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Picture a five-storey building. The fourth floor is politics, where how man should treat other men is determined. Politics, the fourth branch of philosophy, defines the principles of a proper social system. The politics floor rests on the third floor, ethics or morality, the code of values to guide man’s choices and actions in determining the purpose and the course of his life. The third floor rests on the second floor, epistemology, which is also called the reason-and-logic floor. In turn, the reason-and-logic floor rests on the first floor and the building’s foundations: metaphysics, the study of existence, nature, metaphysical reality.
Political principles that do not rest on ethics is like the fourth floor of a building floating on air; ethics or a morality code without an epistemological and metaphysical base is like a table with no legs. The proper code of values is established by means of reason in accordance with logic, in consonance with man’s nature.
A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. Freedom of action means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion, or interference by other men.
The first consequence of the principle of individual rights is the principle of political freedom, which is an individual’s freedom from physical compulsion, coercion, or interference by the government.
The next is the economic implementation of political freedom: capitalism.
A man has to eat or he will die. If a man chooses to live, proper survival is dictated by his nature. Like every existent, man has a specific nature; an existent cannot act in contradiction to its nature. If a man lives alone, he has to find or produce food in order to live. In a society, he can either be independent or be a parasite.
A right is that which can be exercised without anyone’s permission. It is based on man’s nature that, in order to live, he has no other choice but to act to further his life. Hence, by his nature, man must be free to act, and the only limit to that freedom is the equal rights of every other man.
The source of rights is not a Constitution nor a Declaration of Independence. Man-made documents or legislatures could recognize Rights – it cannot confer Rights. Any action that a man must do in order that he might live and not die is a right. Any action that infringes a right is not a right. A man who infringes rights loses his own rights.
Every individual possesses Rights. Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.
Individual rights are not subject to a public vote.
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Transcript: Vice President Cheney on FOX News Sunday - http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,4...
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1. The US Presidential Candidates’ Declaration of Dependence and Sacrifice
2. Part 2: The US Presidential Candidates’ Declaration of Dependence and Sacrifice
3. Part 3: The US Presidential Candidates’ Declaration of Dependence and Sacrifice
4. Capitalism is rooted in the Declaration of Independence
5. Socialism or Theocracy
6. Power Lusters and their Serfdom-tool: Regulations
7. Unbridled Greed for the Power to Coerce
8. Reason, Logic, and Good Premises!
9. Cockroaches objecting to Skyscrapers
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One who declares for a cause higher than the individual cannot claim to be a defender of individual liberty.
Individualism regards every man as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses inalienable rights. An individualist respects individual liberty — his own and that of others. Independent equals must choose: self-reliance or dependence. Self-reliance requires selfishness. Dependence breeds moochers, looters, and rulers.
Men who glorify servility need serfs to provide their sustenance. They are not satisfied with benevolence; they demand sacrifice – the renunciation or destruction of the precious. They damn selfishness as evil, and preach masochism and sadism in the name of service and sacrifice.
One who is not self-reliant, a moocher or a looter, is selfless. He does not use his own mind. Having no self-respect, he needs others – for approval, guidance, and/or sustenance. One who babysits adults dishonors independence, and derives self-esteem from others. A criminal is selfless - he recklessly risks his life and freedom for his need of victims. A power luster tramples on individual liberty and derives satisfaction from enslaving others – he is not an individualist; he is not selfish.
Those who fear self-reliance, i.e. selfishness, demonize individualism - they advocate service and sacrifice. Since President Abraham Lincoln and his heroes had eradicated serfdom, citizens are conned into thinking that voluntary self-immolation is noble. Men conned into regarding selfishness as evil evade that it is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. They unwittingly facilitate power lusters who recognize that man’s love of self must be destroyed so rulers could thrive.
To value is a function of the self – it is selfish to care for loved ones; their well-being or happiness is not divorced from the valuer’s. That good people live and prosper is in one’s own self-interest – one benefits from the advantages of social existence: exchange of knowledge, trade, division of labor, and defense from force – one wants to live in freedom and in peace – therefore, to cherish a society that respects individual rights is selfish.
