Union’s Expect Obama Payback – Seek to End Secret Ballots

Updated Guest Editorial | On Tuesday’s Glenn Beck Show, a discouraging statistic was shown. In 1999, all government spending as a portion of our national GNP was 33%. In 2009, that number stands at 39%.

An astonishing number when you consider that the United States produces over $14 trillion in goods and services annually.  If that number frightens you and raises red flags about the growth of government, then something is on the horizon which will make that number worse. And that is why we need your leadership today.

Big Labor is expecting a pay back from President Obama.  For the hundreds of millions they spent on his election, they expect him to sign an innocent sounding, yet deceptive bill called Employee Free Choice Act – better known as “Card Check.”

Card Check is a cunning device that will make unionizing companies less democratic in the process of union organizing and more prone to intimidation and harassment.  Currently, unions must have at least 30% of the employees sign cards voicing their support for a union.  In the vast majority of cases the employer will then require a secret ballot election to determine if a union will be formed.  If the new “Card Check” federal legislation is passed, unions may contact employees directly, and when they get 51% of the employees to sign a card, the right of the employees to vote by secret ballot is abolished and the workplace is automatically unionized.

Card check will dramatically speed up the unionization of America by harassment and intimidation. As a result, government will grow bigger and mandatory union dues – the main objective to Card Check – will increase Big Labor political donations to Democrats and left wing causes.  In 2008 alone, 91% of all union contributions went to Democrats.  A staggering number when you realize that Big Labor can simply take dues out of union employees’ paychecks. This is one of the biggest power grabs in recent memory.

It is inconceivable to believe government will not grow bigger and more confiscatory with a larger union presence. Government’s 39% total of our GNP will soon grow to the mid-to-high 40s if card check passes. Do we want that? Will that help or impede innovation, freedom and entrepreneurship?

Big Labor and their allies hope to accomplish this power grab by taking away a working man and woman’s right to a secret ballot.  Can you imagine if your elected officials knew how everyone voted in their districts? How many more votes do you think they would receive on Election Day?  The same logic applies to union voting. Without the privacy of the secret ballot, people become more acutely aware of the need of their jobs and their unwillingness to go against the pressure of union leaders. That is why Save Our Secret Ballot (www.sosballot.org) was organized – to protect the right of the secret ballot for all Americans.

Save Our Secret Ballot is doing this by placing on the ballot in 15-20 states a state constitutional amendment (not federal) to protect the right to a secret ballot (for exact language go to www.sosballot.org).  We want voters to know exactly what is at stake and what unions want to accomplish. Holding a public debate is the last thing unions want.  House Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid are ready to take away your right to a secret ballot and President Obama is ready to sign it. All that stands in its way is you!

Where you and I want public discourse and debate like the famous Lincoln – Douglas debates over 150 years ago, unions want to treat this issue like a Venezuelan policy debate – the less discussion the better.

Unions want to pass this without the American public knowing about it. Like a thief, they want to do this in the darkness of night without the glare of daylight. Unlike a thief who steals material goods which can be replaced, they want to steal freedoms that cannot be replaced.

We need your help today – not tomorrow.  Today, Monday, this freedom protecting legislation will be up for a vote in the Utah House of Representatives.  We have some Republicans still frightened of the unions.  Please help today by getting your family, friends, business associates and YOU to call your Utah State Legislator and State Senator and ask them to vote YES for HJR-8 (Save Our Secret Ballot).

You can call them at the Capitol Hill

Utah State Senate 801-538-1035
Utah House of Representatives 801-538-1029

Without your help and leadership, unions will take away a fundamental freedom. For more information, go to www.sosballot.org and help stop this power grab today!

Chuck Warren is a partner at Silver Bullet, LLC (www.silverbulletllc.org).

Israel War Channel on YouTube

From (The Jerusalem Post) |In the midst of its Gaza operations, the IDF is entering yet another conflict zone: the Internet. The Israeli army announced yesterday the creation of its own YouTube channel, through which it will disseminate footage of precision bombing operations in the Gaza Strip, as well as aid distribution and other

“The blogosphere and new media are another war zone,” said IDF Foreign Press Branch head Maj. Avital Leibovich. “We have to be relevant there.”

Her sentiment reflects a growing awareness in the Israeli government that part of the failure of the 2006 Second Lebanon War was Israel’s lack of readiness for the intense media debate surrounding its operations.  <<Read the Full Story>>>

The U.S. Constitution: An EULA

By Ammon Nelson

The text of the Constitution does not define citizenship for us, so how do we define citizenship in the United States?  It is actually in the US Code Title 8, Chapter 12, Subchapter III, Part I, § 1401, where we read:

The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
a)    a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof;

… and then there are more specific definitions of other ways one becomes a citizen at birth.  I suggest that everyone have a look at Title 8, and specifically Chapter 12 of the US Code.  It was both a confusing and enlightening experience for me, and I am left with a question in my mind.

Why is birth, when it happens under the jurisdiction of the United States a qualification for citizenship by itself?  Is all it takes to be “worthy” of having someone else risk their life and property to defend my freedoms, for me to be born to the right people in the right place and the right time?  It seems to me that this is just a derivative of the divine right of kings.  If you happen to be lucky enough to be born under the right circumstances to the right people, you are inherently more worthy of citizenship than someone who was not so fortunate.  Anyone else must study for years, establish residency and take an oath of allegiance.  Why am I, being a natural born citizen of the United States, not required to take an oath of allegiance in order to benefit from that agreement?  Of course those, like children and the mentally handicap, who are not able to make such an oath for themselves, fall under the stewardship of their guardians, and are thus protected by the commitment of their guardian.

A satirical article in the Deseret News addressed the issue of citizenship and the US Constitution.  It reads:

It is a generally accepted fact that the Constitution of the United States of America is obsolete and no longer applicable to our times. By “generally accepted,” I mean by me.
In this age of iPods, iPhones and iRaq, it is clear that the current generation is not interested in the tenets of a document written more than 200 years ago. We forget the text messages we received less than 200 seconds ago. No, as important as the Constitution was to our forebears — who spoke of each amendment with solemnity while working actively to undermine them — the digital age requires a digital solution, a solution that captures the nobility of that sacred parchment, a solution that can be easily achieved with a mouse click.

There is only one realistic possibility: The Constitution must be replaced be an End-User License Agreement.

The Constitution, by not requiring any such action, is far too lenient. Any bum, lowlife, scoundrel or complete moron can be born in this country and be declared president by the Supreme Court. Any inept buffoon has the right to free speech and the ability to turn that into a radio contract with Fox News. Any self-serving and morally bankrupt individual is granted the freedom to bear arms and use that freedom to shoot an attorney while on a hunting expedition. No citizen of the United States has to do a darn thing to enjoy the Constitution’s protections!

