Cronyism

Politically speaking, cronyism is government favoring of selected individuals or groups, resulting in financial and/or political gain by the favored. It involves political payback, results in increased costs to taxpayers, and is immoral.  

With the separation of State and economics and a full recognition of individual rights, cronyism would essentially be eliminated: politicians would be completely disincentivized from such favoritism. Therefore, it has absolutely nothing to do with capitalism despite the disparaging misnomer “crony-capitalism.” Call it “crony-socialism.” 

All the attention is on the corporate/private sector side. Government administration/Congress favors certain corporations with loans, subsidies or bailouts; the corporations are then pressured to sacrifice their capitalist principles in “cooperation.” Other corporations are punished with over-regulation and controls; that invites them to lobby to defend their interests. Depending on political views, contributions, bribes and compromises, some are advantaged by their lobbying efforts. Some will certainly attempt to use the political process to gain competitive advantage.  

The result, of course, is corruption, increased costs to all parties, and great harm to our economy and taxpayers - all due to government’s statist policies. In a small way, the “Occupy Wall Street” protestors see the true harm done. But due to their statist bias, they are primarily attacking the wrong side of the problem: government’s role is being ignored. 

Also ignored are the following forms of cronyism that further endanger our rights. 

In all efforts to redistribute wealth, government favors selected groups of people over others; and in the end, such efforts hurt the favored more than those intended to be harmed. A perfect example is ObamaCare: in an attempt to favor the uninsured poor and middle class, it is an entitlement that will raise health care costs and taxes for all, and lower the quality of care; and many employers will drop their insurance plans, leaving employees without their lowest cost insurance option. It also subjectively favors businesses with mandate waivers. 

In the constant plea for “fairness,” some are meant to be sacrificed for favored others. How can it possibly be “fair” to favor non-productive over productive individuals? That is a ruse to disguise the real and immoral goal of economic equality. 

Public unions are advantaged at the expense of the private sector. If “fairness” is to be an issue, why no outcry about union executive salaries that are greater than most corporate employees? 

Government constantly favors special interests via legislation, regulation and tax code. E.g. environmentalists and green energy vs. oil/gas/coal industries. 

And we certainly cannot overlook individual payback in the form of appointments, grants et al resulting from election support. 

We must eliminate all of the above forms of cronyism; in fact, it would also be cronyism if only selected portions of it were eliminated. If we could let the free market - not irrational politicians - determine winners and losers, and supply and demand for products and services, then we could realize rapid economic growth.

Is Obama a Friend of Israel?

President Obama continues his lies in his new AttackWatch web page. And foremost among them is the claim that he is a friend of Israel. Highlighted below are AttackWatch headings that need disputing. 

·       Political leaders in both countries have acknowledged his support. 

What else could they say? That is certainly no evidence of support. 

·      Robert Gates testified that Obama has done more to improve our relationship with Israel than any President in the last 45 years. 

In the testimony provided, Gates acknowledged that our partnership with Israel is critical to our national security. But no evidence of Obama’s steps to improve the relationship can be found. 

We all know of the evidence to the contrary: he has pressured Israel to concede to Palestinian demands (enhanced by Obama himself) and to accept a Palestinian State with 1967 borders which would seriously threaten Israel’s security (despite “mutually agreed swaps”). He has appeased Muslim States that support terrorism and even provided them financial aid; yet he once threatened to cancel aid to Israel. 

·      Obama said “the bonds between the U.S. and Israel are unbreakable…. It’s why we’ve increased cooperation between our militaries to unprecedented levels…. It’s why, despite tough fiscal times, we’ve increased foreign military financing to record levels.” 

His actions are much louder than his words. As a statist - with a transparent ideology, he no more shows an understanding of the real values of Israelis than he does of Americans. His “bond” does not preclude him from pressuring Israel to make dangerous concessions. Peace should not depend on “having leverage with the Palestinians” who support terrorism. He is willing to put Israel at risk for the sake of a Palestinian State that would become another terrorist threat to Israel. And he deceives himself when expecting Israel - with its new borders - to defend itself by itself against any and all Arab States. 

He would likely - out of necessity - act to prevent Israel’s destruction; but in the meantime, he will also likely continue to show support for the Arab States, and that simply puts more pressure on Israel. His plan for peace will necessarily fail and he knows it; and the Palestinians know it, which is why they hope for a U.N. vote to sanction a Palestinian State.  

Obama is much to blame for Abbas taking this issue to the U.N. And after the political blunders, he still could have prevented it, as the U.S. did similarly in 1989 and forced the repeal of the 1975 “Zionism is Racism” resolution in 1991, by threatening to withdraw U.N. funding. In his U.N. speech, while he over-praised the U.N. for enabling peace in the Middle East, he betrayed our interests by his weakness regarding the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. So he deserves the box he has put himself in: out of necessity, he will have to vote ‘no’ on a Palestinian State resolution; and that will further isolate him from the rest of the world. 

In summary: Obama can’t change the conditions for peace in favor of the terrorists and then expect peace or even to avoid the confrontations that follow. But he always does want to eat his cake and have it to! A friend of Israel? I don’t think so.

American Exceptionalism

“Exceptionalism” is the belief that something is exceptional in relation to all else of the same kind. Thus “American Exceptionalism” is the view that America is exceptional relative to the rest of the world. But exceptional in what respect? 

Our founding principles made us unique and exceptional. “Individual rights” extended morality into the social system and limited the power of the State; they became an individual’s protection against the force of the collective. “The most profoundly revolutionary achievement of the U.S. was the subordination of society to moral law” (Ayn Rand). We became the first truly moral society. 

For the first time, man’s life, property, freedom and pursuit of happiness were his rights by moral principle and by his nature. He was treated as an end in himself, not as the means to the ends of others or society. Capitalism, individualism and more specifically the American industrialist were born. The result was unprecedented wealth creation with an increased standard of living for all, and an enhanced value for life manifested by unprecedented charitableness. 

Unfortunately, the lack of a complete philosophical foundation for capitalism has enabled the latter to be seriously compromised over time - e.g. by an altruist/collectivist ethics. And there is a high correlation between the level of adherence to capitalist principles and the level of our exceptionalism. 

Until recently, such compromise has resulted from a lack of understand and/or acceptance of our founding principles. But now we are dealing with our first truly anti-exceptional, explicitly anti-exceptionalism President. Obama has antipathy for what made this country great; he chooses to trade greatness for mediocrity. Why? 

His explicit statist ideology trumps all. His principles are anti-American. E.g. his domestic policies prevent economic recovery; his foreign policy of “leading from behind” is despicable and dangerous, as is his self-effacement when used to offset the image of American superiority.  

He duped the American public with his message of “hope and change”: he was merely “hoping” for us to ignore his long-term associations with, and acceptance of the beliefs of, the most radical statists in the country; and his “change” was always intended to mean a strong movement toward statism and to immorally redistribute wealth. He sacrifices truth for lies to protect his secrets - his ideology, racism, multiculturalism, crony-socialism and general ineptitude. To him, the decline of American values is simply a rebalancing of American and non-American values; American exceptionalism is considered immoral; individual initiative and responsibility are to be replaced with collective values.

I am tired of hearing about the failure of capitalism which no longer truly exist; about corporate greed when greed is primarily associated with statists; about a “social contract” of sacrifice when the only existing “contract” is to protect individual rights; and about class warfare, only existent under statism (e.g. Obama uses racism, sexism, wealth envy and economic/environmental myths to divide us). Get Obama out of the White House and we might have a chance to regain our exceptionalism.