Individualists do not need sacrificial lambs. Men with self-esteem, i.e. selfish men, take pride in independence. One cannot achieve happiness without self-esteem. Without self-respect, life is not worth living. This explains why men of integrity do the right thing no matter the cost. No matter how difficult, they cannot do otherwise - they cannot sacrifice their sacred honor. Doing the right thing is not sacrifice – it is upholding the precious, not renouncing or destroying it.
The people of the Enlightenment bequeathed virtue and glory to posterity. I call on individuals who value freedom to remember the founding of the nation conceived in Reason and Liberty. The legacy of the glorious thinkers and men of action has been trampled upon without compunction for decades. Just as they were faced with a mighty empire then, we are now faced with powerful kings.
Sons and daughters of Liberty, rise and mutually pledge to each other your lives, your fortunes, and your sacred honor that the nation conceived in Reason and Liberty shall not perish from the Earth.
The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, all valuers in words and in deed, faced death by hanging. The British marked out every member of Congress suspected of having put his name to “treason”. The signers became the objects of vicious manhunts. I remember and honor them with reverence – I glorify their love of Liberty with these words, penned before the author, Dr. Jose Rizal, a polymath and polyglot, was killed by tyrants at age 35:
"…
Gladly now I go to give thee this faded life's best,
And were it brighter, fresher, or more blest
Still would I give it thee, nor count the cost. …
If over my grave some day thou seest grow,
In the grassy sod, a humble flower,
Draw it to thy lips and kiss my soul so,
While I may feel on my brow in the cold tomb below
The touch of thy tenderness, thy breath's warm power. …
And heavenward in purity bear my tardy protest
Let some kind soul o 'er my untimely fate sigh,
And in the still evening a prayer be lifted on high
From thee, O my country, that in God I may rest. …
For I go where no slave before the oppressor bends, …"
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I respectfully remember the exalted memory and souls of Dr. Rizal and the glorious 56 – men who would not bend to tyrants, and by their grace, freedom blossomed:
Delaware:
George Read, Caesar Rodney, Thomas McKean
Pennsylvania:
George Clymer, Benjamin Franklin (age 70), Robert Morris, John Morton, Benjamin Rush, George Ross, James Smith, James Wilson, George Taylor
Massachusetts:
John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
New York:
Lewis Morris, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, William Floyd
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Virginia:
Richard Henry Lee, Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Jefferson, George Wythe, Thomas Nelson, Jr.
North Carolina:
William Hooper, John Penn, Joseph Hewes
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge (age 27), Arthur Middleton, Thomas Lynch, Jr., Thomas Heyward, Jr.
New Jersey:
Abraham Clark, John Hart, Francis Hopkinson, Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon
Connecticut:
Samuel Huntington, Roger Sherman, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
Maryland:
Charles Carroll, Samuel Chase, Thomas Stone, William Paca
John Hancock, President of the Second Continental Congress, attended Harvard College for a business education and graduated at the age of 17. His signature on the Declaration of Independence is the most flamboyant and easily recognizable of all.
This is an excerpt of Richard Henry Lee’s remarks on July 4, 1776: ‘Let this most happy day give birth to the American Republic. Let her arise not to devastate and conquer but to re-establish the reign of peace and the laws. The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us; she demands of us a living example of freedom that may contrast by the felicity of her citizens with the ever increasing tyranny which desolates her polluted shores. She invites us to prepare an asylum where the unhappy may find solace and the persecuted repose. … the names of the American legislators will be placed, by posterity, at the side of … all those whose memory has been and will be forever dear to virtuous men and good citizens.’
Two of Abraham Clark’s sons were officers in the Continental Army. They were captured and tortured. The British offered Mr. Clark his two sons’ release if he would renounce his signature on the Declaration of Independence. He refused.
William Ellery attended Harvard College and graduated at the age of 15. During the war, he saw his property and home looted and burned to the ground. In 1785 he became a strong and vocal advocate of the abolition of slavery.