Key Points

• Agency implies stewardship – the agency gained through citizenship has an accompanying stewardship.  Anyone who does not accept that stewardship, should also lose their citizenship.
• The government is not an organization, government does not exist as such.  “The Government” is an agreement using our right to govern our own lives.
• The US Constitution is not out of date, or archaic.  It is much more than a mere document with sentimental and significant historical context.  It is a very real agreement between the citizens of the United States and those they elect to take on the stewardship of part of their self-government.

Conclusion

The Constitution IS an end-user license agreement (EULA), or at least it should be.  The Preamble states, “We the people of the United States … do ordain and establish this constitution of the United States of America.”  It is an agreement for the end user – us.  Citizenship is something that must be earned.  It is not an entitlement because of our parentage.

Action Items

1. Study Title 8, Chapter 12 of the US Code and find out what it takes to become a citizen of the United States.  Think about why some people do so much to obtain that privilege and seek to meet those requirements yourself whether you are applying for citizenship or not.
2. Write an essay on what citizenship in the United States means to you.  If you are a citizen of another country, write about what citizenship in your country means to you and how you can best help promote the cause of freedom in your own community and nation.
3. Make a personal pledge to be worthy of citizenship in a country that values and protects freedom and liberty above comfort and security.

MRFC Principles:

Sources

Jeffrey R. Wilbur Let’s replace Constitution with user agreement, Deseret News, August 31, 2008.

Cornell University Law School Website

Ammon Nelson was born the second of ten children. Raised in West Valley City, he graduated from Granger High School in 1992 and served an LDS mission to the Northeast region of Brazil. He graduated from Salt Lake Community College in 2000 and from the University of Idaho, in Moscow, ID, in 2003. He enjoys discussing philosophy, performing and learning music, and spending time with his family. He currently lives in West Valley City with his wife, the former Heather Mann, and their six children. He works for the Nucor Building Systems of Brigham City, Utah, and has been a part of the FreeCapitalist Project since September 2006.

Rocky Mountain Powerless

TAYLORSVILLE, UT | 27 August 2008 | It is a fundamental necessity in any free society that both the government and the people recognize that the proper role of government is protector of human rights, not grantor of those rights. God is the author of prosperity. Human rights spring from the prosperity that he has authored, and from no other source. Once a people begin to turn to the government for anything other than protection of rights, they give their freedom to that government. Once the governing body aims to do anything other than protect rights, it begins believing that it is the source of freedoms and assumes authority that does not belong to it. Unearned, misplaced power is intoxicating to both its wielder and its beneficiaries.

In the words of Ludwig von Mises, 

There is an inherent tendency in all governmental power to recognize no restraints on its operation and to extend the sphere of its dominance as much as possible. To control everything, to leave no room for anything to happen of its own accord without the interference of the authorities – this is the goal for which every ruler secretly strives.

Even the least educated in regards to freedom and its foundations recognize this tendency, especially when the lengthy arm of governmental power affects their person. Yet, for all of society’s complaints about ever increasing government control, they continue to hand freedoms to their rulers in exchange for favors and handouts that seldom bring the expected results.

A story in the news last week shows a perfect example of this non-profitable exchange. The Salt Lake Tribune reported Tuesday that after an arduous process, Rocky Mountain Power (RMP) finally received approval for a rate hike. RMP originally asked for a rate hike of $160 million and then reduced that request to $74.4 million. After looking at third party findings that “argued the company deserved an increase of only $8.5 million”, the Utah Public Service Commission “decided the company was entitled to raise its rates $33.3 million.” That Rocky Mountain Power should even have to ask permission to set pricings is a sad statement about government intervention leading to lost freedom. And, not surprisingly, the rate hike isn’t anywhere near the amount RMP says it needs to be able to maintain profit margins and keep up with the demand from growing Utah communities.

While the story in the Tribune focused a great deal on how the rate hike will affect the end consumers’ pocketbooks, it is more important to focus on how government involvement and interference in what should be a private company will lead to that company’s demise.

Key Points

• The government’s interference in this situation is not an all out compulsory dominion over Rocky Mountain Power. Like most utility companies, RMP inadvertently agreed to government intervention by accepting tax breaks, grants, and subsidies.
• Whether or not the company fully acknowledged that help would have strings attached, it likely underestimated the degree of control that the government would exercise.
• Today, as it feels that control in its fullness, it finds itself greatly hindered in its ability to operate freely and protect its self-interest.
• When one gives up all or part of their agency to another, they are not excused from the accompanying stewardship, even if the loss of agency hampers their ability to fulfill that stewardship. Responsibility lies solely with the original steward, regardless of the regulations and bureaucracy that they may now face.
• Rocky Mountain Power now finds itself in the predicament of needing funds that exceed its projected budgets. So long as the government dictates allowable profit margins to the company, the company remains in jeopardy.
• The irony here is that the government wants companies like RMP to meet consumer demands at a price that seems reasonable to the consumer. In trying to regulate that price, they limit supply—a company that is short on resources will not be able to produce sufficiently. They also limit the ability of the company to meet the consumer demand, which will eventually drive prices higher.
• As has happened in the medical field and in many other areas, government intervention has artificially suppressed prices and has led the consumer to expect services for less than they cost to provide. Requests to raise prices are painted as attacks on consumers, but letting the status quo drive the power company out of business isn’t a viable option either. Where’s the utility in a defunct company?
• Government intervention in public utilities has become so common place that most fail to see the dangers in it. And, when utility companies fail, it will be to the government that the people run.

Conclusion

Utility companies have grown to rely on the crutch of the government, and in so doing have cut themselves short. So long as this practice continues, they will never know their own capabilities and potential nor will they know the true taste of freedom. In speaking to Congress on August 12, 1974, Gerald Ford echoed sentiments of Jefferson in saying, “A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.” Rocky Mountain Power’s choice of dependence and the consequent lack of freedom could cause them to lose everything that they have.

Action Items

1. Take a look at your attitudes regarding utility companies and other industries that have become dependent on the government’s help. Do you see the inherent dangers, or do you simply accept the current set up as the way things are?
2. Open a discussion with your peers in the FreeCapitalist Project on the proper role of government. Discuss how companies that appear to be inseparably intertwined with the government could wean themselves from dependency. Discuss the beneficial effects that self-reliance would have on those businesses.
3. Consider areas in which you are less self-reliant than you should be (especially areas where lack of self-reliance leads to dependence on government). What steps can you take to be more self-reliant in those areas?
4. Consider the freedoms you would lose by failing to maintain self-reliance in those areas.

