Part 1: Dear Mike, "A Series of Letters from the Left to the Right:

Commentary: On December 2, 2011 I was excoriated by a young "conservative" named Mike, who wanted to give me a hiding for my communist views on "unregulated" capitalism. He called me or more precisely my views "ridiculous" I'll let you decide who is ridiculous.

His tirade was quite lengthy so I'm going to publish my response in nine parts under my: "A Series of Letters from the Left to the Right: as Dear Mike part 1-9.

Since his attack was full of vitriol I have taken off the gloves as I see no point of entertaining his bombastic rhetoric. In that vein I have used a graphic that is more in keeping with his more antagonistic tone.

He started with my "Thought for the Day" which are intended as a tongue in cheek rebuff of current obtuse conservative thinking. That will serve as Part 1-4 of my responses.

Parts 5-9 are in-response to the object of his real disdain—my critique of Adam Smith Re-examined.

I have color coded this blog post as follows: the post he critiqued in red—his critique in blue—and my response to his critique in black.

PART 1 Dear Mike, "A Series of Letters from the Left to the Right"

Since when does a “Christian Nation” rob the poor to give to the rich?

Well, since 1913 with the passage of the 16th Amendment, giving the rich power to directly tax the citizens of the United States. That’s also the year the Federal Reserve Act was passed, giving private corporations cartel monopoly power over the money supply of the United States, and the 17th Amendment was passed giving the Senate to the richest candidates.

Dear Mike, I am no lover of the Congress—which abdicated their sworn fiduciary responsibilities to —as you put it—the "rich." Your words not mine. The US monetary system should never have been "privatized" — it belongs in the hands of the representatives of people. The fact that government has the sole responsibility for issuing the currency of the nation, which is backed by the full faith and credit of the government (the people) and is then charged for the use of that money, by private banks is on its face ludicrous.

A case in point was a period leading up to the Civil War when the Bankers were betting on the side of the South and refused the Union credit to fight the war and Lincoln began issuing "Greenbacks" Lincoln said:

"The Government should create, issue and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is in the Government's greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles ... the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity."

Banks rob the poor with usurious predatory rates of upwards of thirty percent— on money which virtually costs them nothing, and at "unregulated lenders" its even worse for returning soldiers at payday lenders. They (the banks) are the rich, to whom I was referring.

When they have privatized everything, how will you petition a corporation for redress of grievances?

Easy – you’ll file a warranty claim for faulty goods, or a civil claim for severely faulty or harmful goods, or a police report for criminal activity. What’s the problem?

Dear Mike, You're lack of understanding of the deeper moral issues and your flip answer about consumer products, to prove how clever you are—are the problem.

It tells me that you don't fully comprehend the dire unintended consequences of rampant "unregulated" capitalism, especially when it comes to "privatizing" government functions.

Case in point, is the recently passed Arizona Anti Immigration Law that was written by a, "private for profit capitalist corporation" (the Corrections Corporation of America*) that builds and operates prisons. That law required that any Arizonian stopped and asked for proof of citizenship could be arrested if they failed to produce said documentation and sent to prison. I wonder who they were going go to ask for ID and to which prison they'd be sent?

That law was written at a conference of ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council)—that pays the way of state legislators, such as Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce, who introduced the law, and is a member of ALEC—to be "educated" by for profit businesses—who are interested in privatizing government functions—its funded by the uber capitalists Koch Brothers.

That same issue of privatizing government functions was headline news in Pennsylvania where: [quote]"Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella used children as pawns, locking them up unjustly in a plot to get rich. Ciavarella is accused of taking nearly $1 million in kickbacks from capitalist Robert Mericle, the developer of the PA Child Care Centers, owners of private detention centers in exchange for placing juvenile defendants at their facilities, often for minor crimes". [unquote]

In one instance, he sentenced a college-bound high school girl to three months in juvenile detention for creating a website that made fun of her assistant principal. So much for free speech.

*CCA in their own 2003 Annual Report painted an industry rife with inefficiencies and corruption of State Lawmakers to get favorable laws passed that benefited CCA. A direct quote from that report said: [quote] "The private prison business represents a problem disproportionately larger than its current size. The existence of an industry based on incarceration for profit creates a commercial incentive in favor of government policies that keep more people behind bars for longer periods of time. CCA has been active in trying to influence correctional policy in the United States. As described in Chapter 3, it has done this through its ties with public officials and legislators, its extensive campaign contributions and its involvement in a group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) that promotes a conservative criminal justice agenda to state legislators around the country."

