Which is better: socialism or capitalism? Does one make people kinder and more caring, while the other makes people greedy and more selfish? In this video, Dennis Prager explains the moral differences between socialism and capitalism, and why anyone who wants a kind and generous society must support one and oppose the other.
Prager U
Why Don’t Feminists Fight for Muslim Women? Culture Counts
Are women oppressed in Muslim countries? What about in Islamic enclaves in the West? Are these places violating or fulfilling the Quran and Islamic law? Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an author and activist who was raised a devout Muslim, describes the human rights crisis of our time, asks why feminists in the West don’t seem to care, and explains why immigration to the West from the Middle East means this issue matters more than ever.
Love Me Some Kreeft! (The Benefits of Belief)
Even if you don’t believe in God, do you wish you did? Even if you’re an atheist or an agnostic, is there still good reason to act religiously? Peter Kreeft, philosophy professor at Boston College, explains why even atheists should want there to be a God, and how acting as if there is one may actually lead to you believing it.
Who’s More Pro-Choice: Europe or America?
Are abortion laws more conservative in America or in Western Europe? Would a pregnant woman seeking an abortion have an easier time getting one in Texas or in…Germany? The answers, as talk show host Elisha Krauss explains, may just change how you think about America’s abortion laws.
Government Investing A Recipe for Failure
- “A fundamental principle of information theory is that you can’t guarantee outcomes… in order for an experiment to yield knowledge, it has to be able to fail. If you have guaranteed experiments, you have zero knowledge” ~ George Gilder
Interview by Dennis Prager {Editors note: this is how the USSR ended up with warehouses FULL of “widgets” (things made that it could not use or people did not want) no one needed in the real world. This economic law enforcers George Gilder’s contention that when government supports a venture from failing, no information is gained in knowing if the program actually works. Only the free-market can do this.}
From transportation to energy, and everything in between, should the government invest money in as many promising projects as possible? Or would that actually doom many of those ventures to failure? Burt Folsom, historian and professor at Hillsdale College, answers those questions by drawing on the fascinating history of the race to build America’s railroads and airplanes.
Baseball and American Culture
Rick Monday was honored by throwing out the first pitch at Monday’s game at Chavez Ravine for arguably the greatest save in Dodgers Stadium history.
What, you say, Monday was an outfielder? And why would he be credited with a save?
Forty years ago on April 25, Monday was playing centerfield for the Cubs in a game against the Dodgers.
The game turned from an ordinary early season game into one with high drama when two people suddenly appeared in the outfield at Dodger Stadium.
Legendary Dodgers announcer Vin Scully said, “”It looks like he’s going to burn a flag!”
One had an American flag. The other, lighter fluid and was planning on burning Old Glory. This was an act Monday, who served in the Marine Corps, was not about to let happen….
The scoreboard operator was swift at the button, punching up: “Rick Monday — You Made a Great Play.”…
Is There a Campus Rape Culture?
Is it true that 1 in 5 women are raped on America’s college campuses? If so, what does that say about our universities and the people who run them? If not, how did that statistic get into the mainstream? Caroline Kitchens, Senior Research Associate at the American Enterprise Institute, looks at the data and explains the very significant results.
Government: Is it Ever Big Enough?
Can the government ever be too big? How much spending is enough spending? And if there can be too much spending, where is that point? William Voegeli, Senior Editor of the Claremont Review of Books, explores these complex questions and offers some clear answers.
Who Not To Vote For ~ Adam Carolla
Adam Carolla isn’t going to tell you who to vote for. But he is going to tell you who NOT to vote for. And in a time when candidates running for office promise the moon, one of America’s funniest comedians shares a few tips about how to spot the candidate that you should run from.
What Was the Civil War Over?
First-things-first:
- “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
What are we to make of this first part of the quote often ripped from it’s context (both in the letter as well as from the complexity of history) by leftist historians and unsuspecting persons. The first thing to do is to quote it in a fuller context:
If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. (Read the whole letter)
The most important thing to remember is when this letter to Horace Greely was written, the Emancipation Act was on Lincolns desk.
- Lincoln first discussed the proclamation to free the slaves with his cabinet in July 1862… the letter to Horace Greely was written in August 1862.
