Dec 24 !@#$% My Congressman Says

I've lived so long in the People's Republic of Minneapolis, I sometimes forget I actually have congressional representation in the United States House of Representatives.  Well, I theoretically have someone who is charged with representing me, but refuses to do so in ways that are wise or possible.  Keith Ellison is a far Left Marxist/socialist agitator who believes economic liberty, personal freedom, and the American Dream are all reactionary positions.  He advances 'progressivism', which is a philosophic position that can most closely be associated with feudalism.  "Progressivism" drives each and every position he takes on the issues.  Marxian economics, the stepchild of feudalism, is the philosophic underpinning of this movement.  Hatred for the individual is the emotion that peppers every idea.  Collectivist dogma leavens his very thoughts.  Keith Ellison has nothing but contempt and scorn for the ideals of American exceptionalism and American hope for a better future.  Ellison is not a friend to classical liberalism, or tolerant, peaceful coexistence of any kind.

Perhaps some people may consider this assessment too harsh.  They may believe my words are bombs thrown at a respectable politician who is doing his best to make things better for average Minnesotans.  Many probably think this plain-spoken accusation is just partisan grumbling and over the top rhetoric intended to cause divisiveness and rage.  My assessment has nothing to do with those things, though the result may be just that.  My assessment is from the words Keith Ellison speaks and the sentiments he carries.  We may think these little snippets are unimportant, mere chaff in the wind.  But, they are little windows into a man's thoughts and feelings.  They reveal a frightening future that could destroy all hope for liberty and prosperity and return us to the sad state of serfdom and virtual aristocracy.

"Let me also say that I think the president has been put into a very difficult situation, but my fundamental objection to this is that it exacerbates the income disparity among Americans to levels that we really haven't seen. We're seeing such an unfair and uneven distribution of how these funds are going to be distributed, that it's simply that the deal really just fails."  Keith Ellison during an interview on MPR with Tom Crann, December 9, 2010 in regards to the tax cut compromise with Republicans that continue the Bush tax rates. 

Let's take this piece by piece.  First, Ellison is apologizing for President Obama because in this past lame duck session, following a shellacking at the polls, Democrats were hard pressed in time because they hadn't passed a revenue bill or a budget.  Congress, because of its cravenness before the mid-term elections, didn't pass a budget or tax bill because they hoped to stem their losses.  That's mere political posturing which can be ignored.  However, his next sentence begins to reveal exactly who Keith Ellison is and what he believes.

Ellison argues he is against the bill because it "exacerbates the income disparity among Americans."  This is classic Marxist theory.  Income differences create classes of people, like the bourgoiesie and the proletariat.  He doesn't use those particular words, but the intent is the same.  He is arguing that income levels layer people into discrete and insular groups.  The artificial constructs of 'rich', 'middle class' and 'poor' are arbitrary notions without actual relevance in our economy.  Marxist sociologists and conflict political scientists like to create classes of people that may or may not reflect actual cohesion in a society.  These 'classes' of which Ellison alludes to, are nothing more than chimeras used by collectivists to create division and rancor.  Class envy is a product of these artificially constructed divisions which suggest there are haves and havenots, which in American society are hardly real.

We have a society where income is on a continuum.  There are vast spectra of incomes and wealth.  It isn't distributed evenly, some have more, some less.  But, the idea that there are bright lines dividing those who have more and those with less is absurd.  In class-distinct societies, there is a very thin layer of 'rich and powerful' people who run the show.  There is a vast underclass which struggles with existence, or so the model suggests.  However, one of the problem with Marxist theory is it creates a division where none actually exists, especially in diverse American society.  There are those with great wealth but smaller incomes.  Those with great incomes but little actual wealth.  There are so many in between that it is almost impossible to divide us up without inventing levels that are almost laughable when you try to implement them.  What's more, these disparities are not insular and discrete.  There are wealthy Americans who are Marxist in thought and very poor people who are rugged individualists who refuse collectivist aid.  These 'income disparities' are simply a Marxist canard that seeks to divide and conquer and not an actual class system that can be observed objectively.

"We're seeing such an unfair and uneven distribution of how these funds are going to be distributed," Ellison argues.  He seems to believe that 'these funds', taxes, are not apportioned fairly among the people.  Taxes must be used as a hammer against those who have more and a cushion for those who have less.  This is simply redistributive policy through the tax code.  The tax code is not a way to collect funds to further government work, it is a way to mold social classes.  It seeks to suppress the wealthier and subsidize those with less.  But, Ellison's premise is far more dangerous and even deadly when considering the philosophy behind these words. 

Ellison is seeing the distribution of income, not wealth as of yet, as 'unfair and uneven.'  He is suggestive in this remark that income must be parceled out by some agency because 'fair' and 'even' are subjective terms requiring human discretion.  Nature certainly doesn't spread things evenly, they spread things organically where they will do the most good.  Nature doesn't give mountainsides the same things as rainforests because each is both unequal and different.  Ellison is therefore supposing that some human agency must intervene and make things right.  But what human agency? 

