The Middle is Always Evil

Ayn Rand once wrote:

“The basic need of the second-hander is to secure his ties with men in order to be fed. He places relations first. He declares that man exists in order to serve others. He preaches altruism.”

With the possibility of the death of its host looming, the UAW, the ultimate parasite, pulls out all the stops in an attempt to ensure that it can barely remain afloat for a little while longer. Guilt trips, class-warfare, populism. You name it, they’ll do it. Survival at any price.

“Don’t let us down!”

Hat Tip: Hot Air

Straight from the horse’s mouth:

President Obama can define his legacy in the first 100 days by laying the groundwork for a global tax on carbon dioxide emissions that is effective, efficient, equitable and enforceable. An effective, harmonized tax on C02 emissions must stabilize the growth of atmospheric concentrations of GHGs by no later than 2020. The tax must also be adjusted annually, by a global body, according to this objective.

I’m glad that I did not misunderstand Mr. Nader; for a moment I was concerned that he wanted the United States government to tax carbon emissions– I can take a small solace in knowing that under his plan, CO2 usage will be taxed by a foreign body that does not represent me. But don’t worry! You’ve heard of it; its called the United Nations! Who ever heard of “No Taxation Without Representation,” anyway?

Let’s get specific. What are your plans?

The most efficient way to apply a carbon tax is at a relatively small number of major carbon bottlenecks, which cover the lion’s share of GHGs. The key points where flows of carbon are the most concentrated include: trunk pipelines for gas, refineries for oil, railroad heads for coal, liquid natural gas (LNG) terminals, cement, steel, aluminum and GHG-intensive chemical plants.

I’m not entirely sure, but what Nader is asking for here might be entirely without precedent. Nader is seriously suggesting that the United Nations send an army of bureaucrats into the United States. These men will busy themselves measuring the emissions of all of the above industries. They will then convene, most likely in secret, to decide exactly how high a tax they will impose on each industry, a figure which will be based on how much said industry has produced. This is something that Nader wants done every year.

In case you’re wondering what the goal of such a plan could possibly be, here’s this:

Nader’s final sentence:

If President Obama hits the ground running fast in the direction of a global carbon tax, he can usher in a new dawn that might finally make peace between man and climate.

Nader betrays himself. He views man and the environment in the same way that Karl Marx viewed the bourgeois and the proletariat. Oppressor, oppressed. There is nothing new about the environmentalist movement. Yesterday it was a Class Revolution, today it is the Green Revolution.

This is the new Marxism. These are the new Marxists.

You may have read my last post and– in the event that you are a Libertarian– gotten the idea that Sharia courts in the UK are acceptable because in any dispute settled by such courts, both parties are consenting to give it the power to arbitrate their case. From the Times Online article:

“The rulings of arbitration tribunals are binding in law, provided that both parties in the dispute agree to give it the power to rule on their case.”

So what if it is consensual?

I could make the argument that there is a strong possibility that men will force their wives to “consent” to a court more lenient to, say… Domestic violence. I could make the argument that if a man is beating his wife for failing to wear a scarf, it would not be very much of a stretch for him to force her to attend a particular court with him. I could make these arguments, but I will not. The proper question to ask about the Sharia court– or about anything, for that matter– is not: is it consented to or not, but rather: is it moral or immoral?

Yes, in order for a British Sharia court to hold any weight, it must be consented to by the parties in question, but this is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether or not they are moral institutions. As governmental bodies, do Sharia courts faithfully uphold man’s right to life, liberty and property? Are you muttering that it does not matter if man’s rights are protected, so long as everyone involved consents to their chains? If so, you are simultaneously holding the following two positions:

• That you believe the moral premises of the Sharia courts to be evil and in opposition to the fundamental rights of man, and:
• That the British government, an institution whose sole purpose is the protection of individual liberty, should enforce said evil.

You are giving your moral sanction to that which you know to be evil.

It does not matter that the slaves consent to their chains; what matters is that you believe that they should be chained by the very institution set up to protect them.

The fundamental error here is the belief that any action is permissible, so long as all parties involved consent to it. This is a position commonly held by Libertarians. While it is true that consent is a necessary requirement for morality, it is not the only requirement; it is not a proper standard by which to judge the morality of an action.

When a man chooses to abuse drugs or alcohol, he makes a conscious choice to do so, a choice that he felt was (out of all of his options) the best one for him at the time, given the context of his knowledge. It was an action that he consented to, that he wanted for himself, otherwise he would not have taken it. All of this is necessarily true about this man, but it doesn’t change the fact that it was the wrong choice. Just because he consented to it does not mean he was making the right decision about his life.

