{"id":308,"date":"2009-11-08T22:53:27","date_gmt":"2009-11-09T02:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/?p=308"},"modified":"2009-11-08T22:54:41","modified_gmt":"2009-11-09T02:54:41","slug":"the-more-important-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/2009\/11\/08\/the-more-important-war\/","title":{"rendered":"The More Important War"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imagine one morning you wake up and learn that The United States is under attack from multiple fronts, our defenses overwhelmed by a previously inconceivable force.\u00a0 It’s not unlike 9\/11, except on a much wider scale.\u00a0 Your plans for the day have just been changed.<\/p>\n

Different scenario:\u00a0 You are woken out of bed by the carbon monoxide alarm in your house.\u00a0 You can’t see or smell anything wrong, but it’s not a false alarm and without it, you’d meet a sad fate.<\/p>\n

In the first scenario, the threat is so obvious that the need for taking some kind of defensive action, perhaps even an offensive one, is equally obvious.\u00a0 Failure to do so could prove fatal.\u00a0 In the second scenario, the consequences of inaction are every bit the same, but the threat can not be easily seen.\u00a0 It has to be detected by other means.<\/p>\n

The United States is currently engaged in a “hot” war with multiple fronts, thankfully not on our soil. Less thankfully, many of the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan have woken up to the first scenario, and have been forced to act accordingly.\u00a0 And although no one wants the war to continue any longer than required, losing the war is not an option.<\/p>\n

Yet on American soil, like the carbon monoxide threat that can not be readily seen, another war is now underway.\u00a0 It has many fronts, and the enemy force is organized, highly determined and well funded.\u00a0 It is also a war that we can not lose.\u00a0 This is the war on capitalism and free-markets.<\/p>\n

In many respects, it is the more important war.<\/em><\/p>\n

Consider first off that the terrorist forces that attacked U.S. soil in 1993 and 2001 recruit from regions of the world where poverty reigns.\u00a0\u00a0 To a David with a highly questionable economic future, a chance at greatness via a terrorist act against Goliath begins to look more appealing.\u00a0 But the irony in what they are attacking is staggering.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The economic system which defines America — “the land of opportunity” — is exactly the system that could be bringing these economically hopeless people out of their despair. The opposite is also true, as Steven Malanga has written, “free markets are rare in starving nations<\/a>“.<\/p>\n

To whatever extent America weakens its most differentiating characteristics, we reduce our opportunity to be an example in how to best lift the world’s inhabitants out of poverty and into peace.<\/em><\/p>\n

With wealth and poverty being opposites, if we lament the latter, we must look to promote policies and practices that have demonstrated track records of creating the former.\u00a0\u00a0 Likewise, free-markets and their resulting capitalism are inimical to war.\u00a0\u00a0 They are the best peace-plan ever devised.<\/em> It bears repeating:\u00a0 A truly free market between two trading partners makes both<\/em> parties better off.\u00a0 Once this virtuous circle is in place, there is a greatly reduced incentive to go to war, as both parties are made worse off.\u00a0\u00a0 Note that this precisely explains Russia’s reluctance to join in the chorus against Iran — they are huge trading partners.<\/p>\n

\"george_soros\"<\/a>Under a rising tide of concern over Obama’s push of our economy into a more socialist-leaning direction, we have George Soros greasing the skids,<\/a> with the goal of de-emphasizing free-markets in matters of public policy.\u00a0 This will be no small effort either, with a hoped-for endowment of $200 million.\u00a0\u00a0 This is more than the combined endowments of many of the more notable free-market organizations.<\/p>\n

And the proverbial “carbon monoxide detectors” are going off with regard to the United States.\u00a0\u00a0 Exhibit A is the value of the US dollar, which has been meandering downhill like a nice “blue” intermediate ski trail with black diamond sections becoming more frequently interspersed.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Exhibit B is our exploding debt, which is finally catching more attention for what it is:\u00a0 blatant inter-generational theft.<\/p>\n

\"michael_moore\"<\/a>What’s truly mind-boggling about the efforts of Soros and his wealthy followers is that they decry the very system in which they became wealthy, the system in which they expand their wealth, in classic “I’ve got mine, close the gate” fashion.\u00a0\u00a0 Witness Michael Moore’s “Capitalism, A Love Story” — in some countries, attacking the native economic system with such a movie would get him killed.<\/p>\n

This crowd simply doesn’t understand what free-markets and capitalism are.\u00a0 They think our economy, with its ever increasing regulations, corporate cronyism and government-as-backstop is a free market.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Others have done a fantastic job at illustrating the ridiculous nature of such claims, very recently, Charlie Gasparino’s piece<\/a> in the Wall Street Journal (expanded in his new book, “The Sellout<\/a>“). \u00a0 Two other recent and noteworthy books, Thomas Woods’ “Meltdown<\/a>” and Thomas Sowell’s “The Housing Boom And Bust<\/a>” also make the methodical, crystal-clear case that big, interventionist government itself was the primary cause for our recent financial crisis.<\/p>\n

None of this would matter if the anti-capitalists didn’t have the full mind and ear of the legislative and regulatory arms of the federal government right now.\u00a0\u00a0 The damage that could be done in just one 2-year congressional term is incalculable.\u00a0\u00a0 Ronald Reagan’s “shining city on a hill<\/a>” runs the serious risk of tarnish.<\/p>\n

In the opening example of a sudden “hot” war in our backyard, we would all literally leap to our feet and do anything and everything required to defeat the enemy.\u00a0\u00a0 Yet surely and silently an enemy operates in our midst whose worldview can more easily lead to the “hot” war.\u00a0\u00a0 When will we leap to our feet to defeat it once and for all?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imagine one morning you wake up and learn that The United States is under attack from multiple fronts, our defenses overwhelmed by a previously inconceivable force.\u00a0 It’s not unlike 9\/11, except on a much wider scale.\u00a0 Your plans for the day have just been changed. Different scenario:\u00a0 You are woken out of bed by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":338,"href":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions\/338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}