MRFC Principles:  (1, 3, 9, 11)

Sources

Steven Oberbeck, Rocky Mountain Power gets OK for rate hike — but not near what it wanted, Salt Lake Tribune, August 12, 2008.

Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism in the Classical Tradition, Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2000.

Real Estate Appraisal Regulation

HIGHLAND, UT | 19 August 2008| The real estate industry in the United States is in complete disarray. Many articles have been written on FreeCapitalist Daily to illustrate this point. Still, little has been done to really capture the severity of this problem. Throughout the country, many news articles and even books have been written in attempt to expose who these authors believe to the culprits of the fraud that has led to the recent bursting of the real estate bubble that has so many people losing their homes. Yet, it is doubtful whether the finger of blame has landed correctly on the right person or persons.

A similar housing crisis in the late 1980s led to stronger federal regulations in many areas of the real estate industry. One of the strongest holds the government took was upon independent appraisers. Mitch Weiss’ in-depth AP article this week gives a good overview of that history. However, the rest of Weiss’ article was lost on the lament that the regulation is basically a paper tiger, lacking any teeth in bringing “rogue appraisers” to justice. Questions a thinking reader must pose include: What is such an appraiser cheating on? Whom is he cheating? According to what standard is such an appraiser deviating? Who says he is acting fraudulently? The reader’s questions may be endless in this respect.

Correctly understanding the principles of prosperity will enable even the most casual looker on to recognize the trouble and to take appropriate measures to right this sinking ship. Namely, one must begin to understand the relationship between agency and stewardship.

Key Points

• Regulation means discipline and well measured action. Regulation means maintaining honesty in transactions. Regulation is attached to stewardship.
• Stewardship properly lies in the parties involved in a given transaction.
• In the 1980s real estate crisis, the federal government has erroneously yet effectively assumed stewardship of nearly every real estate transaction in the U.S. This happened progressively over the decades, first with the founding of the twin debacles of Freddie Mac and Fannie May; then with the Savings and Loan Bailouts where the government finally got a hold of the real estate agents and the appraisers.
• This erroneous assumption of stewardship simply is not within the government’s proper role.
• This has robbed the buyer, seller, and lender of their agency, in that they have been unable to determine their own values in a given transaction—they must now seek government permission for the transaction.
• Government regulation begets black markets. Because the human soul is autonomous and yearns for that freedom, it will search for it and achieve it in any way possible. This has created a system that is broken and a bureaucracy unable and unwilling to enforce itself.
• Stewardship is very closely tied to self-interest. One who lacks self-interest will not do his due diligence in a given transaction; but one who recognizes much self-interest will seek to establish the truth regarding the transaction he wishes to engage in.
• Mortgage lenders also have a stewardship in real estate transactions because if a borrower defaults on a mortgage, mortgage lenders will want to make sure they are adequately collateralized. They have surrendered their stewardship because government agencies have guaranteed nearly every loan. This has robbed the lender of his self-interest so he feels no need to do due diligence.
• In the end, the entity that is defrauded in a given real estate transaction is ultimately the government because of those loan guarantees.
• No one, however, is willing to take responsibility of the due diligence.

Conclusion

On the John Pendleton show on the Accent Radio Network this morning, the author of Chain of Blame: How Wall Street Caused the Mortgage and Credit Crisis explained that to eradicate all regulation would make this problem worse. This introduces the question: Is it good to regulate? The answer is shockingly: Yes. However, what was missed on the radio and is also missed in Weiss’ article is that regulation must accompany stewardship. The regulation is the individual’s personal adherence to correct principles. As this problem illustrates, the government, ultimately, is unable to enforce such regulations unless it is willing to bring out the big guns to force its hand. Fortunately, this country has not seen the veritable bloodbath of its appraisers, real estate agents, and mortgage brokers. However, to continue down this path of ever tightening government regulation would ultimately result in such a bloodbath. Nothing short of a full-scale overhaul of the system will remedy itself of these problems. And when that overhaul takes place, the government must not be invited to the party.

Action Items

1. Evaluate your own life. Are there stewardships that you willing hand over to someone else, hoping that everything goes alright? Resolve to reinsert your own human life value (HLV) into the equation. Take back the stewardship and do your due diligence.
2. Write to your Congressman and express your opinion that the govern should remove itself from all real estate activity and allow the marketplace to overhaul itself.
3. Search for alternative solutions to the real estate crisis, including methods which do not require a mortgage for a lending institution.

MRFC Principles: (2, 3, 6, 11)

Sources

Mitch Weiss, AP IMPACT: Weak rules cripple appraiser oversight, Yahoo! News, August 17, 2008.

John Pendleton, The Tom Pendleton Show, August 19, 2008.

Paul Muolo and Mathew Padilla, The Chain of Blame: How Wall Street Caused the Mortgage and Credit Crisis, Hoboken, NJ, John Wiley & Son’s, Inc., 2008.

Whose Time Is It, Anyway?

HIGHLAND, UT | 6 August 2008 | One hundred-fifty years ago, nearly everyone worked from home. Not much of a surprise; it was an agrarian society. People worked in their own fields or they had shops (such as a blacksmith or mercantiler) attached to their homes. Following decades found more people move their workplaces into town as the industrial revolution took hold. Over the past fifty to eighty years hardly anyone has worked at home, preferring to take a job rather than be self-employed at a home-based operation. But today with the high cost of fuel and other influences, more and more people are opting to work at home.

Today’s work-at-home environment poses new challenges that yesteryear’s work-at-homers perhaps didn’t have to deal with. Sue Shellenbarger, of the Wall Street Journal, reports that employers fear workers will take advantage of the lack of personal supervision and squander valuable time. The solution? Employing monitoring devices in employees’ computers to “look over their shoulders.” Naturally, questions of “Big Brother” arise both from employees and from critics of the process. So, is an employer justified in placing such monitoring devices? Or should the work-at-home employee have the right to work as he sees fit without the close electronic supervision? Several principles are at play in this this interaction.

Most recognize almost immediately in this story that force destroys freedom and that perhaps by using the monitoring devices employers are using force over their employees and therefore destroying their freedom. But other principles come into play that reveal a much deeper issue involved in the interaction between employer and employee: Productivity is the standard, and agency implies stewardship.

