Monday, November 19, 2012

The Evolution of Cultural Decline

American's are devolving in their communication skills.

We have gone from letters where words mattered
to phone calls where emotions mattered
to chat rooms where sentences mattered
to email where fragments mattered
to instant messenger where acronyms mattered
to Facebook where self indulgence mattered
to Insta-gram where only pictures matter.

Whats next? 
Visual symbols
Then grunts?

As Dennis Miller once remarked, "pretty soon the King will be the one who doesn't ___T (poop) himself."



Friday, November 16, 2012

Thanksgiving is no longer a part of America


By Dean Kalahar

Not so long ago American’s celebrated Thanksgiving to rejoice at the bounty provided by their economic way of life. It was a time to reflect and admire what private property and the free market had accomplished in answering the scarcity question to meet the insatiable needs of the human condition. It was a holiday to remember the settlers of Jamestown and the Pilgrims for how they fundamentally formed America’s economic system.

In today’s America, the historic wealth creating and life saving principles called capitalism have been destroyed by a rapidly expanding state, driven by a utopian command cronyism model. Sadly, our New American economy is based on the same flawed collectivist idealism that the colonists first used upon settling our shores. A model that was also to blame for the “starving time’ in Jamestown and Plymouth.

For the sake of the Republic, it might be prudent to remember how capitalism was born and why Thanksgiving had meaning. The history of Jamestown and Plymouth offers the historical context. Let’s begin in Jamestown as described by Historians David Boaz and Ray Harvey.

In 1607, 105 men and boys, mostly indentured servants who held no private property and were to work for the “common store,” disembarked from three ships and established the first permanent settlement in America.

By 1609, there were 500 settlers, including women. And yet within six months fewer than 100 were still alive during what came to be known as "the starving time." Why? According to a governor of the colony, George Percy, most of the colonists died of famine, despite the “good and fruitful” soil, the abundant deer and turkey, and the “strawberries, raspberries and fruits unknown” growing wild.

And yet people were desperate. They ate dogs and cats, then rats and mice. They apparently ate their deceased neighbors. And some said that one man murdered and ate his pregnant wife. By the spring, they had given up. They abandoned the fort and boarded ships to return to England. But, miraculously, as they sailed out of Chesapeake Bay, they encountered three ships with new recruits, so they turned around and tried to make another go of it. The additional settlers and supplies kept them alive.
           
When a new governor, Thomas Dale, arrived a year after the starving time, he was shocked to find the settlers bowling in the streets instead of working. Dale's most important reform was to institute private property. He understood that men who don't benefit from their hard work tend not to work very hard. As such he allotted every man three acres of land and freed them to work for themselves.

Not many years later, in November of 1620, another group of 101 American settlers arrived on the Mayflower, in Cape Cod, Massachusetts and settled in a place named Plymouth. The Pilgrims were not unaware of the early Jamestown disaster, the starvation, the disease, the famine; they were, however, unaware of what had caused it. Accordingly, they proceeded to make the identical mistake that the settlers of Jamestown had made, namely collective ownership of land. And the Pilgrims also paid dearly for their misguided economic choice. Within a few short months, half were dead.

Over the course of the next three years, 100 more settlers arrived from England to Plymouth, all of whom were barely able to feed themselves. As Plymouth Colony Governor William Bradford detailed in his History of Plymouth Plantation, 1641.

Many [settlers] sold away their clothes and bed coverings [to the Indians]; others (so base were they) became servants of the Indians … and fetch them water for a capful of corn; others fell to plain stealing, both day and night, from the Indians…. In the end, they came to that misery that some starved to and died with cold and hunger. One in gathering shellfish was so weak as he stuck fast in the mud and was found dead in the place.

William Bradford would also solve “the ruin and dissolution of his colony,” and he would do it in the exact same way Sir Thomas Dale had saved Jamestown.

After much debate of things … [it was decided that the Pilgrims] should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves…And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, for present use. This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.

Bradford, like Dale, came to fully grasp how lack of property rights negates and destroys the work incentive. He went on to correctly identify the source of the “disastrous problem” as “that conceit of Plato’s,” who, in direct contrast to Aristotle, advocated collectivism and collective ownership of land, which history has repeatedly proven creates economic inefficiency and suffering. Bradford even wrote later that those who mistakenly believed that communal property could make people “happy and flourishing” imagined themselves “wiser than God.”