I would think a real "libertarian" would be repulsed by such intrusion and obvious breach of the Constitution. You know—that "god damn piece of paper" GWB referred to when challenged about torturing prisoners of war.

After 20 years of tax cuts for the rich— where are the jobs they created? China?

"Well, there are jobs everywhere, including China.

Dear Mike, DUH!

First of all there are two elements that have had a devastating impact on the loss of American jobs. Deceptive "free trade" policies and tax cuts—both sold as job creating measures.

Both "free trade" agreements and tax cuts—that are promoted and endorsed by, and pushed through a"real conservative" Congress, by "real conservative" lobbyists for the "real conservative" so called American Corporation, and that were supposedly predicated on opening foreign markets to US products—are really about finding "cheap labor" which would destroy American labor unions and starving the beast—to cut the social safety net.

In other words it was about making American workers compete with foreign workers who were paid a pittance in wages under intolerable conditions tantamount to slavery.

NAFTA is a case in point—Ross Perot warned that if they were passed "the giant sucking sound we would hear"—would be jobs going to Mexico." And for the average American it became a race to the bottom. The second part of the plan was "the big lie"—that if we taxed "capitalists" at a lower rate—that "the job creators" would create millions of jobs and the wealth would trickle down to the average American. After tax cuts from Reagan until Bush 2—the net effect is a stalled economy and we lost millions of jobs instead.

Under 30 years of Republican management—who strategically created the current debt crisis with the aforementioned trade agreements and tax cuts meant to decimate the American work force and "to starve the beast—we have lost Americans jobs by the millions. In fact the economy lost 3.78 million private sector jobs in 2008 under the real conservative management of GW. So the question based on those two big lies remains: "Where are the (American) jobs?"

What Weber should be asking is: After 20 years of increasing corporate taxes, increasing regulations and restrictions on doing business in the U.S., increasing costs associated with hiring and employing citizens, increasing restrictions and penalties for hiring immigrants, increasing complexity from municipal, county, state, and federal governments in this nation, TSA agents strip-searching and sexually molesting travelers everywhere, where did the jobs go?"

Dear Mike, Your assertion—that corporate taxes have increased in the last 20 years—is patently false they have in fact gone down over the last twenty years—as a percentage of GDP—which is a large contributor to the "deficits" many of which were run up under your "real conservative philosophies"—a deliberate strategy to "starve the beast "for the sole purpose of under cutting the social safety net.

According to 2010 OMB data 81.5 % of tax revenue comes from individual payroll taxes and individual Income taxes an additional 9.6% comes from other sources less than 9% comes from corporate taxes. Source OMB.

And what does TSA strip searches have to do with anything about jobs? Which by the way came in under GW Bush who created the Department of "Homeland Security" as part of the :"war" on terrorism—a"real conservative" president who also authorized secret monitoring of American citizens a violation of the fourth amendment and referred to the Constitution as a "god damn piece of paper" in regard to the use of torture. So much for real conservative "small non-intrusive government."

When the rich and powerful oppressed us in 1776—didn’t we revolt?

Sure we did. And we all remember this line from the Declaration of Independence: He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

Dear Mike, Your spin is showing--your reference to king George's imposition of troops, hardly pertains to the Constitutionally elected government of the people as the oppressors, and it conveniently ignores the current plutocracy that is now governing this nation through its bought and paid for congressmen.

Doesn’t that remind you of the last paragraph?

No.

When corporations finish privatizing our government who will represent you? Koch Industries?

What does that even mean?

See above Read my response to: When they have privatized everything

Dear Mike, More specific to your response is the current situation in Wisconsin where—the Koch Brother's stooge—Scott Walker has all but disbanded Unions by taking away the one thing that gives them strength, their ability to negoitate as a block. However an under reported part of that bill--* was a provision that privatised Wisconsin's gas and oil piplines along with state owned power plants--a total sell out of the people of Wisconsin--guess who the benefactors were? The Koch brothers.

For more on the subject:

* "

It will allow the Koch Brothers to buy or contract to operate state−owned heating, cooling, and power plants in Wisconsin without a solicitation of bids."

Daily Kos: The Koch Brothers' End Game in Wisconsin and:

Did the state of Wisconsin receive compensation for turning over their piplines and utilities to the koch brothers - Google Search

This is the end of PART 1