Stephen Hopkins, self-educated, age around 69, and with cerebral palsy, signed with a shaking pen but declared: ‘My hand trembles, but my heart does not.’ In 1773, he freed his slaves, and the following year, he introduced a bill that prohibited the importation of slaves into the colony of Rhode Island.
According to legend, at the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson Jr. ordered his own home, where Cornwallis had his headquarters, destroyed by cannon fire.
Edward Rutledge, Arthur Middleton, and Thomas Heyward, Jr. lost their vast landholdings and estates while in prison. They were singled out for indignities and brutal treatment.
The homes, estates, and fortunes of Francis Lewis, William Ellery, William Floyd, Lewis Morris were plundered; Philips Livingston’s great holdings were confiscated. John Hart’s farm was raided by British and Hessian troops. Hunted down, the elderly Hart escaped and hid in the nearby Sourland Mountains.
Richard Stockton was brutally beaten upon capture. He was starved and subjected to freezing cold weather. After nearly six weeks of brutal treatment, he was released, his health ruined. His estate, Morven, in Princeton was occupied by General Cornwallis during Stockton's imprisonment; his furniture, all household belongings, crops and livestock were taken or destroyed by the British. His library, one of the finest in the colonies, was burned.
Thomas Lynch Jr., company commander in the 1st South Carolina regiment in 1775, fell ill shortly after signing the Declaration. At the close of 1776, he and his wife sailed for the West Indies. The ship disappeared.
Dr. John Witherspoon was president of the College of New Jersey, later called Princeton. In answer to an objection that the country was not yet ready for independence, he replied that it ‘was not only ripe for the measure, but in danger of rotting for the want of it.’ The British nearly destroyed the college. Dr. Witherspoon was responsible for its rebuilding after the war, which caused him great personal and financial difficulty.
The United States dearly paid for an abomination incompatible with the Declaration of Independence. The Civil War could have been avoided if the paragraph in Thomas Jefferson’s original draft condemning slavery was kept and followed through in the Constitution. It states: ‘He (King George III) has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce; and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.’
Patrick Henry immortalized selfishness when he said, “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
President George Washington protected and preserved individual liberty when he rejected a movement to make him King of the United States, calling it "abhorrent", and when he refused to run for a third term. He evinced an enormous respect for himself and his fellowmen. He personified integrity.
President Thomas Jefferson said, "The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government."
Those who damn selfishness denounce the desire to live happily. Those who need slaves damn selfishness because people who value themselves cannot be ruled. Men who love themselves but facilitate these damners are cowards.
You who defend selfishness honor its advocates: President George Washington, the glorious 56, the sons and daughters of Liberty, and brave individuals who struggled or are struggling that the nation conceived in Liberty might live.
Those who declare for self-renunciation or self-destruction are unfit protectors of individual liberty. They should be voted out of the government of the people, by the people, for the people –
That the Land of the Free shall not perish from the earth!”
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After the 2008 elections, Apollo decided to run for the presidency in 2012. He finalized his strategy and methodically carried out his action plans. He was inspired by his heroes. “Good people desire Liberty. President George Washington said, ‘Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.’ I will plant Liberty in the mind of every man.”
Apollo formed a political party. He named it in honor of a man he greatly admired: Mike Milken Admiration Party. Although ignored by many, he continued to work hard to achieve his objectives. He effectively used the Internet.
In a live broadcast, Apollo declared his party’s fundamentals. “A political party based on reason, the Mike Milken Admiration Party honors the most glorious achievement on Earth: the Declaration of Independence. This party adheres to the philosophy of Objectivism, and holds that religion is a private choice for each individual.
My party’s concretes would never contradict these fundamentals.
The Mike Milken Admiration Party salutes the uncommon man. A man of integrated body and soul, the uncommon man esteems his own mind and values happiness. He respects himself no matter how poor he may be and endeavors to rise to the greatest heights. He takes pride in work and achievement. He glories in pursuits of genius and happiness. He reveres Liberty.