Private property and economic freedom saved the Jamestown and Plymouth colonies. A letter by Edward Winslow describing the first Thanksgiving, dated December 12, 1621, details the proof of how capitalism saved the colonists.

Our corn [wheat] did prove well, and God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn, and our barley indifferent good, ...Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors... And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.

Another description by William Bradford offered this account of amazing economic bounty and thanksgiving.

They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty… they had about a peck of meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion.  Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports.

Virginia historian Matthew Page Andrews wrote regarding Jamestown:

 As soon as the settlers were thrown upon their own resources, and each freeman had acquired the right of owning property, the colonists quickly developed what became the distinguishing characteristic of Americans—an aptitude for all kinds of craftsmanship coupled with an innate genius for experimentation and invention.

The Jamestown and Plymouth colonies became a success, people from all over Europe flocked to the New World, and life saving capitalism was born in America.

Since we no longer understand history, nor follow histories leadership, there is no reason to celebrate a holiday that is based on the principles of free markets and the miracle of private property.

Freedom exercised through the natural rights of life, liberty, and happiness - promoted through an entrepreneurial free market economic system based on private property - saved us in the beginning years of our nation, and allowed America to raise the standard of living for the rest of the world. It is to those principles and history matched against what America has become that explains why Thanksgiving is no longer a part of America.

We used to give thanks to system that provided for all. Maybe this Thanksgiving we should be saying “no thanks” to a New American economic vision intent on providing suffering and misery to us all.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Parties die, principles do not


The Republican party is dead.

What we have seen is the slow migration to the left within America's two party system with the Democrat Party is on the far left and the Republican Party left of center.

But parties are created by fallible men, while the principles of natural law - life, liberty, property- are beyond the control of men.

The classical liberal philosophical principles of the enlightenment that were embraced by our founding fathers will never die.

As with all vacuums of power, principle and conscience, this void of non-representation will be filled.

The question is, will it be filled in our statehouses or in our streets?

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

The New America


By Dean Kalahar
November 7, 2012

In the aftermath of the election of 2012, a new reality must be digested by all Americans. Working within the precepts of a democratic republic, The American public freely exercised their choice and voted for a New America.
The electorates’ decision once and for all confirms a definition of America that values hopes, feelings and equality of results over the realities of human nature, history, and the foundational principles that hold western civilization together. There is now no doubt that the tipping point of geometrically increasing cultural decline has been crossed. America has now firmly changed from a nation where the founding principles of the great enlightenment have been substituted for a utopia of widespread human suffering. There is no going back.
 This change is not due to one person or event. For fifty years we have seen systemic institutional decay to the vital institutions across our cultural landscape that sustains America. And like a canary in a mine providing an early warning signal to dangers, we have been warned time and time again that we were losing our footing and chose to ignore the obvious.
Today the foundational pillars of civilization that have sustained America have been voted insignificant and will be allowed to collapse. The result is a New America for sure, but it is not a greater America. It is an America that has sown the seeds of its own demise, blinded by self inflicted wounds, disguised by false compassion, and based on trust in a human condition that is not in our nature.
A callous society focused on self has been defining deviancy downward, as the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned us, for a long time. Sometimes covertly and other times overtly, a cultural war was being raged in America by a progressive “tolerance” movement that is intolerant of institutional traditions, principles, and laws that were created and tested over thousands of years of trial and error. Those who have lectured us have shown a condescending hypocrisy of moral relativism towards any concept that might interfere with their self-anointed sensibilities of creating a utopia so as to avoid self awareness. The walls of the republic have been crumbling for some time. Now the collapse is all but inevitable because, and let’s be clear, they have won.
America’s religious institution has been eroded by the secularization of society, the welfare state, the misguided belief in the separation of church and state, and attacks toward any outward expression of religious passion. The church has lost the culture war.
Our public education institution has been decimated by bureaucracies and unions that have failed to teach children how to read, write, or add, while choice, accountability, rigor, and our nation’s history have been forsaken for self esteem and multiculturalism. The schools have lost the culture war.
Our family institution has been redefined into a bizarre amalgam of gender, sexual, and parental proclivities. 40% of children are born out of wedlock and 25% of teenagers have a sexually transmitted disease. The overt-sexualization of our society has created confusion and despair among our children, while infanticide has become an all too easy choice. Biological and psychological realities for sanctioning marriage between a man and woman for the sake of our posterity have been ruthlessly attacked by those seeking to re-define the universal order. Our families have lost the culture war.
Free market entrepreneurial principles no longer guide our economic system. Efficiencies, life saving economic growth and opportunity based on the laws of human nature and scarcity have been forsaken by an ever encroaching government institution that believes a command and control approach of central planning can better answer the questions of what, how, and for whom. Our economic system has lost the culture war.
The winners of this battle have handed over America’s keys to the government. A government that no longer sees its role as providing for the steady rule of constitutional law and unwavering protection of the basis of morality found in the steadfast protection of personal property. The New America government will direct the collapses of what they deem are antiquated institutions of society like life, liberty, and property. They will smugly orchestrate the demise of the bedrock principles that sustained our family, education, religious, and economic institutions that have held us together and allowed us to thrive as a country; naively believing a nation can sustain itself after its foundations are removed.
Progressive ideology has destroyed the social fabric of the nation from within. Ignorance has sown the seeds of our own destruction. As the Romans did long ago, our fate will be written in the epilogue of history. Gone, a nation whose torch was smothered when a complacent arrogance forgot who they were, what made them great, and the humility to stand vigilant in defending liberty was lost.
There is no upside for America or its people; and it is going to get ugly out there. But for those who have been fighting the good fight for so long, honoring those who have died fighting for the same providential cause, my suggestion is to pull in, relax, live, and love your families.
            Patriots, the New America is the reality; just have peace of mind knowing the winners of the war, and the choices they made, will be held personally responsible for the severe costs that are to follow. To those who asked for a New America, I leave you with the words of Col. Jessup in A Few Good men: “You have no idea how to defend a nation. All you did was weaken a country today ... That's all you did.  You put people in danger.  Sweet dreams, son.”