Ellison is presupposing that wealth, and the income that comes out of it, is something that a society has control over.  If he suggests a human agency to distribute, he certainly believes it's something that the 'owner' has control of.  So, since he is speaking of government, he believes government OUGHT to make sure wealth is spread evenly like butter on a slice of toast.  Government is the human agency that he believes should control society's wealth. 

That is socialism.  That is Marxist theory.  In a nutshell, Karl Marx believed that the new capitalist economic system which was spreading through the Western World in the early to mid 1800's was an abomination.  Capitalism is the system by which the person who invests in an enterprise has the right to control the means of production.  That's all.  Previous to capitalism, we had mercantilism, which was a forerunner of capitalism.  Mercantilism was the idea that investors could put money into an enterprise, government would sanction that enterprise in the form of monopolies and subsidies, and take a portion of the proceeds.  Marx didn't like mercantilism either, but it certainly was regulated by society through government.  Marx really loved the old feudal ideals of the village and the collective.  He despised the aristocrats who controlled the means of production, but he adored the old ideals of village communal living, where the collective owned the means.  The fact that village communal living almost never existed was beside the point.  It was this romantic dream of everyone working together toward a common goal that uplifted him.  So, Marx imagined a world with no one in control.  Well, no one except him, or people like him that is. 

Ellison believes the same thing.  He believes the means of production, means being control of land, tools, people, wages, and prices, should be controlled by the government, i.e. him.  Creation of goods and services must be carefully and rabidly monitored by an elite group.  Marx believed it should be the intellectuals, whoever they are.  Ellison believes they should be controlled by the technical elite, the bureaucrats and elected officials.  This is exactly how China under Mao and the Soviet Union operated.  The top would direct the means of production and divy out the proceeds.  This way it would be 'fair' and 'even' for everyone, right? 

Of course we know that in the first place, an owner of an investment is a far better manager and innovator than an uninterested bureaucrat or a jaded politician.  Bureaucrats merely pass blame and paper over problems.  Politicians make decisions based on political concerns and not economic ones.  So, in every place it's tried, social democracy, socialism, communism, feudalism, centralized command and control, there is only less of what we need and too much of what we are supposed to get.  As the financial reward is taken away, the economic progress ebbs.  Fewer products and services are created while demand for those scarce items skyrockets.  This only creates black markets and underground economies which, of course, flow from economic principles and not political ones. 

We also see that having government distribute 'fairly' and 'evenly' is a pipe dream.  Throughout the second 'communist' world in the 20th century, it was the bureaucrats and government officials who received more.  After all, it's only 'fair' that the hard working 'managers' have more to eat and better places to sleep than those producing.  When the grinding inefficiencies of governmentally controlled economic policy caused shortages, it was the producers who were starved to death and froze in the winter.  The governmental planners had plenty to eat and entertainment to amuse them.  It is the very nature of humanity to reward those with which you have affinity and punish those you see as beneath you.  It's an unfortunate, yet entirely too familiar way things run. 

Feudalism and Marxism are merely kissing cousins.  In feudalism, the state, through its agents/managers, runs the economic, political and social systems.  Those agents and managers were mostly inherited offices that ran through families who initially were the best agents and managers in society.  However, eventually these agents and managers bred idiots and morons who were increasingly incompetent and greedy.  They believed God and state had made them better than their producers.  So, they created classes to suppress any problems. 

In Marxism, the state, through its agents/manager, runs the economic, political and social systems.  Those agents and managers are given posts because of their perceived skill and ability to manuever the political system.  Agents and managers in Marxist societies tended to initiate their children and their colleagues children into posts that mirror their own.  In essence, Marxist societies were also run by inherited positions.  Those agents also bred idiots and morons who were increasingly incompetent and greedy.  They believed Party and state made them better than the producers.  They used class divisions to suppress any problems. 

Keith Ellison, and his intellectual grandfather, Karl Marx, believe the same ideals.  If government can create a class of technocrats who are superior in decision-making skills, they can more efficiently and effectively order the means of production.  They, because of their hard work, will also reap bigger rewards.  They will need to order social mores, control political power, and distribute income more 'evenly' and 'fairly'.  Ellison's philosophy is high-minded but short-sighted.  It is simply another trip down the same garden path we've been down before.  It will lead to real class divisions.  It will conclude with incompetent agents and managers who inherit their positions.  It will create less of what we need and more of what we don't.  It will destroy human innovation and initiative by stifling experiments and novelty.  It will drive our society down a dark and winding road of oppression and want to a dystopia we have all witnessed but refuse to recognize. 

Ellison's vision for a more 'evenly' and 'fairly' distributed world, is that of a fairy tale.  But, the terrible costs to our freedom, our prosperity, and our growth as humans is too great to even consider.  It is from this perverted seed that a twisted, dangerous, poisonous future awaits us.  No amount of good intentions will change the nature of man and the society it will wrought.  This is a road of good intentions that none of us should allow people like Keith Ellison to take us down.  It will be the end of a great and glorious nation.