The Tytler Cycle of Society

clipped from www.commonsensegovernment.com From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage From bondage to spiritual faith (1760 to 1769) From spiritual faith to great courage  (1770 to 1783) From courage to liberty  (1784 to 1865) From liberty to abundance  (1866 to 1969) From abundance to complacency  (1970 to 1989) From complacency to apathy  (1990 to 2000) From apathy to dependence  (2001 to 2007) From dependence back into bondage  (2008 to ????)

Fascsim

Communism and Fascism: Both are totalitarian
American Right is libertarian: Anti-totalitarian

Fascism is a government focused, statist society
American Right supports individual sovereignty and liberty.

Fascism/Socialism have cultivated war-socialism, state control of media, and compulsory service to the state.
American Right traditionally cultivates a resistance to meddle in the affairs of other nations.

Fascism/Socialism pushes for nationalist or protectionist strategies.
Libertarianism/Right pushes for free trade.

Fascism/Socialist/Progressivism is a top to bottom system of power.( Federal>state>local>individual)
Libertarianism is a bottom up system of power ( individual>local>state>Federal)

Fascism/Communism/Progressivism foster societal mobilization, organic unity.
Libertarianism fosters free will, thousand points of light, the fractally-complex richness of society.

Fascism/Progressives/Communists are controllers, materialists, intolerant.
Libertarians, American Rightist Conservatives are believers in individuals and communities.

50 States, 50 Constitutions, 50 Preambles about God

clipped from neprimer.com Alabama 1901, Preamble. We the people of the State of Alabama, invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish the following Constitution … Alaska 1956, Preamble. We, the people of Alaska, grateful to God and to those who founded our nation and pioneered this great land … Arizona 1911, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Arizona, grateful to Almighty God for our liberties, do ordain this Constitution… Arkansas 1874, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Arkansas, grateful to Almighty God for the privilege of choosing our own form of government… California 1879, Preamble.  We, the People of the State of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom .. Colorado 1876, Preamble. We, the people of Colorado, with profound reverence for the Supreme Ruler of Universe .. Connecticut 1818, Preamble. The People of Connecticut, acknowledging with gratitude the good Providence of God in permitting them to enjoy …

The Seminal Point for Materialist Progressivism

clipped from str.typepad.com With savages [i.e., those in more primitive societies], the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health…. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment.  There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox.  Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind.  No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man.  excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed….

“If…various checks…do not prevent the reckless, the vicious and otherwise inferior members of society from increasing at a quicker rate than the better class of men, the nation will retrograde, as has occurred too often in the history of the world. We must remember that progress is no invariable rule….”

On Individuals and Mobs

It is axiomatic that leftists love mobs and rightists love the individual. Leftists love humanity but despise individuals. Rightists despise humanity but love the individual. Individuals spring forth from the crowds and they leave behind them the mob..the selfish mob that seeks to tear down the accomplishments of individuals and take for themselves, by force, what they did not earn.

Morals vs. Liberty

clipped from mises.org It is well to remind ourselves at this point that liberty as I have defined it is not a synonym for good; that any act of liberty may be either “good” or “evil” as another person judges it. This will be true until and unless infinite wisdom and universal perfection of conscience guide every act of every person in such a way as to be ap­proved by every other person. But universal agreement is far from a descrip­tion of real life; it is no more than a direction toward which to strive. And that fact is precisely why there is any problem of liberty at all. The concern of morals is to judge acts as either good or evil, right or wrong—“moral” or “immoral,” as we say in appraising them. Such a judgment has neither place nor meaning except for acts of choice. It follows, then, that no problem of morals can ever be resolved by removing liberty, in a degree either large or small.

Thomas Davidson expressed it this way: “That which is not free is not responsible, and that which is not responsible is not moral. In other words, freedom is the condition of morality.”
A interesting perspective that morality inevitably reduces liberty, yet without the liberty to choose, one cannot be moral.

More and more I believe the fundamental understanding of liberty is lost. This is brilliant clip but I think foreign to many if not most. As is the concept of fascism.

Compulsory Groupthink

Interesting insight.

clipped from davidthompson.typepad.com because there’s a consensus, there is precious little self-examination; a slant that we all share becomes invisible¦ Academic consensus is a particularly irritating variety of groupthink. First of all, the fact that everyone agrees and everyone has a doctorate leads to the occasionally explicit idea that all intelligent people think the same thing – that no one could disagree with, say, Obama-ism, without being an idiot¦ [A] professor has been educated, often for a decade or more, by the very institutions that harbor this unanimity. Every new generation of professors has been steeped in an atmosphere in which the authorities all agree and in which they associate agreement with intelligence – and with degrees, jobs, tenure and so on. If you’ve been taught that conservatives are evil idiots, then conservatism itself justifies a decision not to hire or tenure one. Every new leftist minted by graduate programs is an act of self-praise, a confirmation of the intelligence of the professors.