Key Points

• Employers own the businesses people work in.
• They own the equipment, the buildings, the hardware and the software associated with the business.
• They own the projects pertaining to the profitability of the business.
• They own the labor their employees have agreed to sell them.
• Owners recognize that labor rightly ordered (or as Napoleon Hill puts it, organized effort) is required to be profitable.
• Therefore, they have the right to monitor the productivity and effectiveness of the labor they have purchased from employees.
• To be honest, employees should be the most productive they can be during the times they sold their labor to employers.
• Employees often squawk about the monitoring of labor from their employers. They claim the employers take away their agency in this process.
• The best way to recognize where agency rightly exists is to answer the question: Who has stewardship in the matter? Regarding Employer/Employee exchanges agency and stewardship changes hands at different times.
  • Prior to the agreement, both parties have stewardship over their own self-interest—their personal and family welfare, business concerns, etc.
  • In the process of coming to an agreement both parties essentially say, “I see what you are wanting to do. My self-interest aligns with yours in ____ area, and I want to create value for you by ____.” The employee agrees to sell a portion of his life (time and labor) to the employer in order to accomplish both sets of self-interests. Or in other words, the employee sells a portion of his agency to the employer.
  • After the contract has been signed, the employee no longer has stewardship or agency over that portion of his life (time and labor). He must therefore fulfill his obligations in the contract by laboring in the manner and at the time his employer and he agreed upon.
  • The employer still carries the ultimate stewardship of the business, and has the right to monitor the employee’s productivity while on the job.
• Often employers like to share the responsibility of stewardship with their employees. Along with that responsibility, when properly executed by the boss, comes added agency for the employee. The employee then is able to make a few decisions regarding his time and labor.

Conclusion

Ms. Shellenbarger’s story dealt mostly with employers monitoring employees. Based upon the items listed above, this process appears perfectly right. However, often the comment was made that employers wish to monitor free-lance and contract workers at home as well. These types of individuals clearly fit into a more free category. While they have sold their time and labor to others, they generally do not sell those items in the same way an employee does. They have usually preserved for themselves a little of the agency and stewardship that the employee gives up. It would therefore be against principle for the employer to monitor the productivity of these people.  

The challenges between employer and employee have been around for generations. The boss wants the utmost productivity from his workers. The worker wants mostly to be left alone while working and to have the freedom to work as, how and when he chooses. A FreeCapitalist society—one in which both employer and employee choose voluntarily to live according to ancient principles of prosperity—can peacefully and easily solve these challenges by exploring the myriad solutions available to those whose brains are awake and switched to on.

Action Items

1. Review your own situation for creating value in the world, whether it be business owner, self-employed, freelance, contract worker, or employee.
2. Study out the level of agency and stewardship you possess by reviewing the agreements you have made for the exchange.
3. Resolve to stick to those agreements. If you do not like your agreement, stick with it until the opportunity presents itself to alter or abolish that agreement in advantage of a new one.
4. If you are the boss of work-at-home employees and you suspect that you are not receiving the level of productivity you desire or think is reasonable, discuss alternatives with your employees. Perhaps some of the following questions could be of help.
   1. What is the nature of the agreement you have with your employee?
   2. How much agency and stewardship have you afforded to your employee?
   3. Have you allowed the amount of agency and stewardship you intended?
   4. Is the amount of agency and stewardship facilitating or restricting the amount of productivity you desire?
   5. If no on #4, how can you make arrangements—including monitoring, or changing the employment status to freelancers or contract workers, etc.—with your employee to incite higher productivity?
5. If you are the employee in a similar situation, and you are dissatisfied with the current arrangements, it is also healthy for you to explore the answers to the above questions. If they are not to your liking, consider some of the following.
   1. Go into business for yourself.
   2. Seek to become a freelancer where you have control over your time and labor and whom you sell them to. Perhaps selling time and labor to several employers on a piece-rate method would be better than selling your productive time to just one employer.
   3. Become a contract worker, which carries a little more agency than an employee but not as much as a freelancer or a self-employed individual.

MRFC Principles:  (3, 7, 9, 10, 13) 

Sources

Sue Shellenbarger, Work at Home? Your Employer May Be Watching, Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2008.

Only an Enlightened Electorate Should Vote!

HIGHLAND, UT | 5 August 2008 | Caspar Weinberger, Jr., recently wrote an op-ed piece challenging America’s mindset in voting. He asked the question whether every American old enough to vote should be allowed to. His point:

If you are intelligent enough to read the Times or to boycott it on purpose because of its consistent left-biased slant, you are most certainly smart enough to be a voter, whatever your ultimate choice for the election.

His lament:

The truth is that a citizen who takes the time to study the major issues and reach a conclusion based on that study is definitely to be at least off-set by a voting citizen who will vote because he likes Obama’s tie or McCain’s fatherly white hair.

Most textbooks record the progression of suffrage rights as one of ever increasing inclusivity. Surely, the right for blacks and women to vote was necessary for this country to extend equal rights to all. Other steps may not have been as prudent—say, for example, amending the constitution to provide senators to be elected by the popular vote, thus robbing states of their power in the federal legislative process. Universal suffrage has resulted in many people being allowed to vote who, because of their general apathy or ignorance, have no business stepping inside the voter booth.

The Founders certainly had some discriminating issues to work through. They recognized that; and they recognized that it would take many generations to sort all that out. But, I suggest, they had a greater understanding of suffrage than we do. Many of our current woes in this area are a result of our departure from their wisdom.

Agency and Stewardship

Our Founding generation took upon themselves a responsibility very few had taken throughout all of known history. Theirs was a worldview in which man was governed by principles and not the whims of men. They believed God and not government gave rights to man. They understood very well that with high privilege comes great responsibility. Or in other words, agency implies stewardship.

The Founders treated the right to vote with great seriousness. Prior to the constitution the right to vote was attached to the ownership of property, and in many areas only landholders were allowed to vote. The traditions goes back to at least the ancient Greeks that only the truly free possessed the presence of mind to vote wisely. And they attached that wisdom to the material manifestation of land ownership. When someone owns land, he or she generally has a greater understanding of stewardship and responsibility, and has usually worked pretty hard to “deserve” the privilege of such ownership. The Greeks, Romans and others believed that sense of stewardship carried over into self-governance and wise participation in community service.

The British colonists used this method in many of the various American colonies prior to the Revolution. However, the idea universal inalienable rights exposed a side of landholding through the ages based more on aristocracy than on merit. It is evident that the Founders agreed with the landholding idea of stewardship breeding or revealing wisdom, but they feared the rise of an American aristocracy, so eventually this method fell out of use.

It is possible to see the concept of landholding and the attendant sense of stewardship in today’s society. In my personal life I wondered about this idea. Why would the voting privilege be tied to land? And then I bought a house. Suddenly, I became awakened to all the responsibilities of land ownership. I took my stewardship seriously and I found that not only my awareness grew, my ideas changed. I suddenly became much more aware of what political leaders were doing. I took my vote seriously because I recognized a deeper stewardship attached.