The Declaration of Independence states, ‘We hold these truths …’
The truth is what conforms to reality. Honesty is the pursuit of truth; it is the refusal to evade or fake reality. George Washington said, ‘I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.’
The exalted purity to the pursuit of truth belongs to the field of philosophy. Objectivism advocates capitalism as the consequence and the ultimate practical application of its fundamental philosophical principles. Politics, the fourth branch of philosophy, is based on metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. The political principles of this party are based on the facts of man’s nature and of man’s relationship to existence.
An intellectually honest individual concerned about alleviating human poverty and suffering uses the law of identity and the law of causality to discover their cause. A century laden with proofs, the unprecedented prosperity-explosion after the founding of the United States of America, would shine light on the answer: capitalism is the only social system that enables men to produce abundance - and the key to capitalism, to a coercion-free economic system, is individual freedom.
The metaphysically given is the standard of right or wrong. In order to succeed, an individual’s values and actions must conform to metaphysically given facts. Man cannot fly, so the Wright brothers invented the airplane; they found a way to counteract the force of gravity. Man cannot walk on water, so we build boats. Man cannot move a mountain, but we can build a tunnel through it. We can’t prevent earthquakes, so we must erect buildings that could withstand them. Man is a mortal being - doctors and pharmaceutical industries try to save and prolong lives.
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The purpose of epistemology is to define a method of cognition that makes a fallible being capable of truth, a method that enables man to gain knowledge of an independent reality. Objectivity requires this method of cognition: logic.
Logic is noncontradictory identification within the full context of one’s knowledge.
Epistemology is a practical necessity – it guides man in the proper use of his conceptual faculty. Thinking, to be valid, must adhere to reality. If man’s goal is knowledge, rather than error or delusion, he must use reason.
Reason is the faculty that organizes perceptual units in conceptual terms by following the principles of logic. Reason is the existence-oriented faculty. It is the faculty of proof.
Knowledge, i.e. knowledge of reality, is contextual and hierarchical. Man’s only direct contact with reality is the data of sense – therefore, they are the standard of objectivity. Reduction is the means of connecting an advanced knowledge to reality, i.e. to the perceptually given, by retracing the essential logical structure of its hierarchical roots. Proof is a form of reduction.
Logic is the means of validating a conclusion objectively. Including the recognition of context and hierarchy, logic is the method of achieving objectivity. By using logic, man could base his conclusions on reality.
Ayn Rand created Objectivism. It states that there are, in essence, three schools of thought on the nature of the good: the intrinsic, the subjective, and the objective.
The intrinsic theory holds that the good is inherent in certain things or actions as such. If a man believes that an action is good in, by, and of itself, he will not hesitate to force others to perform them. Like Robespierre, Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, he will regard wholesale slaughter as his moral duty in the service of a “higher” good.
Extreme subjectivism does not recognize the concept of identity. Moderate or middle-of-the-road subjectivism is the belief that metaphysical reality is not a firm absolute, and thus can be altered by the perceiver’s feelings, wishes, or whims. This doctrine holds that man needs no objective principles of action, and that he can, somehow, live, act, and achieve his goals apart from and/or in contradiction to the facts of reality, i.e. apart from and/or in contradiction to his own nature and the nature of the universe.
Subjectivism negates reality and advocates the arbitrary and the blindly emotional. Today’s moralists claim that ethics is a subjective issue and that the three things barred from its field are: reason — mind — reality.
The existential monument to subjectivism is the present state of our culture! Subjectivists advocate pragmatism and altruism. Pragmatism is the philosophy of the Progressive movement in this country.
Objectivism further states that the two points central to the pragmatist ethics and politics are: a formal rejection of all fixed standards – and an unquestioning absorption of the prevailing standards. The subjectivist denies that there is any such thing as “the truth” on a given question, the truth which corresponds to the facts. He claims there is no truth, even of a statement he accepts, only truth relative to an individual or group.
