Communism vs. Free Markets at Plymouth Rock

I just learned from an article entitled  Our Forefather’s Failure (at LibertyUnbound.com) that the colonies at Plymouth Rock and Jamestown tried both free market and communist systems – long before Karl Marx was born.

The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in December 1620, and in spite of help from the Native Americans, half of them died the first year as a result of their initial system. During the second year, more of them died. They would quickly learn that their initial system was tragically incompatible with human nature. It was simply unnatural.

The colonists had the ideal conditions for their initial system because they all had a reputation as virtuous hard working people, they all were of the same race, religion, politics, and nationality; and of course, they all had agreed to this system voluntarily. They also knew that failure meant death.

Nevertheless, under their initial system, they simply weren’t producing and storing enough food, which lead to starvation, disease, and discontent. Their first solution, in their second year, was to institute beatings for those who did not work hard enough, but this had little effect on productivity, and it further increased discontent.

The colonists astutely observed that their system tended to retard productivity while breeding confusion and discontent. We know this because they wrote about it in their journals. Clearly, their initial system was incompatible with human nature.

By the spring of 1623 the Pilgrims feared they would not survive another winter, so in desperation, they adopted a radically different system, and it saved their lives. Productivity increased, and in 1623, they had the first real Thanksgiving.

Which system failed the colonists initially, and which radically different system saved them? Which system was so incompatible with human nature, and which system was so compatible with human nature? Which system was so ugly, and which system was so beautiful?

According to their original governing document, the Mayflower Compact, they shared everything produced by any one of them – from each according to his ability – to each according to his need. The result was that only a small percentage of them worked hard, and the rest were freeloaders to varying degrees because they would rather risk death than be expoited by others. They were so reluctant to work that they even left food rotting on the vine! The result was indeed death. Half of them died! This reminds me of the saying by the people of the USSR, “They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.”

Then, in the spring of 1623, the surviving colonists decided to let each person keep the fruits of his labor, and the colony’s total output increased so much that they were never hungry again.

The governor wrote in his journal that under their initial (communist) system some of them claimed to be too sick to work, and they were so convincing that it would have been the height of tyranny to force them work. Then, after they learned they could keep the fruits of their labor, those who were too sick to walk suddenly recovered and began working the fields!

Communism was killing the colonists at Plymouth Rock, and by switching to a free market system, they became more productive and saved themselves – in a single growing season.

The transition from communism to free markets still lacked full property rights however. Whereas each individual owned the fruits of his labor, he did not own the land he worked, and thus he did not own any improvements he made to that land.

In 1623, the colonists were still growing food on parcels of land that were reassigned by random lots each year, which they astutely observed was a disincentive for each farmer to make permanent improvements to his parcel of land because in the following year, someone else would inherit the fruits of any labor he devoted to improvements. Therefore, in 1624, they adopted full property rights where everyone owned the land he worked, and the result was another productivity boost. Whereas, the first step toward property rights and the free market increased productivity enough to feed everyone, the move to full property rights produced enough extra food to export and trade for furs and other goods.

The article goes on to explain the similar experience in Jamestown:

Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in America, established in Virginia in 1607, had an experience similar to the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Early years of starvation were followed by converting to a system of property rights and a free market, which brought abundance. Under collectivism, less than half of every shipload of settlers survived the first 12 months at Jamestown. Most of the work was done by only one-fifth of the men, to whom the socialist system gave the same rations as to the others. During the winter of 1609–10, called “The Starving Time,” the population fell from 500 to 60.

But when Jamestown converted to a free market, there was “plenty of food, which every man by his own industry may easily and doth procure,” wrote the colony secretary Ralph Hamor in 1614. Under the previous system, he said, “we reaped not so much corn from the labors of thirty men as three men have done for themselves now.”

The article didn’t mention the Roanoke colony, which just disappeared, and many speculate that they were killed by the Native Americans, but I think we all know what really happened to them … They were killed by communism.

Although both my first hand experience and observations as well as my research and analysis have long since led me to conclude that the free market and property rights are superior to communism, I would have believed that communism could have worked in the case of the first American colonies because they had every advantage one could give communism. They had already unanimously agreed to communism. They all shared the same race, nationality, religion, political views and economic views. Failure meant starvation, and slackers were beaten, but in spite of every advantage possible, communism was a catastrophic and systemic failure in the first American colonies.

Consider that the colonists at Plymouth Rock had no historical precedent on which to evaluate communism vs. the free market, and yet when communism failed them, they invented and adopted a complete free market system with full property rights in just two years.

In just four years, the colonists proved that that communism was a very unnatural and ugly thing, and that free-market and property rights were a very natural and beautiful thing.

