PART 5b 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 am publishing my response in 9 parts as "A series of letters from Left to Right: Dear Mike Since his attack was full of vitriol I have taken off the gloves as I see no point of entertaining his bombastic rhetoric. Parts 5-9 are in-response to the object of his real distain—my critique of Adam Smith Re-examined.

I have color coded my blog post that he critiqued in red—his critique in blue—and my response to his critique in black.

This is Part 5b*

*Due to length I needed to subdivide Part 5 into three separate responses 5a-5b-5c

The Definition of A Capitalist

The free marketers are fond of Adam Smith and use his ideas to promote their behavior—but—on closer reading he never condoned the kind of behavior that is prevalent among modern day Capitalists.

OK – one important thing to note here: This guy can’t tell the difference between a free-market Capitalist and a crony corporatist, or monopolist. Free-market Capitalists believe in the opportunity to try, to take risks, to win big or to fail, to compete with established players, and to either provide a superior product or to be driven out of business by a superior competitor — and to then to try again.

Dear Mike,

That's because its difficult to tell the "bad crooks" from the "good crooks these days." Unfortunately good crooks don't wear signs saying: I am this flavor—not that flavor—except for Herman Caine who has self identified as Black Maple Nut.

Were the "banksters" that lobbied for banking deregulation for decades and then brought down the entire world economy—good capitalists or bad capitalists? They all claim supply side free market capitalism as their religion. They stole billions of dollars and not one of them has been held accountable. They were oblivious* to the damage they caused and not at all ashamed.

*See: 

commonsense: Ants—The Rich Man's Burden

Saying your a good "free market" capitalist who can be trusted to deliver what you promised has become irrelevant, the entire economic system is corrupt from top to bottom. And nobody is innocent. I know you clearly see a "nit" of a difference I don't anymore.

The monopolist hates competition. After earning a spot in the market, the monopolist will take measures to eliminate competition through licensing, regulation, increased costs of entering a market, or simply have a politician ban competition and/or mandate the purchase of the monopolist’s products.

Mitt Romney is a "christian"—who believes God was a man first—and now he lives on a "masterplanet" near a star named Kolob—and if Mitt is a good Mormon he'll become a God too—(which would make him a polytheist and NOT a "Christian")—not like god or god like—but, a real god, with all of his powers—with his own own planet to rule—populated by his offspring—and he was even taught a secret handshake for when he meets the big guy in the sky.

Jim Jones was a "christian" who used drugs to preyed on the weak, financially and sexually, until he led 900 of them to a mass suicide in Guiana.

Bob Jones, god bless him, was a "christian, who preaches hatred against other "Christians".

Jim Baker is a "Christian" who diddled his secretary and stole his followers blind.

The KKK claims to be a "Christian" organization that likes to lynch people based on skin color and religious beliefs different then their own.

Theologically none of them believe exactly the same thing—yet they all claim to be "christian"

POINT they ALL claim to be "christian" and none of them have the slightest idea of what being a christian means.

POINT: Your splitting hairs. Monopolists are capitalist that don't like competition, big deal, crony capitailist are capitalists that want to suck the government's tit and bribe every congressman they can, got it.

Free market capitalist don't want the government to regulate them so they can drill in ANWAR, sell shoddy products tainted with lead to our children and gouge sick people for—life saving drugs—by hoarding them and then charging 500 times the going rate—like American Medical Corporation, and last but not least, they want to protect their ill gotten gains from taxation. Did I miss anything?

POINT: Since they cut corners and sell inferior products, in some cases products like drugs that have potential lethal consequences, at hyper inflated prices, technically, they stole the money in the first place—where do they get off saying the "government" is stealing it back by taxing them—for services and upkeep e.g. interstate highways bridges and roads—to transport said inferior products—provided them at taxpayers expense.

Capitalist of every stripe are all driven by the same sickness—unbridled, "unregulated" GREED. Eventually when removed from intimate contact with their customers they start to cut corners to "maximize profits" a euphemism for cheat their customers. Ma Bell, ENRON, CitiBank, Tyco, the list is virtually endless, and the damage they have done is beyond measure.

According to Smith humans have no natural affinity for others apart from what they can "see" and how others react to, joy, suffering or pain. "To see" the suffering you cause others implies close proximity because distance and time erodes any ability to empathize with the pain you are causing. WW II American bomber pilots recounted that many times they were oblivious to the infliction of death and numb to it until they returned from mission and had time to reflect on the devastation they were causing.