By itself, as a distinctive theory, the pragmatist ethics has no content. It preaches “practicality”, but does not specify any “rigid” set of values that could define the concept. So, it appropriates value codes formulated by others without acknowledging them. In politics, pragmatism presents itself as opposed to “extremes” of any kind, whether capitalist or socialist; it avows that it is a relativist, “moderate”, or centrist. Without its own standards, it names a political principle imported from Germany as its standard: collectivism. Marxism propounded a social subjectivism in terms of competing economic classes. The Nazis followed the Marxists but substituted race for class.
Objectivists say:
An honest man does not desire until he has identified the object of his desire. He says: “It is, therefore I want it.”
Acting on whim and not on principle, subjectivists say: “I want it, therefore it is.”
Objectivity is both a metaphysical and an epistemological concept pertaining to the relationship of consciousness to existence. Metaphysically, it is the recognition of the fact that reality exists independent of any perceiver’s consciousness. Epistemologically, it is the recognition of the fact that a man’s consciousness must acquire knowledge of reality by means of reason in accordance with logic.
Objectivity holds that in matters pertaining to human knowledge, metaphysically - reality is the only authority; epistemologically – one’s own intellect. Reality is the ultimate arbiter of the mind. In all aspects of human existence, man achieves his values only by making his decisions consonant with the facts of reality.
Axiomatic concepts are the foundation of objectivity. Objectivism has three axioms: existence exists, consciousness, and the law of identity, Aristotle’s A is A. Axioms are perceptual self-evidencies. They are the starting points of cognition, on which all proofs depend.
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A is A, and contradictions are impossible. Every entity has a specific, noncontradictory nature. It is self-evident that an entity can act only in accordance with its nature. The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action. Causality is a corollary of identity. All actions are caused by entities. The nature of an action is caused and determined by the nature of the entities that act; a thing cannot act in contradiction to its nature.
A fundamental principle to the metaphysics of Objectivism is the primacy of existence. Existence comes first. Things are what they are independent of consciousness. Consciousness is a dependent – its function is to grasp that which exists.
Many people think that a personal interest is an agent of distortion. But “personal” does not mean “nonobjective”. The more passionately personal the thinking of a man who knows that reality is not the enemy, that truth and knowledge are of crucial, personal, selfish importance to one’s life, the clearer and truer.
Ethics, or morality, is an objective, metaphysical necessity of man’s survival. Man needs a code of morality for the purpose of self-preservation. Ethics is a code of values to guide man’s choices and actions in determining the purpose and the course of his life.
The standard of good is exalted in the Declaration of Independence: man’s life!
Man’s life is the standard of value – and his own life is the ethical purpose of every individual man.
The Declaration of Independence states, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. …’
A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. It is the sanction of an independent action. It is that which can be exercised without anyone’s permission. Freedom of action means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion, or interference by other men.
There is only one fundamental right: a man’s right to his own life. The right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action for the support, furtherance, and enjoyment of one’s life. This right is the source of all rights – and the right to property is their only implementation. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, he has the right to the product of his efforts. Like all rights, the right to property is a right to action – it is the right to the action and the consequences of producing or earning material values.
The very right upon which an individual acts defines the same right of another man, and serves as a guide to tell him what he may or may not do. What forbids an individual to kill another man is not society, but the inalienable right to live. This is not a “compromise” between two rights nor a limit arbitrarily set by society, but a division that preserves both rights untouched. Within the sphere of one’s rights, one’s freedom is absolute.
The principle of political freedom, i.e., an individual’s freedom from physical compulsion, coercion, or interference by the government, is the first consequence of the principle of individual rights. The next is the economic implementation of political freedom: capitalism.
Capitalism is a social system based on the principle of individual rights. The Mike Milken Admiration Party exalts Ayn Rand’s words:
‘When I say "capitalism", I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism - with a separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.
There can be no compromise between freedom and government controls; to accept "just a few controls" is to surrender the principle of inalienable individual rights and to substitute for it the principle of the government's unlimited, arbitrary power, thus delivering oneself into gradual enslavement.’