Consent as a moral standard is a necessary result of Libertarianism because it espouses no moral philosophy at all; it is simply the belief that man may do as he pleases, so long as he does not initiate the use of force against others. While this is fine as a political philosophy, it is morally non-prescriptive; it gives no answer to the question: How should I behave? The inevitable result of Libertarianism’s non-answer to this crucial question is an anything-goes mentality toward life, which is so destructive because in life, anything does not go. As Ayn Rand wrote,

Just as man is free to attempt to survive by any random means, as a parasite, a moocher or a looter, but not free to succeed at it beyond the range of the moment—so he is free to seek his happiness in any irrational fraud, any whim, any delusion, any mindless escape from reality, but not free to succeed at it beyond the range of the moment nor to escape the consequences. (Italics mine)

There was once a time when I thought I’d never understand why Ayn Rand once said that she would rather be a Marxist than a Libertarian; I now understand her completely.

The British government has officially adopted sharia law. Special “Sharia courts” have been set up that have the authority to arbitrate among Muslims according to Muslim law and tradition; the rulings of these courts carry the full weight of British law, and are enforced by the British government. The courts can rule on any range of civil issues, from financial disputes to divorce and domestic violence; I find this to be laughably absurd.

In order for a government to work properly and efficiently, it must govern according to an objective, impartial standard to which all people must adhere with equal consideration; such a standard is commonly referred to as the law. When two governmental bodies operate under different standards, there is a problem of competing governments, which inevitably results in mobbery and thugs with guns ruling hand over fist. What muddles this particular issue so much is that in this case, the conflicting parties are courts sanctioned by the same government. How can one government faithfully execute the laws according to two different standards, two different value-systems? It cannot. To put it simply: “No man can serve two masters.” Mark my words: this flawed system will prove to be a problem for the organs of the British government in the near future; worries over a “parallel legal system” seem small when the potential damage of this move is fully considered.

It must be noted, however, that currently, the Sharia courts are not mandatory for anyone; Muslims who wish to live under normal, British Common Law are free to do so. The choice is theirs. But what is to say that a Muslim man will not force his wife to attend Sharia court, where the beatings he gave her are sanctioned, or are at least met with a much less severe penalty than that of the normal courts of England? In divorce cases, like all others, Sharia law favors men, who are usually permitted retain all of their assets, in addition to some of their wife’s. The British government’s sanction of this kind of tribunal is disturbing, and it sets a dangerous precedent.

What has really happened here is the British have ceded Her Majesty’s Government to Islamic Totalitarians, people (men, mostly) who feel that it is their duty to Allah to convert the entire world to Islam, by force if necessary. But there are two kinds of Islamic Totalitarians; there are those that we see (the gentlemen in masks on television, who fire AK47’s into the air on the streets of Pakistan), and there are those who choose to remain largely unseen. These men do not wear masks or carry AK47’s, they wear suits, and they carry briefcases. They talk about Muslim discrimination, and demand special treatment and rights because of their religion; they talk about benefiting British society as a whole, “through the promotion of Islam and Islamic values,” a quote I pulled off of The Islamic Society of Britain’s website. Think long and hard about what is meant by “Islamic values,” and you will realize that it is men such as this that we should be paying attention to, with equal if not greater intensity than the men with the guns.

We have already seen Muslims attempt to use the force of government to restrict the freedom of speech of individuals in the West. Now the situation has become more severe; a dangerous precedent has been set by the British government, one that cannot go unchallenged here in the United States.

My father has done quite well for himself in his life, the majority of which he has spent working. He started his own plumbing company, which is now one of the most successful on the northshore of Chicago; he did all of this himself. I have a lot of admiration for him.

Today, I had a rare conversation with my father. We often talk about politics, since he is the more conservative of my parents, and therefore has more in common with me; but our talk is usually filled with levity– it never takes on a serious tone. Today was different.

I asked my father how much money he makes a year. I thought I had a pretty good idea, but I wanted to be sure. The number that he gave me seemed very low– much lower than I thought, considering my family’s lifestyle. I asked my him if he was sure about the figure he gave me, and he started to talk to me about tax deductions; thats when I realized why the number seemed so low to me– he wasn’t talking about how much money he made each year, he was talking about how much he made after taxes. I asked him how much he really made each year.