Monday, November 5, 2012


Election predictions 2012

The polls are statistically skewed in favor of Obama and Romney is ahead or is ahead by a larger margin than shown.

The electorate has been hesitant to be negative toward Obama when asked by pollsters due to “white guilt” and the fear of being called racist.

Romney will win the Presidency in 2012 easily by a solid margin.

The Obama team will act as if they are shocked by the margins they will argue that foul play must have been used.

The voting for all intents and purposes will go well.

An Obama win is the defining signals that the nation has lost its cultural roots and principles, is forever changed, and will continue its decline in the footsteps of other great civilizations.

An Obama win will move us closer to a social revolution sometime in the future.

A social revolution could become violent.

I believe a strong third party will emerge in 2016 to the right of the GOP if Obama is re-elected and the Republican Party will fade.

The Benghazi scandal will unfold and a President Obama may be forced to resign in his second term sometime after replacing his Vice President.

Of course these are just predictions, I could be wrong.


Here is what I said 4 years ago.

Morning of November 4, 2008

If Barack Obama is elected president, one of the primary reasons will be to end the psychological pathologies afflicting many Americans and send a message of compassion and reconciliation to show the world the principles of the Western Enlightenment are alive but not necessary well. The cost of this moral self-exaltation will be to move America further to the left and much closer to a collectivist state. The irony of this electoral shift, although an ideal of natural law, could sow the seeds of an intellectually inconsistent ideology that, when cultivated, will destroy the very principles that allowed for such a society to prosper. The true test of the American experiment will then be in the hands of the Constitution, to see if it can withstand human nature and continue to uphold the principles of classical liberal understanding from which it was created. If it shows the fatal flaws the founders warned of, America will get the change it does not deserve by dishonoring the blood it so valiantly offered. May providence again save us from ourselves.

Dean Kalahar

Friday, November 2, 2012

A military crisis? and Benghazi



If you want to figure out Benghazi, connect the dots on the following 2 questions:

1. Why was General Ham, head of African Command arrested by his 2nd in command for conduct unbecoming an officer?
2. Why was the Admiral Gaouette of the US Navy carrier task force in the Middle East relieved of his duty for “inappropriate leadership judgment?”


Dean Kalahar