Again, President Abraham Lincoln informs his chief advisors and cabinet that he will issue a proclamation to free slaves, but adds that he will wait until the Union Army has achieved a substantial military victory to make the announcement, BEFORE writing to Greely. [Context is King.] Let us add some flavor to the obviously hard decisions on the Executive level in keeping both sides happy while tacking like a sailboat through choppy waters towards the big goal:
…Tugging him in the other direction were abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and Horace Greeley. In his editorial, “The Prayer of Twenty Millions,” Greeley assailed Lincoln for his soft treatment of slaveholders and for his unwillingness to enforce the Confiscation Acts, which called for the property, including slaves, of Confederates to be taken when their homes were captured by Union forces. Abolitionists saw the acts as a wedge to drive into the institution of slavery.
Lincoln had been toying with the idea of emancipation for some time. He discussed it with his cabinet but decided that some military success was needed to give the measure credibility. In his response to Greeley’s editorial, Lincoln hinted at a change. In a rare public response to criticism, he articulated his policy by stating, “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.” Although this sounded noncommittal, Lincoln closed by stating, “I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.”
By hinting that ending slavery might become a goal of the war, Lincoln was preparing the public for the change in policy that would come one month later with the Emancipation Proclamation.
Remember, history is complicated, as President, his position on slavery was initially less enlightened and more pragmatic (perhaps in an effort to keep the border states from seceding). Lincoln’s official position from his candidacy through the early years of the war was that he opposed expansion of slavery into new territory, but believed it could continue to exist in existing slave states. Even as the war went on, he grew into the role of “The Great Emancipator” rather than arriving as a finished product. At one point,
- he advocated for compensated emancipation (i.e. the government would buy slaves and free them)
- He also advocated for “re-colonization” back to Africa
Both those early fixes floated around as options to a problem that men-cannot-own-men would have ended slavery. Something he believed in ending, personally, all-the-time. [See his notes for the debate with Douglas below.] But it took a while to implement it in the the Union as official policy. Something this generation does not understand with their one-hour photo, half-hour pizza, email vs. snail mail… there is no understanding of the time [times] being discussed.
Put another way (trying to break this down “Barney Style“):
When he wrote that he had the draft of the Emancipation Proclamation in his desk drawer and had already presented it to his cabinet. He was responding to Greeley’s request for presidential action on abolition and apparently wanted to establish a basis in the public mind for accepting the Emancipation Proclamation. That basis was that he was trying to save the Union.
In other words, Lincoln was part of — in the end — the eradication of slavery. It is simply that one’s view of Lincoln depends on whether he gets credit for the destination he ultimately arrived at or not.
This same idea applies to discussions about ancient texts as well.
What caused the Civil War? Did the North care about abolishing slavery? Did the South secede because of slavery? Or was it about something else entirely…perhaps states’ rights? Colonel Ty Seidule, Professor of History at the United States Military Academy at West Point, settles the debate below:
Dennis Prager interviews Professor of History at the United States Military Academy at West Point, Colonel Ty Seidule, about the recent Prager University video on the reasons for the Civil War (video at top). The idea that the war was over other reasons like states rights is true… the right for the Southern states to practice slavery. All one has to do is read the “Ordinance’s of Secession” from the seceding states:
A good place to touch base on these ordinances is here. Another great thing to do is read the debates between Lincoln and Douglas. Another resource are three videos found on a page on my site, dealing with some of these myths.
Two books I recommend on the issue are:
What This Cruel War Was Over ~ With letters from the soldiers themselves and battlefield communiques, what did the men on the ground think the war was over;
Half Slave and Half Free ~ One of the best books combining the time from our founding to the roots of the Civil War.
Here is a graph of the main grievances the states who left the union had… and the text is all the Reasons for Secession documents with the highest percentage of grievances, of which I will focus on the top six:
In other words, when the reasons for seceding were written the states wanted their own right to have slaves.
When the documents are broken down, Slavery is the main reason:
1) Each declaration makes the defense of slavery a clear objective.
2) Some states argue that slavery should be expanded.
3) Abolitionism is attacked as a method of inciting violent uprisings.
4) Mississippi and Georgia point out that slavery accounts for a huge portion of the Southern economy.