I have also been a landlord and I do not see the same stewardship attitude from renters. They have very little regard for property, and my personal experience with them politically is that they care very little for the affairs of the day. Even to the point that I once advised a friend that the best way for her to serve her country in that election cycle was to stay home on election day. When a person lives in someone else’s home, that person does not respect the stewardship and often does more damage than good, residentially or politically.

The Founders held similar views. Jefferson, for example, believed that:

Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds. – Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Jay (Aug. 23, 1785)

Others held similar views. Simply put, voting rights without the sense of stewardship creates an electorate that eventually become apathetic and cynical to the welfare of their nation. One need not go far these days to see this in our society.

Spain’s Grand Invention

Jefferson also believed that “a nation [that] expects to be ignorant and free, expects what never was and never will be.” In other places he defined this as an enlightened electorate. He understood the stewardship principle as it attached to voting, but landholding held the stigma of a landed aristocracy and he wanted to move away from that stigma. He rejoiced in the attempts of the Spanish shortly after his presidency.

There is one provision [in the new constitution of Spain] which will immortalize its inventors. It is that which, after a certain epoch, disfranchises every citizen who cannot read and write. This is new, and is the fruitful germ of the improvement of everything good and the correction of everything imperfect in the present constitution. This will give you an enlightened people, and an energetic public opinion which will control and enchain the aristocratic spirit of the government. —Bergh 14:130. (1814)

An electorate that is illiterate is unable to appropriately or effectively pick its leaders. As Jefferson so eloquently explained many times, the powers of government should reside in the people. Stored in any other entity, they will soon wither to tyranny. Further, Milton Friedman explains:

A stable democratic society is impossible without a minimum degree of literacy and knowledge on the part of most citizens and without widespread acceptance of some common set of values. Education can contribute to both. In consequence, the gain from the education of a child accrues not only to the child or to his parents but also to other members of the society.

But the electorate requires constant vigilance to remain stable and keep that power. It cannot be kept by mere watching of the nightly news or a quick discussion at the water cooler. Literacy is a starting point for this vigilance.

Unfortunately, the current government-controlled education system is failing this electorate, as 40% of students graduate functionally illiterate. If today’s elective system were set up in this way, how long until the government schools make it nearly impossible to locate a literate American electorate?

Perhaps if more voters in America were truly literate, we would not have had the problems we had in 2000 when so many voters in Florida were rounded up and brought to the polls in buses and told just to pick the one on the left.

Unfortunately, Spain did not let this process play out. The country eventually caved to the pressure of giving suffrage to every citizen regardless of qualification. Sadly, the great experiment failed before we could learn the result. Still, the principle as uttered by Jefferson dominates self-government: the more educated members of a society are on matters of stewardship and community, the better able they will be in holding those powers in check against the rulers in government.

Where Have All the Teachers Gone?

In 1940, Mortimer Adler published How to Read a Book. He provided great insights on literacy that have unfortunately fallen by the wayside as the country’s educational system has followed destructive models which took us away from the classical education of the 3 R’s. In a chapter titled “The Defeat of the Schools,” Adler explains, “If the schools were doing their job, this book would not be necessary.” Adler poses a few questions:

Is it too much to ask that a student be able to read a whole book, not merely a paragraph, and report not only what was said therein but show an increased understanding of the subject matter being discussed? Is it too much to expect from the schools that they train their students not only to interpret but to criticize; that is, to discriminate what is sound from error and falsehood, to suspend judgment if they are not convinced, or to judge with reason if they agree or disagree?

And this a decade or two before the real deliberate dumbing down of our schools began in the 1950s! Adler continues:

Why are these students not getting any help? …It must be because the educators simply do not know what to do about it; in addition, perhaps, because they do not realize how much time and effort must be expended to teach students how to read, write, and speak well. Too many other things, of much less importance, have come to clutter up the curriculum.

Too many other things? Indeed! Today’s system has failed us on many fronts, the most awful is perhaps the literacy question. Government schools, and most private schools I would add, do not do enough to help our children become literate. They have fine programs that teach letter recognition and word decoding; but the education seems to stop there. The schools simply do not have time to teach a student to use reading now to learn new ideas and to think critically about what they have read. Since the schools are not doing this, it is high time that such a practice become available somewhere else.

Free Minds Make Free Men

Adler, on the other hand, has been instrumental in the twentieth century in facilitating many great projects to preserve the great books and great documents of our time, including the Great Books series and the Annals of America, both by Encyclopedia Britannica. Inspired by John Erskine’s Columbia University honors program, Adler concludes his masterful work by explaining the importance of reading and learning in the functioning of a self-governing society and in the lives of “free men.” I quote at length for context.

I remember what John Erskine said when he launched the group of students I belonged to on the reading of the great books. He told us that for some years past he had noticed that college students could not talk to one another intelligently. Under the elective system, they went to different classes, meeting only now and then and reading only this or that textbook in common. Members of the same college year were not intellectual friends. When he had gone to Columbia at the beginning of the century, everyone took the same courses and read the same books, many of them great ones. Good conversation had flourished and, more than that, there had been friendships with respect to ideas as well as on the playing field or in fraternities.

One of his motives in starting the Honors course was to revive college life as an intellectual community. If a group of students read the same books and met weekly for two years to discuss them, they might find a new sort of fellowship. The great books would not only initiate them into the world of ideas but would provide the frame of reference for further communication among them. They would know how to talk intelligently and intelligibly to one another, not only about the books, but through the books about all the problems which engage men’s thought and action.

In such a community, Erskine said, democracy requires intelligent communication about and common participation in the solution of human problems. That was before anyone thought that democracy would ever again be threatened. As I remember, we did not pay much attention to Erskine’s insight at the time. But he was right. I am sure of it now. I am sure that a liberal education is democracy’s strongest bulwark. (Adler 356-357.)

He subsequently developed a study of great books from history that is nearly unparalleled in today’s educative practices. And the best part about it is no teacher is necessary to facilitate the program. Individuals and special interest groups may participate at their leisure in reading and discussing these books in a way that educates one’s mind and turns an individual on to the ideas throughout the centuries. The result is an education that readies the individual for acute discriminative citizenship.

I pull several statements from Adler’s comments that merit discussion.