Our ancestors’ understanding of the superiority of the free market and property rights made us the dominant nation on earth; whereas, today we are rapidly losing that status. Could it be that  Americans have forgotten the hard won knowledge of our ancestors?

Consider that the Barack Obama, the President of the United States, has 400 years of additional historical precedent as well as a Harvard education, and yet he still doesn’t understand how the free market is superior to communism. He says that that when the government forcibly takes the fruits of your labor and gives it to others to “spread the wealth around”, then that’s “good for everybody”.

Those colonists at Plymouth Rock, who seem so much more in touch with reality than the President of the United States, remind me of small town Americans of my childhood. Of course, the President sees small town Americans as basically racists who have “antipathy toward those who are different” and who “cling to their guns and religion”.

Although, the President of the United States is a dilettante, whose image was manufactured by the media, progressives have told me that he is right because communism in early America was too soon. They claim that it is not human nature to be a freeloader and that the people themselves have learned and would no longer be freeloaders. In case anyone cannot see that the progressive argument is BS, then consider that the Danish recently proved that 90% still prefer to be freeloaders when they can – even when they can make more money working.

MSNBC as Mean and Dishonest as ever

The Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann shows on MSNBC contain all of the information necessary for any mature and thoughtful viewer to be able to deduce that Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann are intentionally mean and dishonest. One reason every viewer has all the information needed to deduce that MSNBC lies to us is because their conclusions are based on logical fallacies – usually because their conclusions are leaps of logic that are simply not substantiated by their premises. Another reason every viewer has all the information needed to deduce that MSNBC lies to us is because they contradict themselves.

The logical fallacies and self contradictions of MSNBC are often so obvious that they cannot be accidental. Consider that Rachel Maddow is a Rhodes Scholar and thus she is smart enough to avoid such obvious fallacies. Therefore, we know that the lies of MSNBC are intentional.

We will look at several examples.

Also, if any viewers watch FOX News or attend the Tea Parties, then those viewers will know that the MSNBC frequently commits slander against FOX and the Tea Parties, but I don’t need to ask you to believe that MSNBC is dishonest for these reasons because we can deduce examples of how MSNBC is intentionally mean and dishonest by simply watching MSNBC.

Also, any viewers could do independent research and discover that MSNBC coverage contradicts other coverage of the same event and that the other coverage seems more honest, but I don’t need to ask you to believe that MSNBC is dishonest for these reasons because we can deduce examples of how MSNBC is intentionally mean and dishonest by simply watching MSNBC.

What I would really like to know is why MSNBC is intentionally mean and dishonest – but that will have to be a future article.

Pretty much all media outlets are biased, and although few are as biased as MSNBC, almost all are biased in the same direction as MSNBC, so another thing I would really like to know is why the media are so biased in the same direction– but that will have to be a future article.

The audience of MSNBC contains some smart people whom I’ve met personally, so another future article will have to be about why the MSNBC audience is blind to the intentionally mean and dishonest nature of MSNBC. An interesting clue is that when Olbermann bashed Hillary Clinton in support of Obama, Hillary supporters thought Olbermann was being mean and dishonest! – but only that one time!

The first time I can recall watching MSNBC was around January 2008 while I was flipping around looking for news on the Presidential primaries. I switched over to MSNBC and saw this guy with slicked back white hair in the middle of a rant. In just 30 seconds, I could see that he had masterfully honed an image as the most sanctimonious and self righteous guy in America – more than any televangelist. Then after about a minute, I realized that his rant primarily targeted George Bush, so I kept watching out of curiosity because George Bush was not even one of the candidates. After 10 minutes of ranting, he finally finished. I had never seen anything like that on TV before. I couldn’t believe there was an audience for such a mean and dishonest show. He had ranted for 10 minutes without giving me any useful or factual information – just opinionated rants! – about a man who wasn’t even one of the candidates!

I learned later that day that I had been watching the epitome of douchebaggery known as Keith Olbermann.  Nevertheless, throughout the campaigns of 2008, I watched about an hour a day of MSNBC (mostly Dan Abrams) because it is valuable to know what every side is thinking, and although Keith Olbermann was their most popular host, I quickly stopped watching Olbermann because he was the meanest and least honest of any persons having their own TV show. Then MSNBC replaced Dan Abrams with Rachel Maddow because Abrams wasn't mean enough and he wasn't biased enough. I then stopped watching  Maddow because she seemed to be competing with Olbermann for the title of meanest and least honest person having their own show.