The Declaration of Independence explicitly states the only function of government: ‘ — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — …’
A government could interfere with the economy through the initiation of force, and/or through socialized industries. Neither is compatible with the sublime function of government. The recognition of rights, specifically property rights, creates an economic system in which production and distribution are privately or corporately owned: capitalism. It is the only moral political system because it is the only system dedicated to the protection of rights, which is a requirement for human survival and flourishing.
The signatories to the Declaration of Independence, their constituents, George Washington, and his men, thought it practical to have a social system based on individual liberty. The result of their philosophy is individual rights, freedom, and capitalism. History has proven them right. Their philosophy brought about a century of international peace, and the rise of the business mentality, leading to the magnificent growth of industry and of prosperity.
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A proper philosophic system is comprehensive and integrated. A principled man has firm fundamentals which dictate his ethics and politics. All his choices, goals, and actions proceed from his principles.
The Mike Milken Admiration Party is grounded on the Declaration of Independence and the philosophy of Objectivism. My party holds that practical politics is based on objectivity – it proclaims that practicality can be based only on reality, reason, and logic.
I will never impose my values on any respecter of Rights. I will champion a government that protects and preserves Rights.
Individuals who seek a government job must be dedicated to the protection of Rights which could only mean equal inherent inalienable individual rights. Like Thomas Jefferson, I am of firm conviction that the political principle based on the recognition of Rights and a government whose sole function is to secure Rights is the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern.
One who holds that self-interest or individual liberty clashes with public interest fails to recognize that barring coercion from human relationships is the only way to promote the general welfare. The alternative is a society of masters and slaves, of thugs and victims.
My campaign heeds the words of the exalted political beau ideals. ‘Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light,’ declared President George Washington. ‘Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppression of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day,’ proclaimed President Thomas Jefferson. He also avowed, ‘I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.’
I will do my best to reach the minds of every man.
On the carrying of arms, I agree with these revered Presidents: ‘The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good.’ ‘Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes ... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.’
Thomas Jefferson said, ‘It is blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason.’
During the founding of our nation, many were deists. A deist is one who believes in a God who created the universe and then abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no supernatural revelation. A deist thinks, ‘It is evident in man’s possession of free will that the Creator does not pleasure in robots, zombies, or yes-men; God does not want to impose on men. The brilliant intricacy of the human mind and body, coupled by the vastness of the challenges presented by the universe, is evidence of God’s respect and love for man. A religion that imposes does not share that love – it is a tyrant using God as a front. A religion that damns happiness and glorifies suffering is a sadist using God’s name. A religion that enters the political realm in any way is a tyrannical sadist.’
One who does not hold that religion is a private choice for each individual is paving the way toward the worst scourge of mankind: theocracy. The Mike Milken Admiration Party strongly rejects and is eternally vigilant to pulverize any footholds to theocracy.
I echo Thomas Jefferson: ‘Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone.’
The Mike Milken Admiration Party stands for a coercion-free society.
I will discuss detailed plans by which I will steer the existing mixed economy back to capitalism. But first, to foreign policy: after the founding of our nation, a century of free trade liberated the world. The essence of capitalism’s foreign policy is free trade among the private citizens of all free countries dealing directly with one another, the opening of the world’s trade routes to free international exchange and competition, the abolition of trade barriers, of protective tariffs, of special privileges.
My party respects every country that respects Rights. It does not recognize any organization of nations that include dictatorships. No one, no nation, has the right to enslave or to infringe Rights. Individual rights are not subject to a public vote. The right of “the self-determination of nations” does not apply to a slave society, regardless of whether it was enslaved by force or by vote. My party advocates an economic boycott of slave pens.
I stand for a foreign policy based on individual rights and self-interest. Indeed, these are wise words: ‘Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.’
A free nation is not obligated to liberate other nations at the price of self-sacrifice, but a free nation has the right to do it, when and if it so chooses. If ever the United States of America goes to war while I am commander-in-chief, the full might of our armed forces will be used to win within the shortest possible time, without or with the fewest US casualties. In such a war, the fate of civilians is the responsibility of their rulers – I will not sacrifice a single American soldier for a great number of civilians in any country ruled by thugs.