“Why does that matter?” He asked.

It was at that moment, looking into my father’s tired eyes, that I realized that when the government takes money from him, it takes so much more than just monetary wealth– it takes a piece of my father’s pride; it robs him of the joy that comes from the achievement of a value. It takes a piece of my father’s spirit.

Just to come to the understanding that my father doesn’t look at how much money he earns each year in terms of how much wealth he was able to create, but rather– of what tax bracket he belongs in, to really understand the full implication of that fact– it truly saddens me.

And to come home and to talk to these people on the internet who are my age, who think they know everything, who talk about how much they are inspired by Barack Obama’s plan for “social justice,” who talk about how they find socialism “interesting,” who speak voluminously about their love for humanity…

I just think about looking into my father’s eyes in that moment.

Last night, the two remaining contenders for the presidency took the stage together for the first time in the election cycle. The event, as you probably know, was held at Saddleback Chruch in Lake Forest, California. All in all, this event showed us two things:

• Any casual observer learned (and probably already knows) that Barack Obama cannot preform well off-the-cuff, and that John McCain can; this means the debates between these two are going to be interesting, and that this election may be a lot closer than many of us previously thought.
• We also learned that both candidates despise their own happiness– or at least consider it something to feel guilty for, to try to hide from the public.

Case in point: when asked what his greatest moral failure was, Senator Obama mumbled something about drug use, but then went on to say that it was a “fundamental selfishness”

I am proud to say that what Barack Obama lists as his greatest moral failure is the thing that I would consider to be the greatest moral achievement a person could aspire to: selfishness.

When Pastor Rick Warren asked McCain why he wanted to be president, he said that he wanted to,

“inspire a generation of Americans to serve a cause greater than their self interest.”

For all their disagreements (and agreements) on foreign and domestic policy, these two candidates sure do come down together on the issue of whether or not Americans have the right to live for their own sake: the answer, firmly, emphatically, is: no.

John McCain is not the first politician that has called for a generation to bow to a cause greater than themselves; watch the clip. Barack Obama is not the first politician to call for a country that– like in the clip above– “knows no class distinction;” This is not a Change I can believe in– in fact, its not a change at all. Its been done before.

You see, ladies and gentlemen, the actors change, but the course of history stays the same.

John McCain wants you to serve your country; Barack Obama wants you to serve, not just your country, but an amorphous “others.” But what these men forget– or rather, what they do not forget– but instead, what you forget is that where there is a servant, there is a master, ladies and gentlemen.

And don’t comment saying that its inappropriate for me to compare modern day political figures to Adolf Hitler, because it isn’t; watch the video.

Besides, that’s just what I do: I compare people to Hitler.

Dear Exxon Mobil Executives,

Yesterday, you made public your quarterly earnings, setting a record for the biggest profit in the history of the United States: 11.68 billion billion dollars. Over the next few weeks (and quite possibly over the next few years), you should expect to get a lot of flak from Washington, as well as the American public, about how you have made an “unfair profit;” they’ll tell you that the money that you’ve made rightfully belongs to somebody else. Just today, Barack Obama has said that he thinks your profits should be divided up and given to the American public– but did they earn those profits? No!

This is the United States of America, the greatest country in the history of civilized men. Here, each man is entitled to the sweat of his own brow, to the products of his labor. I am proud to live in a country where a corporation has earned as much as yours has; I consider it a great honor. Gentlemen, when the entire country comes to you demanding a share of your wealth, do not capitulate. Do not give in to their threats, or their corrupt moral code that demands that you do. Do not accept guilt for living on this earth, or the way that you have chosen to do so. Do not listen to them.

And when you are called before Congress to testify for your crimes against the American public, this is what you tell them:

I work for nothing but my own profit – which I make by selling a product they need to men who are willing and able to buy it. I do not produce it for their benefit at the expense of mine, and they do not buy it for my benefit at the expense of theirs; I do not sacrifice my interests to them nor do they sacrifice theirs to me; we deal as equals by mutual consent to mutual advantage – and I am proud of every penny that I have earned in this manner. I am rich and I am proud of every penny I own. I made my money by my own effort, in free exchange and through the voluntary consent of every man I dealt with – voluntary consent of those who employed me when I started, the voluntary consent of those who work for me now, the voluntary consent of those who buy my product. I shall answer all the questions you are afraid to ask me openly. Do I wish to pay my workers more than their services are worth to me? I do not. Do I wish to sell my product for less than my customers are willing to pay me? I do not. Do I wish to sell it at a loss or give it away? I do not. If this is evil, do whatever you please about me, according to whatever standards you hold. These are mine. I am earning my own living, as every honest man must. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact of my own existence and the fact that I must work in order to support it. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact that I am able to do it better than most people – the fact that my work is of greater value than the work of my neighbours and that more men are willing to pay me. I refuse to apologise for my ability – I refuse to apologise for my success – I refuse to apologise for my money. If this is evil, make the most of it. If this is what the public finds harmful to its interests, let the public destroy me. This is my code – and I will accept no other. I could say to you that I have done more good for my fellow men than you can ever hope to accomplish – but I will not say it, because I do not seek the good of others as a sanction for my right to exist, nor do I seek the good of others as a sanction for my right to exist, nor do I recognise the good of others as a justification for their seizure of my property or their destruction of my life. I will not say that the good of others was the purpose of my work – my own good was my purpose, and I despise the man who surrenders his. I could say to you that you do not serve the public good – that nobody’s good can be achieved at the price of human sacrifices – that when you violate the rights of one man, you have violated the right of all, and a public of rightless creatures is doomed to destruction. I could say to you that you will and can achieve nothing but universal devastation – as any looter must, when he runs out of victims. I could say it, but I won’t. It is not your particular policy that I challenge, but your moral premise. If it were true that men could achieve their good by means of turning some men into sacrificial animals, and I were asked to immolate myself for the sake of creatures who wanted to survive at the price of my blood, if I were asked to serve the interests of society apart from, above and against my own – I would refuse. I would reject it as the most contemptible evil, I would fight it with every power I possess, I would fight the whole of mankind, if one minute were all I could last before I were murdered, I would fight in the full confidence of the justice of my battle and of a living being’s right to exist. Let there be no misunderstanding about me. If it is now the belief of my fellow men, who call themselves the public, that their good requires victims, then I say: The public good be damned, I will have no part of it!”

I am proud of what you Gentlemen have achieved, not because of the “public service” that you have provided, but because of the virtue that it requires to achieve it. You are heroes; do not give in.

Since starting this blog, I’ve blogged about environmentalism a little more than I’d like to.

There are other issues out there; issues that are more pressing, that affect our country and our world much more directly– like Iran’s nuclear program, or the fact that they’ve been launching test missiles capable of striking Israel. But so often I choose to write about the Environmentalist Movement over other things for a very specific reason, which is:

The choice to accept environmentalism or not is the choice between industry and inactivity, civilization and primitivism, comfortability and suffering; it is the choice between life and death. Many may disagree with this claim, citing the good intentions of the environmentalists: taking care of the earth couldn’t be bad, could it? After all, not all environmentalists are nut jobs like Eric Pianka, a noted ecologist who wants to kill off 90% of human life; most are in fact quite moderate, and simply believe that humans have a responsibility to look after the earth.

Such people are not evil, but they are misguided. They accept the two basic premises of environmentalism: that the environment is good because it is the environment, and that the smallest human interference in the natural ecological structure is a desirable goal. The logical conclusion of these premises, of course, is that human activity must be restricted as much as possible in order to prevent such interference. If you accept these premises, chances are good that you would not be in favor of a mass culling of the human population. The danger is that men like Pianka also accept them, and they desire to see their logical ends carried out. Since you’ve already accepted their premises, they can use the power of guilt to get you to accept a gradually more oppressive environmental policy. Case in point:

Yesterday, the leaders at the G8 Summit agreed to cut their countries’ carbon emissions by 50% by 2050, a radically anti-industrial move that will dismember the economy and stunt the standard of living for the global population. No one can claim that such an act was motivated by anything other than a hatred for mankind. Last week, a measure was put up for conideration in the British Parliament that would institute a personal cap-and-trade policy for every resident of England. Was this act considered because its proponents love the earth, or because they hate humanity? You be the judge.

With the basic premises of environmentalism so common today, it won’t be long before such cap-and-trade proposals are made in the United States. Do you really believe that such a measure would be beyond the scope of a Barack Obama environmental policy? Maybe not now, but what about four years from now? This is why the environmentalism issue is so important to me.

But there is another reason I frequently choose environmentalism over other topics. Throughout history, the war against man’s productive faculty has been waged under the banner of countless different names and movements; tribalism, monarchism, feudalism– more recently communism, socialism, and fascism– and of course, there’s always been the monstrosity that is organized religion. All of these have been a part of an overarching war on Individualism and a hatred of humanity; environmentalism is no exception here– it is merely the newest leader in the same war, the latest manifestation of the same hatred. However, environmentalism is different from its ideological ancestors in one, very important way.