• Students could not talk to one another intelligently.I challenge that if students of that day could not speak intelligently to one another, that today’s students are in even worse condition. And further that as bad as today’s college student has it, today’s adult population is so much more the worse. Neighbors live, eat, and sleep within feet of one another, yet hold hardly anything in common. Is it any wonder then that hardly anything happens at a caucus meeting or a townhall gathering?
• They would know how to talk intelligently and intelligibly to one another, not only about the books, but through the books about all the problems which engage men’s thought and action. The result of reading great books and learning to talk about them improves the general life overall of such an individual.
• Democracy requires intelligent communication about and common participation in the solution of human problems.The challenges we face today will not be solved by 30-minute sit-com solutions or by expert savior-like elected officials who claim to have all the right answers. They will only be solved when a statistically significant proportion of the population begins to take control of their own lives by becoming literate in and effectively living the ancient principles of prosperity discovered by our Founding generations. We must learn to consider those ideas, to discuss them with our brains turned on, considering the merits of the ideas rather than the typically ad homonym prejudices we blindly attach to ideas. We must patiently work through these ideas and give them time to bear the fruit according to those unchanging principles.
• That was before anyone thought that democracy would ever again be threatened.The twentieth century is known as the bloodiest century by sheer numbers in the history of mankind. More lives were lost in the name of creeping socialism and tyranny than at any other time. And even more souls were lost to its devastating effects on those who physically survived. Is democracy [read: self-government] under threat? Absolutely! And we must do something now in order to stop the overflowing scourge that is filling us to the brim.
• I am sure that a liberal education is democracy’s strongest bulwark. Only an enlightened electorate is able to store the powers of self-government properly. It will take an even more enlightenment to return those powers back to their proper vestiges. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and their contemporaries were raised up by studying the great books of their times. We are on the brink of a similarly revolutionary time of our own. One of the elements of raising ourselves up to the challenges of our times is to learn and understand the principles those great men implanted into our national psyche. This must be done before it is too late.

And this is only the beginning. Having a literate, enlightened electorate must then act upon the ideas they learn in order to be effective in restoring to them the powers of self-government.

A Test

“I believe that 100% of all citizens of a nation should be allowed to vote.” This is a great statement, one that I believe in. But rather than to stop at the period, one must ask a heavy question. What is a citizen? How can we know when someone has become a citizen? Immigrants who legally enter and live in this country eventually have the opportunity to become naturalized citizens. Among other things, they must take a test to accomplish this. The test is not incredibly difficult, but I wonder how many native-born Americans could answer these questions. Sample questions include:

1. What is the supreme law of the land?
2. The idea of self-government is in the first three words of the Constitution. What are these words?
3. What is freedom of religion?
4. Name one branch of the government.
5. What stops one branch of government from becoming too powerful?
6. The House of Representatives has how many voting members?
7. Who does a U.S. Senator represent?
8. What does the judicial branch do?
9. Who is the Chief Justice of the United States?
10. Under our Constitution, some powers belong to the states. What is one power of the states?

All of these questions are orally answered and none of them are multiple choice. Most of them seem simple enough, but think of Jay Leno’s “Jay Walking” and Sean Hannity’s “Man on the Street Interviews.” Many Americans could not answer these simple questions. These are topics that unless you care deeply about our country you wouldn’t necessarily know. That, therefore, begs the question: what is a citizen?

Isn’t it good enough just to be born in a country to be considered a citizen? I mean, after all, your parents worked darn hard to be in this country and to produce you kids in it. You should just be entitled to all the privileges of this nation, including choosing its leaders. Perhaps… But I suggest that a citizen is much more than just someone born in and living in a particular country. A citizen is one who is educated well enough to be a productive member of the society, one capable of self-government, one who possesses the ability to provide for himself and the wisdom to rule himself.

So, in addition to the naturalization test mentioned above, I propose another test to prove a person’s citizenship and therefore his qualifications to vote: a test of personal self-reliance.

1. Is the individual economically, politically, and intellectually self-reliant?
2. Does the individual have a basic understanding of the founding of this nation, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution?
3. Does the individual engage in meaningful personal civic service?
4. Does the individual engage in meaningful community civic service?

Conclusion

Mr. Weinberger knew he would take some heat with his article, and the commentary thereafter is indication enough that the majority of even those who seek to educate themselves on these matters are missing the mark. Images of blind and patriotic sheep conjure in the mind of those who have awakened and turned their brains on. But the fact is, in the marketplace of ideas, if you’re not taking a little heat from such collectivist, though well-intentioned folks, you’re not sharing enough of the truth.

Should everyone in America be allowed to vote? Definitely! If they can qualify as citizens on a much higher scale than we have required in the past. Citizens, true citizens, repeatedly demonstrate that they are able to rule themselves in wisdom by living disciplined, principled lives of self-reliance. This is not possible without literacy. Literacy is not simply the ability to decipher groupings of letters on a page, but rather a complex ability to read closely, discriminate proper principles, think critically about what one has read, to discuss intelligently, and to act upon that reading. In the political processes of our day, too many people vote by whim or by what they have heard say at the water coolers or on television or radio talk shows with pundits who know only a little more than they do. Candidates also reveal their lack of intelligence on a regular interval, showing they are hardly qualified themselves to vote, let alone to stand in their elected positions. Individuals often vote for the best looking or the most promising candidate rather than the candidate who has read and most fully understood the Constitution of the United States. Oliver Van DeMille poses the question: “How can there be Washingtons and Jeffersons today unless we read what they read, feel what they felt, and know what they knew?” To which I pose: And how will there be Washingtons and Jeffersons to elect unless there are Washingtons and Jeffersons literate and self-reliant enough to elect them?

Action Items

1. Read Adler’s How to Read a Book
2. Begin a Classic Reading course today.
3. Join a civic service organization, such as the FreeCapitalist Project, where you can associate with like-minded individuals also striving to realize self-reliance.
4. Become a real citizen of your country and community.

MRFC Principles: (2, 3, 4)

Sources

Caspar Weinberger, Jr., Should All Americans Be Allowed to Vote? HumanEvents.com, July 28, 2008.

Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press, Fortieth Anniversary edition, 2002, p. 86.

Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book,New York, NY, Simon and Shuster, 1940. (Note: In order to read the chapter on Free Minds and Free Men, you must obtain a copy of the book published prior to 1972. The older the copy the better.)

New Naturalization Test Questions, about.com

Oliver Van DeMille, A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the Twenty-first Century,Cedar City, UT, George Wythe University Press, 2000.

Why the Pickens Plan Won’t Work

HIGHLAND, UT | 23 July 2008| One of the hottest topics in the marketplace of ideas is America’s growing concern with energy. Many say that oil production peaked in 2005 and will soon dry up. Others say that petroleum based internal combustion engines, though not very efficient, are here to stay. Many are looking for alternative sources of oil, such as shale or from algae while others argue that these sources are not feasible for the country’s needs. And there is the ubiquitous clamoring that our current “dependence” upon foreign oil is draining our coffers dry. One of the latest to come on the scene for the current crisis of alternative solutions, is a man named T. Boone Pickens.