Consider that within days after Sarah Palin became the vice presidential candidate, I watched Olbermann respond to a viewer from Alaska. Apparently Olbermann had belittled Palin on a previous show for installing a tanning bed in the Governor’s mansion, and the helpful viewer explained to Olbermann that it was not a shallow vanity thing at all, and that tanning beds are very important in Alaska to counter the lack of sunlight, which can lead to mood disorders. I then honestly thought that Olbermann was about to apologize and thank the viewer, but instead, I witnessed quite possibly the most douchey thing I have ever seen on TV. Olbermann ranted about how Sarah Palin should resign given that that she has mood disorders, and then he ranted about how stupid the viewer was, and THEN he announced in a booming reverberating voice that this viewer was THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD!

Every few weeks, I check back in to evaluate MSNBC, partly to see if they have improved, but mostly to learn what the enemies of freedom are thinking.  Today, I watched Maddow enthusiastically spew another series of nasty logical fallacies that constitute a good enough example to warrant this – my first article about MSNBC.

First, note that MSNBC is obsessed with Fox News. Whereas, MSNBC bashes FOX News constantly, FOX News rarely mentions MSNBC other than to brag about having superior ratings.

Second, note that MSNBC also hates the Tea Parties, Sarah Palin, Republicans, and anyone who embarrasses or effectively opposes the authoritarian left.  Although, Dan Abrams primarily supported the authoritarian left, he would occasionally expose corruption on the left – and now he’s gone.

As much as MSNBC unfairly bashes opponents of the authoritarian left, they unfairly support the left by ignoring evidence, fabricating evidence, and making excuses for them.

The first 10 minutes of what I saw was a revisionist telling of the ACORN scandal exposed by James O'Keefe starting seven months ago. Of course, if you don't watch FOX News regularly, then you probably know very little about this ACORN scandal because all other news outlets did their best to bury the story, and some even bashed O’Keefe and the news outlets that broke the story. Democratic Party Attorneys General in multiple states threatened to prosecute – not ACORN – but O’Keefe!

You see, ACORN has millions of dollars and hundreds of powerful friends, such as the President of the United States and Andy Stern, President of SEIU, who meets regularly with the President of the United States.

Barack Obama has a long history with ACORN. He helped funnel money to them when he was on the board of a more respectable non profit organization which was thus able to attract donors who wouldn’t have knowingly given directly to a less respectable organization like ACORN. Obama also helped train ACORN to use the Community Reinvestment Act to force banks to give more subprime loans to minorities who could not afford those loans. When Obama was campaigning, he told an audience of mostly ACORN and SEIU members that they would be helping him make policy when he became the President. An interesting side note is that in some locations, ACORN and SEIU are basically the same organization.

Now let’s get to the true story, which is pretty amazing. James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles dressed as a pimp and a prostitute and went into five ACORN offices explaining that they wanted ACORN to help them buy a house and file their taxes by helping them to hide the fact that they would be using the house to run their prostitution business. They also requested help from ACORN to bring 13 year old girls from El Salvador to work in this prostitution business. Every ACORN office agreed to help them in every way and suggested ways to achieve all of their illegal goals. One employee even admitted to murder, although to be fair, there was one employee who finally decided that he would not help them if they insisted on using 13 year old girls from El Salvador.

We know this because O’Keefe had a hidden camera, and we saw much longer clips of these videos much sooner on FOX News than on any other media outlet. O’Keefe said that we could watch the entire unedited videos, which were about four hours each, on Andrew Breitbart’s website.

One of the most amazing things is that anyone at ACORN believed O’Keefe and Giles were a pimp and prostitute. You can clearly see them in the ACORN offices on the video dressed like two preppy college students going to a fraternity party where the theme was “pimps and ho’s”. Also, Hannah looked like she has never been sick or used a drug a single time in her entire life, which is astronomically unlikely for a prostitute.

O’Keefe initially released only one video, and ACORN said it was a fluke and that they immediately fired those employees. ACORN also said that O’Keefe and Giles had approached other ACORN offices and been turned away. Then a few days later, O’Keefe released a second video, which prompted more lies and firings from ACORN. Every few days after that, this pattern repeated itself until five ACORN offices had been exposed on video.

One employee admitted to murder, and another said his contacts in Tijuana could help get the 13 year old girls across the border.

First, consider that all other news organizations tried their best to protect ACORN, that ACORN has hundreds of powerful friends including the President of the United States, and that ACORN has millions of dollars. Therefore, ANY news that could be used to defend ACORN would have been distributed as quickly and as widely as possible, and yet no news in ACORN's defense came out – until today.