In the past, movements that sought to destroy humanity (the modern ones anyway) have disguised their hatred for man’s virtues, proclaiming them to be the immoral while holding up their own standards as the moral alternative. With the broad base of society accepting altruism, their unpracticeable moral code, they guilted people into embracing their own self-destruction in the name of the love of mankind. Environmentalism is different because it makes no attempt to disguise its contempt for humanity.

Now, I won’t run through my whole spiel on environmentalism again because I’ve already blogged on it and have stated my opposition to it in as clear terms as I can, both here and in other places. But I will say this:

This weekend, I picked up a copy of the most recent issue of Time magazine, expecting to learn what the real meaning of patriotism is. Inside, I found two, short essays; one by Barack Obama, one by John McCain, about what patriotism means to them. I was disappointed.

McCain’s essay was so abominable, I can’t even comment on it. Obama’s, on the other hand, was less despicable, but only because it (predictably) had less substance. I would like to take just a moment to talk about what it did have to say.

Obama focuses his essay around the Declaration of Independence, the greatest of our founding documents. He writes:

“We are a nation of strong and varied convictions and beliefs. We argue and debate our differences vigorously and often. But when all is said and done, we still come together as one people and pledge our allegiance not just to a place on a map or a certain leader but to the words my mother read to me years ago: ‘that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’”

This is all fine and good, and I cannot disagree with what is written there. But listen to Mr. Obama’s interpretation of those words:

For me, it is the love and defense of [the ideals put forth in the Declaration of Independence] that constitutes the true meaning of patriotism. They are ideals that do not belong to any particular party or group of people but call each of us to service and sacrifice for the sake of our common good.

He professes to love and defend each man’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and follows this up by saying that these ideals call us to sacrifice and serve the common good. Its almost as though he were reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand when he wrote this, and decided to contradict her (and himself). Rand wrote:

Observe the results of a society built on the principle of individualism. This, our country. The noblest country in the history of men. The country of greatest achievement, greatest prosperity, greatest freedom. This country was not based on selfless service, sacrifice, renunciation or any precept of altruism. It was based on a man’s right to the pursuit of happiness. His own happiness. Not anyone else’s. A private, personal, selfish motive. Look at the results.

How, Mr. Obama, can one pursue one’s own happiness sacrificially for the sake of others? Don’t these ideals directly contradict? Yes, yes they do.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness means that man has the right to live in a society that is free from force and coercion, that he may work in whatever pursuit he chooses, that he is entitled to the products of his work, and that he may use those products in whatever way his conscience may dictate, so long as he does not initiate the use of force against another. With an increase in taxes of $800 billion dollars, more regulations of business, a mandated “living wage,” and mandated healthcare benefits for employees, this is exactly the society that Barack Obama is working against, rather than ideals that he loves and defends.

Barack Obama has demonstrated that he has no understanding at all of our nation’s founding document, and he wants to be the president.

I commented on gas prices in an earlier blog post, but I feel that more needs to be said.

Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic Nominee, has said that if elected, he would impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies. It is said that companies like Chevron and Exxon Mobile have made an “unfair profit, ” and that they should have to give the excess money that they made “back to the American people.” Obama himself has said:

“I’ll make oil companies like Exxon pay a tax on their windfall profits, and we’ll use the money to help families pay for their skyrocketing energy costs and other bills.”

Other liberals have spouted similar rhetoric. Here’s Hillary Clinton:

She wants to “take” their profits.

Obama and Hillary aren’t the only ones. Every Democrat in the Senate– as well as two Republicans– voted for such a windfall profits tax, which– thankfully– did not pass.

If you take away the windfall profits of oil companies, they will be unable to reinvest in new supply; they will be forced to slow their own production of crude oil. Where will they go for crude oil then? Ah, yes, the Mideast; where else? But buying their crude oil from the Mideast will be much more expensive than it would be if they were able to process it themselves. Unfortunately, they won’t be able to because Obama will have “taken” the money that they would need. But what does all of this mean for the average American?