POINT: If you are suspended over a lethal hazard— like flying over Germany—a land full of Nazi and you can't tell the difference between the good people and the bad—you'd rather kill them all. You tend to lump them all together because you can't sort them out and trying will only get you killed.

POINT: Are all capitalist bad—NO, but its getting harder to tell the difference. You seem to believe the fantasy that real conservative, free market capitalists, are the answer when left alone "unregulated"—the reality is they become crony capitalists and monopolists like— Citibank, ENRON, Tyco and turn into Charles Keatings' and Bernie Madoffs' when left alone.

POINT: Monsanto is trying to monopolizes the world's food chain by introducing man made genetic properties into seeds that it alone has patent rights to—and putting private farmers that don't buy their seeds out of business. Their seeds do not propagate every year—necessitating that new seeds be bought every year. They have gone so far as suing farmers for damages if Monsanto seed is even accidently introduced to their fields by natural causes such as birds or wind conditions. They are trying to stop farmers from growing their own seed crop. What happens if there is a draught and famine. Bio-diversity is nature's way of protecting from a single seed crop from failing. Mansanto is trying to reverse that natural process and is endangering all of us in the pursuit of money.

POINT: We murdered Indians and stole, Indian land with blankets infected with small pox and every claim of "ownership" since then is ethically and morally bankrupt crap all dressed up in nice anglo-legalize.

POINT: If you or I as individuals under law deliberately plot and kill someone for their inheritance and property we are guilty of murder and none of the property stolen is legally ours. That same principle in law also applies when mass genocide is employed—unless as a society you choose to ignore it. Rendering the principle of equality under law a myth—allowing the rich and powerful to steal from the weak which also puts the lie to to the myth that all men are created equal.

POINT: Capitalism is a human "construct" and it is incredibly flawed. IT IS NOT SACROSANCT. IT IS NOT INFALLIBLE. IT IS AT ITS VERY WORST—A SOCIETAL RATIONALE FOR THEFT AND IN SOME CASES MURDER. Smith in other of his works says, it is human nature to take advantage of others why would any one advocate deregulating that kind of monstrous aspect of human nature. Markets don’t care about the environment, and they don’t care about human rights. They care about profit.

So the drug companies had politicians create the FDA to make the cost of bringing drugs to market so expensive that only big corporations could do it, and so that the FDA could simply ban alternative products.

The FDA which is a "watchdog" that has been riddled with political appointees that are favorable to the drug companies is true. That's what it has become. But that was not its original intent, as you seem to be implying, its mission was and still is to protect the people from drug companies who foist bad products—some with potential lethal side effects—on an unsuspecting public.

Which only proves my point we need to "regulate"—not "deregulate" them.

The big banks wrote the Federal Reserve Act, giving their own private banks a monopoly over the currency, and mandating that all lesser institutions bank through them, and giving them power to seize and shutdown any bank they deem “unfit.”

Weber seems to think that is capitalism, but it isn’t. But that same misunderstanding is what causes so much confusion amongst Occupy Wall Street and so many other misguided movements today.

The evolution and history of the banking system in America is much more convoluted than your simplistic version of history allows. But again you only prove the need for more regulation not less. Or at least regulations that have real teeth.

And you stand guilty of the same generalities you attribute to me. You lump any and all criticism against anyone that disagrees with you as, stupid, moronic, communist, socialist, liberals, bleeding hearts, libertards, leeches and evil.

You seem to think that any opposition to your point of view needs to be squashed ridiculed and marginalized—a tactic the Nazi used—to great effect. Not saying that's where you learned it, or that you are a Nazi, but, the Machiavellian aspects of the tactic, are distressingly familiar to me.

Finally, Your "argument" while preachy, sarcastic and condescending lacks any real facts. You assume that the Occupy people are confused and that the "master's of the universe" who control everything are misunderstood.

We are not confused. We are not "misguided" We are pissed off. We are every bit as pissed off as the TEA PARTY—we just know who the real culprits are—and they are not the Obama administration, who is trying to put the country back on track—that the Republicans ran into the ditch and are now trying to block everything wholesale—to the detriment of the Nation. Even adding billions to the debt that they are railing against by forcing a downgrade in the Nation's credit rating.