With a name like T. Boone Pickens: if you picture a Texas oil tycoon millionaire philanthropist, you would be correct. Though his plan is new, Pickens is not new to the energy industry. The son of an oil producer and a degree in geology, no doubt to aid him in understanding where oil, natural gas and other energy sources may be found in the earth, Pickens was the founder of Mesa Petroleum, which grew to become “one of the largest and most well known independent exploration and production companies in the United States” under his stewardship. Simply put, Pickens’ background and experience definitely qualifies him to be listened to regarding an alternative plan.

His plan is to use one of the world’s greatest wind resources to generate enough electricity to power other energy plants and to provide a portion of America’s electricity needs, thus relieving the need to operate these plants with oil, so the oil demand in the country would drop and more oil could also be used to produce fuel for our vehicles. The Plan also provides for alternative sources of automobile fuel, such as natural gas and ultimately electricity. The plan appears quite legitimate, in and of itself. But it contains a serious flaw that will prove it ultimate failure, and perhaps the failure of our great nation.

Principles govern in the affairs of man. A plan that violates those principles may prove quite successful in the short-term, but will ultimately spell the doom of all those involved. In this regard, Pickens doesn’t really appear to violate principle in the plan itself: wind, natural gas, and other sources of energy are as viable as any other on earth. And left up to a good capitalist, say, another Henry Ford or Steve Jobs, these alternatives could definitely become the next hysteria in transportation. The major flaws of the Pickens Plan is the implementation.

Pickens has been in Washington D.C.all this week, lobbying elected officials and testifying before committees, looking for “permission” to carry forth his plan. This corporatist approach to solving this nation’s challenges violates the Principles of Prosperity and will ultimately end in ruins.

Key Points

• Those who seek the protection of government believe government provides prosperity. Those who understand where true prosperity comes from will then gain the faith necessary to act appropriately. Pickens reveals his faith in government rather than God:

It can all be accomplished with private investment but needs government support by clearing the way for action, which means help on providing the transmission right of way, the appropriate renewals of the renewable energy tax credits, among other things.

• In reality, the plan, any plan, only needs one thing from government: to get itself out of the way and allow informed citizens to voluntarily create the solutions the country seeks.
• Faith is the opposite of fear. again, a thorough understanding of God as the true source of prosperity puts the course in perspective and creates a level of certainty. This builds faith which aids an individual to action. Pickens wants to have the government force its citizens to follow his plan. He lacks the faith that people will see this for themselves. If an intended market does not recognize its self-interest in a given market item, the only way to get that intended market to buy into it is by force. The better solution for Pickens would be to create the project more locally and have it prove its legitimacy and allow it to catch on in the rest of the country. To his credit, he is currently building the largest wind farm in the world which will have the productive capability of four coal-fire plants. Perhaps, however, he feels this is too slow.
• By attaching stewardship (the responsibility of failure) to the collective body, the Pickens Plan creates a fissure in agency. No one will act responsibly enough to ensure success. This allows an escape hatch to exist in case of failure. And when it crashes, too many otherwise responsible parties will echo Atlas Shrugs’, “It’s not my fault.” This gets people off the hook but it does not create a formula for success.

Conclusion

The intended implementation process of the Pickens Plan is the product of a collective attitude within the American society that says business success can only happen with government’s blessing. This is the result of decades of fascist and other socialist influence over not just government’s psyche, but that of the general population as well. Thus, the truth of the FreeCapitalist statement: Everyone is trained, taught, and educated in the scarcity paradigm. That psyche is the flame that has fueled our society from the Great Depression right down to the next big bail out and the next government-enforced great idea. On paper, the Pickens Plan looks really good, but these violations of principle will spell the ultimate doom. The Founders created a country in which rugged individualism and social strength, based upon the universal principles of prosperity, would move this country forward in success. Anything short of that, anything that replaces faith with fear, is at best a counterfeit and will not work.

Action Items

1. Review the Pickens Plan for yourself and decide whether the energy portion of the plan is something you could support.
2. Communicate with your Congressman your position regarding any government involvement in this Plan.
3. If you have an idea you’ve contemplated bringing to market, study Principle 1 (God is the author of prosperity) and Principle 2 (Faith begins with self-interest) until you have built enough faith in yourself and in others to bring your idea to market according to principle.

MRFC Principles:  1  (1, 2, 3, 11, 12, 13)

Sources

The Man with the Plan,PickensPlan.com.

The Plan,PickensPlan.com.

T. Boone Pickens’ energy plan gets play in Washington, Dallas Business Journal, July 23, 2008.

C. Rick Koerber, A Call for Revolution,The FreeCapitalist Project Primer, p. 19.

A River Runs through It

TAYLORSVILLE, UT | 23 JULY 2008 | Since 1982, Utah streams have been open to public passage and recreation, even when those streams passed through private land. But, eight years ago, an angler was cited for trespassing on private land when he left his raft to wander the river bed. On Friday, because of a court case stemming from that incident, the Utah Supreme Court ruled to allow the public to “walk on the beds of all streams and rivers, no matter who owns the land beneath them.”While the ruling shows extreme disregard for basic property ownership rights, the reaction to the ruling by the general public shows even greater lack of concern for principles. Ed Kent, chair of the Utah Anglers Coalition said, “This is going to open corridors of extremely productive waters to anglers that have only been accessible to individuals who gained permission from friends to fish private land.” Upon hearing the ruling, the plaintiff in the case, Kevin Conatser, was ecstatic. “Right on! Sweet! How great! Fishermen are going to love me!”

Somehow, a general lack of understanding of principles has led both the government and the people to the mistaken belief that the public can have ownership in a nation that embraces freedom. The court should know and act better. But, until the people become intimately familiar with and committed to basic, foundational principles, what the court says or does is irrelevant.