When the scandal first broke seven months ago, James O'Keefe and Andrew Breitbart, whose website hosted the videos, claimed on FOX News that the entire unedited videos were online for anyone to view. Therefore, if those videos were NOT available online, we would have heard about it, and yet Rachel Maddow is just now saying (seven months later) that the full unedited video was not available until now.

Maddow then goes on to claim that O'Keefe wasn't really dressed like a pimp while he was inside the California ACORN office because as he walked out and we see his sleeve, and he is no longer wearing a fur coat, which proves that he didn’t have it inside with him! (Maddow didn’t think of the possibility that it was folded over his arm.) Maddow then explains that O'’Keefe’s  shirt appears to be white with stripes like a business casual shirt, and that a real pimp would never wear such a shirt. Therefore, she claims that he must have been dressed like a businessman, and that he must have therefore not not been trying to pretend he was a pimp after all. (Maddow did not consider the fact that O’Keefe is not a real pimp, and that he was probably just improvising a stereotypical pimp costume.) Maddow also threw in many jabs at FOX for promoting a false story. All that from a blurry sleeve!

Then Maddow shows video where O'Keefe claims he wants help to bring under age girls across the border to work as prostitutes, which directly contradicts Maddow's previous claim that O'Keefe and Hannah Giles were not really presenting themselves as a pimp and prostitute. Although Maddow showed the video where the CA ACORN employee says they should bring the underage girls across the border in Tijuana because he has contacts there, Maddow then explains that the ACORN employee was only pretending to go along with them because he actually called a particular policeman right after that and reported them. Now IF he called that policeman, and if that is WHY he called that policeman, then why did ACORN fire him immediately, and why are we just now hearing about this call that could have exonerated him as well as the CA ACORN office? Also, if the CA ACORN office is not guilty, then why did it exhibit the same pattern of corruption as the other four ACORN offices?

Maddow kept bashing FOX and implying that the other ACORN videos were similarly edited to frame ACORN. Of course, her viewers wouldn’t suspect otherwise unless they regularly watched FOX News. Then again, even die hard MSNBC fans could have observed the speculative nature of the blurry sleeve defense as well as the Maddow’s self contradiction about them not claiming to be a pimp and prostitute.

Maddow also showed a video that was actually from another ACORN office where O'Keefe and Giles were trying to get help buying a house, and Maddow explained that there is nothing wrong with buying a house even if you are pimp and a prostitute and that it only seemed like ACORN was helping them to commit a crime because of video editing. However, if you watch FOX News, then you know that in every ACORN office, O'Keefe explained clearly and repeatedly that they wanted to buy a house to run their prostitution business out of it, and that they wanted ACORN to help them buy the house, to help them hide the nature of their business from the IRS, and to help them bring 13 year old girls in from El Salvador to be prostitutes. Consider that FOX aired about 20 times more video footage of the ACORN scandals than did MSNBC.

After the ACORN story, Maddow dedicated about one minute to a new story where Maddow said that the government bailouts have actually turned a profit. Perhaps she doesn’t know that the hundreds of billions given to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, GM, and many banks … may never be recovered. Nor was she at all curious how it is possible during a recession for a handful of financial institutions that were failing last year to suddenly be so profitable that they could replay their bailout with a dividend. Apparently, the only thing Maddow did know in this one minute story was how to bash capitalists, Republicans, FOX News, etc.

Of course, Maddow doesn't know the truth because she is not that well informed – because she doesn't watch FOX News.

Pity Obama

Any fair person of any political persuasion must surely pity Obama.

Confused and Betrayed

Obama doesn’t understand why more people haven’t come over to his way of seeing things.

Obama doesn’t understand how he won the election, and how he subsequently lost much of his original support. His job approval among likely voters was 43% yesterday (March 20, 2010).

Obama doesn’t understand how the media could turn against him so easily and so soon. Nor does he understand that in spite of a decrease in media support, he still has more support from the media than all other Presidents at any point in their political careers.

Obama doesn’t understand why his economic policies are not working.

Not only did Obama’s party not let him keep his 8 promises to air all of the health care negotiations on C-Span, but they wouldn’t let him air ANY of it.

Obama thought he could quickly close Guantanamo, and get out of Iraq.

Set up to Fail

Consider that Obama went to the very politically correct Harvard Law School where he was LOVED by EVERYONE – where he was able to persuade EVERYONE to see things his way.

Consider that he attended the church of ultra politically correct pastors Jeremiah Wright and Father Pfleger.

He worked with the uber politically correct Acorn, Bill Ayers, the media elite, and the Democratic Party elite, who basically decided that he was not only the most brilliant, creative, persuasive, and noble Democrat, but that he was – The One.