As George Will notes in a video that is viewable here, Corporations don’t pay taxes, they just raise their prices, and the consumer pays them. Taxing away gas companies’ profits will only hurt the American consumer. That’s what happened in the 80’s under Carter’s profits tax, and it will happen again under a similar Obama tax– only this time it will be much worse. Why? Because this time around supply is being even further restricted by environmentalist congressmen–Democrats mostly. What exactly are they doing to restrict the supply of oil? First, a bit of history.

In 1995, Congress passed legislation that would have allowed oil production on a small fraction– less than one tenth of one percent– of ANWR. With this land designated for oil production, America could have produced an estimated 10 billion barrels of oil. Such a measure would certainly have been a huge step toward relieving America of its dependence on foreign oil, but the bill was vetoed by Clinton. Why? The same reason that the Democratically controlled Congress opposes the same drilling in the present day– Environmentalism.

Democrats today want the same things they wanted in ‘95: A complete and permanent halt of all development on ANWR, as well as a ban on offshore drilling on the east and west coast of the United States. The men who draft such proposals talk about the devastating effects that such acts, if taken, would have on the affected ecosystems. Not only are these claims unfounded (offshore drilling has actually been fairly clean since the ’70s, and as I said above, the ANWR drilling in question would be over less than .01% of the reserved land, thus affecting little of the wildlife, if any), but it is my sincere belief that the men who make them do not believe what they themselves are saying, and their motives are sinister in nature.

Think hard about what the liberals in Congress actually want.

First, they want a huge windfall profits tax of at least 25% on an industry that already has 45% of its income taxed, an action that will cause a decrease in supply, a rise in demand, and ultimately, an increase in gas prices. Next, they want to ban oil exploration and drilling everywhere. But thats not all: liberals want heavier taxes on coal companies, as well as the continuation of a very heavy tariff on ethanol from Brazil, which is a de facto ban. And it doesn’t even stop there: most liberals, including ‘Bama, do not support nuclear energy, the cleanest, safest energy source known to man, because– guess why? Environmental hazards.

If Barack Obama is elected president, this kind of supply restriction will occur, and it will result in a kind of perfect storm for the American consumer. Over time, gas prices will hit an unimaginable level, and the American economy will be devastated. But just as always, the guilty parties will receive no blame. The blame will fall on “greedy corporations,” and like fuel onto a fire, more harmful restrictions will surely be put in place.

If liberal Congressmen actually wanted lower gas prices for Americans, they would take the opposite position on all of the above issues. But they don’t. Why not?? These men are not stupid; they are not misguided; they are elected officials; they all have been well educated, and have a significant amount of experience in the world. They know what they are doing. They want our gas prices to go higher. George Will put it well when he said:

“On the left in this country what they want is a manufactured scarcity so that government can have the rationale to ration [oil supplies], which gives the government what the left wants: an ever more minute supervision of our daily choices.”

And while this is what the left wants on the surface, it is only a means to an end, which is, ultimately: the destruction of all that is good. The Dems in congress hate the profits of the oil companies, not because they are evil, but because they are good. They hate the production of oil refineries and drilling for oil, not because those things represent ruin, as they claim, but because they represent production. They consider that which is good to be evil because it is good. Ayn Rand wrote about this view of life in her book, Atlas Shrugged:

They do not want to own your fortune, they want you to lose it; they do not want to succeed, they want you to fail; they do not want to live, they want you to die; they desire nothing, they hate existence, and they keep running, each trying not to learn that the object of his hatred is himself . . . . They are the essence of evil, they, those anti-living objects who seek, by devouring the world, to fill the selfless zero of their soul. It is not your wealth that they’re after. Theirs is a conspiracy against the mind, which means: against life and man.

How can we defeat this kind of evil? As believers in Capitalism and the free market, we have historically put ourselves at a disadvantage. We must start believing that we are right, and that what we believe in is virtuous. We cannot win a fight in which we consider ourselves to be evil, and our opponent good.

We allow these men to escape from moral judgement by accepting that the cause that they say they fight for– environmentalism– is virtuous. As I have said before, to hold nature as an end in and of itself is not a moral position, it is an immoral one. All of that which is anti-mind is anti-life. By accepting the premise that environmentalism is a fundamentally positive ideal, we are giving them a moral sanction that they do not deserve. It is for this reason that we get candidates like John McCain, who compromise progress and pay lip service to “stewardship of creation.” McCain tentatively supports offshore drilling, but only recently, and only because it has become so politically convenient in the last few months.

Proclaim Capitalism to be your moral sanction, and that each man’s right to his own life is an absolute that cannot be superseded by any legislature. This is the truth they fear, but will never admit.

Tell it.