Terrorists exist only through the sanction and support of a government. Mr. Paul Wolfowitz said it best: the United States must ‘end states that sponsor terrorism.’ I vow to secure an American’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness on Earth, anywhere, anytime, and regardless of the countless innocents caught in the line of fire in the nations that sanction terrorism.”
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Several foreign governments and two men from New York loathed Apollo’s words. ISARGES swore to annihilate him. The world listened to the live broadcast and pondered Apollo’s words.
“The Mike Milken Admiration Party is earnestly dedicated to the defense of America’s rights and national self-interests, to the repudiation of foreign aid and all forms of international self-immolation.
For decades, the foreign policy of the United States has been self-sacrifice and appeasement. Dishonoring the Declaration of Independence and its own people, the government has failed in its solemn responsibility to defend the rights of its citizens. Sixty-one years ago, Presidents Truman and Eisenhower did not defend the West’s property rights in oil. In my administration, justice will be done. I will perform the solemn mandate of the government – all US nationalized properties, including those expropriated decades ago, will be reclaimed!”
ISARGES’ blood boiled. Many wished Apollo dead. The US Secret Service assigned more resources to his security detail. The FBI and the CIA increased their efforts to thwart any threat.
Apollo radiated pride and moral certainty. “In the domestic front, my party calls for two constitutional amendments: the separation of state and economics and the recognition of property rights as an absolute. The latter will obliterate eminent domain, and end, not only property and estate taxes, but all taxes!
The principle of individual liberty dictates that a man cannot be burdened with the debts of another. It follows that the debts of previous generations cannot be imposed on living individuals. Thus, it is rights-infringement for the government to borrow money. The government must live within its means!
The principle of individual liberty dictates that the federal government must not intervene in state affairs unless the state government violates Rights. The states are responsible for their own security and needs. The federal budget, that is, the budget for the offices of the President, Vice President, cabinet members, US Supreme Court, Secret Service, CIA, and the FBI, as well as the budget for national security, must be set by the US Congress and borne by the states in proportion to their number of US House representatives.
My administration will endeavor to remove all government limits to an individual, so that the only limits would be the equal rights of others. I will unleash wealth and job creators!
Politicians who clamor for a function other than the protection of Rights, as well as citizens who lobby for such, defile Liberty. For every extorted privilege, another citizen’s rights are violated. For every entitlement, another is enslaved – No one has the right to enslave!
When a politician promises, or is petitioned for, an alleged right, ask ‘At whose expense?’ If it is at the expense of another citizen, then it is not a right – No one has the right to coerce!
If a politician promises – ask if he is giving away that which he does not own. If so, then he is for serfdom. It is a crime for a citizen to traffic in stolen goods - it follows that a government is taking on the role of a criminal when it redistributes extorted wealth. One who declares for individual liberty but supports any government welfare program is a fraud.
Many speak highly of pragmatism and compromise; they say the centrist position is the way to go. They are essentially saying – it is moral to be unprincipled - it is virtuous to accept a mixture of contradictions, that is, to wallow in illogic.
In the words of Thomas Jefferson, ‘The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.’ It is not the government’s function to provide sustenance to a citizen, nor to protect him from himself or nature. The government’s sublime mandate is to ensure his freedom!
Reason and logic compels me to follow Thomas Jefferson: ‘A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.’”
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Please do not post in this thread (create another thread or post under Politics – everyone may post) if you:
• hold that throwing a shoe at President George W. Bush or Vice President Cheney is fine
• do not revere the Declaration of Independence
• do not revere President Thomas Jefferson
• do not revere individual rights or capitalism
• do not revere reason and logic
I will delete posts that do not adhere to these guidelines.
Rationale for the posting guidelines to this thread: Since I am writing my second novel while having a day job, I do not have much time to respond to inaccuracies, attacks, or insults, and I do not want my silence to be misconstrued as acquiescence. Further, I want to enjoy reading posts.