They are putting their hatred of Obama ahead of the welfare of the country. They are so bent on discrediting him they are even upset that the job numbers are improving. And that Clint Eastwood—a dyed-in-the-wool Republican—indirectly reminded America that Obama saved the American auto industry, which is making a comeback. How pathetically twisted is that?

The end of Part 5b go to: part 5c commonsense: Part 5c: Dear Mike: "A Series of Letters from the Left to the Right"

PART 5a 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 am publishing my response in 9 parts as "A series of letters from Left to Right: Dear Mike Since his attack was full of vitriol I have taken off the gloves as I see no point of entertaining his bombastic rhetoric. Parts 5-9 are in-response to the object of his real distain—my critique of Adam Smith Re-examined.

I have color coded my blog post that he critiqued in red—his critique in blue—and my response to his critique in black.

This is Part 5a* 

*Due to length I needed to subdivide Part 5 into three separate responses 5a-5b-5c

Adam Smith: The Budget Debate Examined

Once the plutocracy has destroyed the middle class who’s going to buy their cheap China imports or afford to pay for their energy or buy their over processed foods or pay their exorbitant interest rates and usurious service fees.

Blah, blah, blah, he hates inexpensive foreign goods but still wants everything for free, paid for by someone else who earned more than him.

Dear Mike,

Your insulting personal attacks and baseless assumptions aside.

Let me introduce myself.

My name is also Mike.

It may surprise you that I actually believe in Capitalism, but, unlike you, only in as far as it is regulated and those regulations are rigorously enforced.

I have never bought a foreign made car because I prefer supporting the "domestic" US economy—to an economy that includes "unregulated countries like China—that game the system and are not accountable for things like: putting melamine—a white crystalline compound made by heating cyanamide and used in making plastics—into baby food to increase its weight.

Did I mention they use slave labor to undercut the wages of American workers—but I forget amoral "unregulated" capitalist theory doesn't worry about such niceties as liberty, human rights—only how much you can profit.

I believe in supporting local merchants and I try to buy American made products if I can find them. A model closer to Adam Smith's original idea—which was based on an agrarian economy—where—for the most part, people knew each other and were much less likely to cheat on their neighbors who probably attended the same church and married into the family.

I've worked my entire life from the age of twelve—when I delivered newspapers as my first job, both home delivery and on the street. I have worked at manual labor jobs including farm work, house and road construction, I have always respected hard honest work and find dignity in it—a trait I learned from my father, a small business owner, my mother who raised seven children and my grandmother, who as a young girl, stood in fresh cow pies to keep her feet warm when she milked the cows, on a farm in North Central Minnesota because the family was too poor to let her wear shoes except in the dead of winter. I instilled those traits in my sons who both had paper routes at age twelve.

I was not drafted—I enlisted in the Navy out of high school. I took my oath to protect and defend this nation against enemies both foreign and domestic—as a life long duty I am honor bound to fulfill. Especially from fascist, who want to do away with this Democratic Republic and replace it with an economic theory that enslaves people and then throws them out on the street like so much garbage.

That visceral dislike of fascism was an ideal I got from the generation that preceded my own who fought and defeated fascism in Europe. You may have heard of them as "the Greatest Generation" I knew them as neighbors, cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers, and fathers, and I feel duty bound to protect their sacrifices. One of the first childhood memories I have is flinching at loud reports from 3 volleys of a 21 gun salute, as the body of a neighbor boy from our hometown, who was killed in Italy, was buried, his name was, Darcy Isman. He delivered groceries to our house, before he went to war and was killed.

I have run my own small business that employed 13 people and—by your limited definition of success—sold the business at a profit. I have always paid every dime of tax that I "owe" because I am grateful to have been—by accident of birth—born into a country that use to know the virtues of honor, which for you an explanation seems appropriate—"doing the right thing even when no one is looking".

I don't ask for or get anything that I didn't earn. I have always paid my own way and I have been on this planet 67 years.

Finally, I was taught that craftsmanship was an expression of a man's dignity. Therefore: I hate shoddy inferior products that are meant to disintegrate in your hands the minute you try and use them and then the endless amount of BS they put you through to reclaim your money only to be given an in-store credit for more of their shoddy crap.

This is the end of Part 5a go to: 

part 5b commonsense: PART 5b Dear Mike: "A Series of Letters from the Left to the Right