Key Points

• Anytime the government steps in to own anything in the name of the public, freedom is inherently lost.
• Private groups may own land and set specific rules for its use, but that is a voluntary act of the individuals involved in the group.
• When government tries to do the same, they are stepping beyond their bounds.
• Government control of private property is at the very heart of all socialist agendas.
• Ezra Taft Benson said conversations on “these questions seem to be based, not upon any solid principle, but upon the popularity of the specific government program in question. Seldom are men willing to oppose a popular program if they, themselves, wish to be popular.”
• It could be added that seldom are men willing to oppose a popular program if they perceive a personal benefit in the program. That mentality never considers the potential infringement on others’ benefits or rights.
• Lack of understanding has also led the government and the people to believe that rights (and principles) are created by man, rather than God. “Rights” become an offshoot of personal desires and opinions. Without universal guiding standards, anything can become a “right” if enough people stand behind it. And, as man creates his own rights, there are bound to be conflicts of interest and unintended consequences.
• This case pits one man’s perceived right (use of ‘public’ resources) against another man’s God-given right (pursuit of happiness through property ownership). And, while the government is supposedly founded for the protection of our God-given rights, the public is willing to wield government force for any cause that affects them personally. How would this fisherman feel if people wanted to use his land without his permission?
• Conatser says “Now we can float down that river without being worried about getting shot by that farmer.” Those who believe that government force can or will stifle personal agency are mistaken. The law, in and of itself, has no power to control or engineer individual actions. It can reactively punish actions, but it will never prevent any action, unless it is coupled with extreme use of unwarranted force. Hiding behind the new law seems to make Conatser more cavalier and may likely be what does get him shot.

Conclusion

This is just wrong. This opens up privately owned lands to abuse and damage. Defense attorney in this case, Ronald Russell says, “Even streams as small as a trickle will be fair game for people who want to fish or wade…[they can] walk up and down it as long as (they) like…If I had a stream in my backyard, I’d be concerned.”

Of greater concern than the wrongness of the decision, this story shows how disconnected people are from principles. People are overly anxious to use the power of the government to push their personal agendas. This opens up the foundation of freedom to abuse and damage. In a giddy frenzy, anglers are planning trips to other people’s land, less because of good fishing, and more because of a desire to “stick it” to the landowners that have stood in their way in the past. (See the comments posted in response to the article in the Salt Lake Tribune—link below.)

So, if you happen to own land where there is good fishing, a nice watering hole, or any other feature of interest connected to a river or stream, you might consider opening up a lemonade stand to invite your new visitors and guests. Just be sure to get the proper permits for it before you do.

Action Items

1. Have a frank discussion with someone whose land will be affected by this or a similar ruling. Discuss with them what could be done to limit the effects of this law or to overturn it.
2. Consider what your own thoughts and feelings would be if your private property was forcefully opened up to public use.
3. Do you support laws based on how they will benefit you, rather than basing your decision on principle?
4. Each of us has stewardships where we can force other’s actions or guide them to make the right choices. Consider whether you tend to use force or persuasion (example—When your children argue over a toy, do you force them to share, or do you help them work something out that they can both agree to?)
5. Read or re-read Benson’s “Proper Role of Government” (link below)

MRFC Principles: 13 (3, 11, 12)

Sources

Stephen Hunt and Brett Prettyman, “Utah Supreme Court: Use of public waterways includes streambeds – even on private land,” The Salt Lake Tribune, July 18, 2008.

Ezra Taft Benson, “Proper Role of Government,” 1968

FDIC (Fear Drives Ignorant Consumers)

SALT LAKE CITY, UT | 16 July 2008 | In a move that stirs up images of the Great Depression, people are lining up outside of IndyMac Bank branches to see that they “get theirs” before there is nothing left to get. Because of the number of people waiting to close their accounts and withdraw their funds, the bank has had to limit the number allowed in the bank at any time to five (those seeking to deposit funds are bumped to the head of the line). So, the rest are left to sit outside and stew in each other’s sob stories. And the scarcity abounds.Each of these customers felt that the high interest rates offered by IndyMac, combined with FDIC’s guarantees, were sufficient reason to deposit their money at one point. But, today, as the FDIC makes moves to fulfill their part of the bargain, panic-driven people are proving that they don’t trust the guarantees that made them feel so secure in the first place.

What has changed to cause these people to panic? Certainly, the general economic conditions of the day aren’t favorable, and the bank has shown a lack solvency, neither of which would muster much confidence in the average consumer. Even so, weren’t these distinct possibilities when accounts were opened and monies were deposited? No one likes to lose out and good stewardship demands that we do what we can to protect and increase our resources. But, when things do go differently than we hoped or planned, what should we do as good stewards to rectify the situation?

Key Points

• Faith begins with self interest. Fear is the enemy of faith, and therefore, acting out of fear is never an act of faith and can never produce the needed or desired result. Fear is an emotion that is meant to warn us of potential dangers and help us determine how to handle those dangers. It is meant to help us consider the options before us and navigate our course rationally. But, most people allow fear to lead to panic and irrationality. In the name of protecting their prosperity, people make moves that will almost certainly lock them into a life without prosperity.
• Panic and irrationality lead people to forget where real value lies. If the bank fails, if the dollar fails, if the entire system fails, each of us will still have the talents and knowledge that we have always had. We may have to adapt how we apply our talents and knowledge in our new situation, but we will still have the ability to create value, exchange it with others, and find value in the ensuing relationships.
• People standing in line will likely get their money back, but will either cling to it and not put it to good productive use (the hoarding mentality of so many of the Depression Era), or they will put the money at continued risk, speculating in other areas in hopes of recouping lost profits. Neither option has the power to create prosperity for these people. Both options place value in the physical reality of dollars—an option which leaves these people as slaves. They have no ability to control the market value of those dollars, and are therefore captive to the market swings of those dollars. If the dollar becomes completely devalued, they will be left with worthless papers and the big question of who is to blame for their bitter situation.

Conclusion

Loss hurts. But the amount that it hurts is entirely up to us. We can choose to be victims of bad situations and be tossed about by them. Or, we can take stock of that which we still have and determine how to produce with it. Money, the great distracter, has nothing to do with that decision. Which kind of makes sitting in line at a bank seem a little silly.

Action Items

1. Learn to eliminate fear and apply true faith to your financial decisions. (This DOES NOT MEAN hoping really hard that an investment will work the way you want it to.)
2. As best possible, know the potential positive and negative outcomes of an investment before you choose to make it.
3. Determine if the worst case scenario is something that you could live with and learn from.
4. Determine how you will recognize if the investment is faltering. What leading indicators should warn you that things are heading south?
5. Determine what your exit strategy would be if leading indicators showed the likelihood of the worst case scenario coming to fruition.
6. Recognize from the get-go that whether you recoup all of your money and expected profits or not, the risk of the investment was something that you chose to assume. In similar fashion to John Galt’s refusal to accept unearned guilt or profits, vow to never blame others for your gains or your losses on any investment.

MRFC Principles: (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 )

Source: Hundreds Demand Money From Failed California Bank, Associated Press, as seen on FoxNews.com, July 15, 2008 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,383341,00.html

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