He lived in Chicago, where the Democratic Party machine had long ruled without serious competition.

During his Presidential Campaign, members of the putatively objective “news” organizations covered for him, made excuses for him, attacked his critics, buried evidence, and some even experienced orgasms when he spoke.

Given the overwhelmingly positive nature of his environment, no one could have ever won an argument against Obama. Now consider that Obama’s environment included people of all color, all backgrounds, and all levels of wealth and education.

How could Obama have had the background to notice that he lived in a very biased and insulated world that had filtered out anyone who disagreed? How could Obama have had the independence to resist the conclusion that he really was – The One. How could Obama come to any conclusion other than the infallibility of the party that anointed him?

True Believer

Obama is neither the compulsive liar nor the sellout that is Bill Clinton. Obama is a true believer, which is not apparent to many people because Obama is so inconsistent, but Obama doesn’t know that he is inconsistent.

Obama is so inconsistent because he a is a true believer, not in socialism, but in the Democratic Party (not that socialism is consistent, but it is more consistent than the Democratic Party).

Only now is Obama beginning to be exposed for the first time (but just a little) to the fact that a majority of Americans disagree with him, and not because they are the small-town racists he thought they were, but because their life experiences, their respect for the Constitution, and their principles of freedom, tolerance, equality under the law, the rule of law, etc. contradict what he is selling.

Obama probably knows more about the Constitution than 95% of Americans, and yet his understanding of what it means is mostly wrong, and thus many less educated small town Americans have a more fundamentally correct understanding of the of the spirit of the Constitution than Obama.

Poor Obama.

Pity the Tea Partiers

Any fair person of any political persuasion must surely pity the Tea Partiers.

Irrelevant?

Regardless of how many people show up at the Tea Parties, they are consistently described by the MSM (Mainstream Media) as too few to be relevant. For example, the health care bill being voted on in the House of Representatives today (March 21, 2010) has not had sufficient support in Congress to pass during the last few months, and the result today will likely be determined by a single vote. Therefore, both sides have every incentive to present their most effective show of support – or protest, and yet the side with 90% of the people was declared irrelevant by the MSM.

Racist?

The haters known as the MSM routinely describe the Tea Partiers as not only irrelevant, but also as racists and homophobes; whereas, I have attended four Tea Parties, and based on my first hand observations, there has not been a single racist or homophobic comment.

The reason the MSM label Tea Partiers as racist is because, just like all progressives, the progressives who dominate the MSM consistently label anyone who disagrees with them as a “racist”. Let’s not get sidetracked, but do consider that because progressives make so many frivolous accusations of racism that we know they do not think racism is a serious thing – which means that it is progressives themselves who are racist.

The main reason one or two Nazis or white supremacists might occasionally show up at a Tea Party is therefore because the media are telling them that they are supposed to be there. I’m pretty sure that journalists are not supposed to create the news. Of course, if the media were honest, they would explain that anyone who is a Nazi or white supremacist is simply not a Tea Partier.

I am writing this because the media have recently amplified their accusations of racism and their attacks on the Tea Parties because the media are promoting the heath care bill; whereas,  given how the Tea Parties are all about small government and individual liberty, the Tea Parties naturally oppose the health care bill. Tea Partiers simply agree with Abraham Lincoln that no man has a right to the fruits of another man's labor, and that a right to healthcare is thus tantamount to a kind of slavery.

To be fair, even without media bias, Tea Party opposition to the health care bill might also attract an unwelcome racist because a net effect of the health care bill is a redistribution of wealth from white people to African Americans and Hispanics. however, Tea Partiers don’t care about the color of people on each side of a redistribution of wealth. It is only the critics of the Tea Parties who talk about the about the color of the people on each side of a redistribution of wealth.

Another reason the hateful MSM routinely calls Tea Partiers racist is because they criticize Obama, but consider that Obama is not the main target of Tea Party signs or conversation – in spite of the objective fact that he is the President while our quality of life is falling and that his job approval among likely voters is 43%.

Tea Baggers?

How many Tea Partiers call themselves tea baggers? – ZERO.

How many of the hateful media elites call the Tea Partiers tea baggers? – 100%.

Anderson Cooper was probably the first media elite to call the Tea Partiers tea baggers when he explained that they might have trouble finding their voice because, “It’s hard to talk when you’re tea bagging.”

Astroturf?

The media elite and the Democratic Party elite claim the Tea Parties are “Astroturf” and not a real grassroots movement, but consider that the Tea Parties have no leader, no money, and are unique and separate in every town. For example, Sarah Palin is NOT a Tea Party leader, and not even 5% of Tea Partiers would pay anything to hear her talk.