks on the government, despotism would always result. Governments governed best that listened to their people and worked with the will of the people rather than against it. Changes should be implemented after first persuading the people of its necessity, and above all, the people should be largely left alone to solve problems on their own and with their own good sense. He believed therefore that republics needed to be physically small in order to best represent their people and promote the most liberty.

Montesquieu influenced the Founding Fathers in obvious ways. From him we get the idea of separation of powers so as not to concentrate too much power in a single entity. He believed in enumerated powers to further limit the government and its overreach. Fearing that this would not be enough, the Founders took the idea of Federalism from Montesquieu furthering dividing the Federal Government's power by making the states share in the power of governing. This was a concession to Montesquieu's belief that republics work best in limited geographical areas so that the leaders could be more in tune with the people. Under our Constitution, the states would retain most of the areas of power which would impact everyday life for most citizens. The commerce clause allowing Congress to regulate interstate commerce grew out of Montesquieu's beliefs about the importance of commerce to the health of a nation. States were imposing tariffs and taxes on goods that passed state lines, causing inefficiencies in the market. Congress was allowed this important power to create a better flow of goods within the United States. Montesquieu has been labeled the philosopher most quoted by the Founders.

So how are we doing? Have we upheld the values the Founding Fathers so painstakingly research and debated? Have we avoided the pitfalls they worried about and kept the government in check and free of despotism?  That's the next post!

1421 by Gavin Menzies

1421: The Year China Discovered America by Gavin Menzies tells the fascinating tale of a voyage all but lost to history. Using his skills as a sailor, and combining impressive detective skills, Menzies tracks down the voyages of four great Chinese fleets given the mission to "proceed all the way to the end of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas."

Menzies begins with the discovery of a Venetian map dated 1424 with what appears to be Caribbean islands, yet it would be another 7 decades before history records the first European "discovering" these lands. His curiosity is greatly aroused and he begins his extensive search for how this information came to be known. He subsequently finds other maps, carried by these famous European explorers with the lands they are about to "discover" already on them! His initial research leads him to China as the only possible power on earth at the time with the wherewithal to circumnavigate the globe.

Menzies uncovers a story of the great emperor Zhu Di who, after securing his throne in China sets out to bring the whole world in subjugation. While his ships journeyed to the great unknown, Zhu Di was disgraced and died. China closed to the outside world and destroyed all records of the voyages. With no official records to consult, Menzies was left with fragments of documents and maps with lands that should not be on them.

Using the fact that the square-sailed ships would have had to travel with the wind, and his knowledge of the tides and trade winds, Menzies recreates the journeys of the four fleets. Along the way, he discovers fascinating evidence that the Chinese did in fact reach the "New World" long before Columbus ever stepped foot in a ship. Evidence includes native tales told to the Spaniards and Portuguese of previous visitors dressed and acting like medieval Chinese, statues and buildings built in the Chinese style in existence before the Europeans arrived, Chinese technological breakthrough known to the American natives at the time the European explorers arrived, and most fascinating of all, traces of Chinese DNA found in the natives of the Americas. One memorable snippet includes the journal of a sailor sailing with Magellan who claims the famous discoverer of the Straits that bear his name seemed to know exactly where the straits would be found. The seaman calls it a miracle, but Menzies attributes it to a map Magellan must have had in his possession made with Chinese knowledge. These "treasure maps" would have been held in the highest of secrecy knowing their value to competing nations was enormous!

Since his book was published, Menzies has uncovered more corroborating evidence as well as scholars with the same thesis. The footnotes and the accompanying website provide overwhelming proof that it was in fact the Chinese, not our vaunted European Explorers who deserve the credit for sailing into the great unknown, charting the lands beyond the sea, and, for a very few, living to tell about it.

The Touch by Randall Wallace

The Touch by Randall Wallace is a rare trip for me into the world of fiction. I was inspired to check it out after hearing the author on the radio discussing this book as well as his involvement in Secretariat and Braveheart. With such a stunning background, I knew I would not be disappointed.

Unfortunately, it doesn't really live up to the other two projects. While it's enjoyable and a relatively easy read, the story seemed somewhat predictable. Maybe it's the fact that I haven't been exposing myself to fiction for so long that I've become used to each non-fiction page revealing a new truth. Maybe it was just predictable.

Wallace tells the story of a gifted surgeon who abandons his gift after losing his most important patient. Since he  never again wants to experience the disillusionment, he restricts himself to teaching and research. An research opportunity of a lifetime is offered to him. The book tells of his journey through the process of redemption. It's uplifting and well written. I did enjoy it and would recommend it.

I'm just not gushing about it...