When it shifts to States Rights, it is still about the choice to keep slavery:
1) The states argue that the Union is a compact, one that can be annulled if the states are not satisfied with what they receive in return from other states and/or from the federal government.
[…sounds reasonable… but the above is qualified with the below…]
2) The states argue that the North’s reluctance to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (mandating that fugitive slaves be returned to the South) means that the compact is no longer satisfactory.
These are the top SIX reasons for secession. The economy was another reason… but these concerns hinged on slavery. The election of Abraham Lincoln was a concern as well, this again was mainly because of slavery.
Are you getting the picture?
- info via The Civil War Trust
Moving on…
Here is the History Channel:
In the mid-19th century, while the United States was experiencing an era of tremendous growth, a fundamental economic difference existed between the country’s northern and southern regions. While in the North, manufacturing and industry was well established, and agriculture was mostly limited to small-scale farms, the South’s economy was based on a system of large-scale farming that depended on the labor of black slaves to grow certain crops, especially cotton and tobacco. Growing abolitionist sentiment in the North after the 1830s and northern opposition to slavery’s extension into the new western territories led many southerners to fear that the existence of slavery in america–and thus the backbone of their economy–was in danger.
In 1854, the U.S. Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which essentially opened all new territories to slavery by asserting the rule of popular sovereignty over congressional edict. Pro- and anti-slavery forces struggled violently in “Bleeding Kansas,” while opposition to the act in the North led to the formation of the Republican Party, a new political entity based on the principle of opposing slavery’s extension into the western territories. After the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dred Scott case (1857) confirmed the legality of slavery in the territories, the abolitionist John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry in 1859 convinced more and more southerners that their northern neighbors were bent on the destruction of the “peculiar institution” that sustained them. Lincoln’s election in November 1860 was the final straw, and within three months seven southern states–South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas–had seceded from the United States….
In a discussion on the Civil War, I was challenged with a couple points, the first being that Lincoln didn’t care much about slaves/slavery and merely wanted to win the war for other reasons. And the other challenge was if the South was sooo racist, why did the South offer freedom to slaves who fought for them. Here is the comment:
I posted an article about Lincoln knowing it was “morally wrong,” but not even wanting to free the slaves, right? Lincoln wanted to win the war, and since the South offered freedom to slaves who fought for them first, then you kinda have to understand that Lincoln only wanted to win the war by following suit.
I first merely note some notes Lincoln had on him during his famous debate with Stephen Douglas in 1858, BEFORE the war. He wrote:
“If A can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B — why not B snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A?
You say A is a white, and B is black. It is –color–, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be the slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.
You do not mean color exactly? — You mean the whites are –intellectually– the superiors of the blacks, and therefore, have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.
But, say you, it is a question of –interest; and, if you can make it your –interest–, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.”
[go back]
Doesn’t sound like his views were an afterthought? These thoughts pre-dated the war. And if anyone reads that debate you will see slavery was foremost in the discussion.
Another point I make is from James W. Loewen, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Vermont, is the author of “Lies My Teacher Told Me” and “The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader,” notes that this idea of blacks fighting for and being offered freedom was three weeks before the end of the war (via Live Science):
The argument over whether blacks took up arms to fight for the government that enslaved them is a bitter one, but historians have busted this myth, Deaton said.
“It’s just balderdash,” he said.
Loewen agreed.
“It’s completely false,” Loewen said. “One reason we know it’s false was that the Confederacy by policy flatly did not allow blacks to be soldiers until March of 1865.”
The idea had been brought up before, University of Tennessee historian Stephen Ash wrote in 2006 in the journal Reviews in American History. In January of 1864, Confederate Maj. Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne proposed enlisting slaves. When Confederate President Jefferson Davis heard the suggestion, Ash wrote, he “not only rejected the idea but also ordered that the subject be dropped and never discussed again in the army.”
About three weeks before the Civil War ended, however, a desperate Davis changed his tune. By that point, the war was lost and few, if any, blacks signed up.
White officers did bring their slaves to the front, where they were pressed into service doing laundry and cooking, Loewen said.
Fact #9: The Emancipation Proclamation led the way to total abolition of slavery in the United States.
With the Emancipation Proclamation, the aim of the war changed to include the freeing of slaves in addition to preserving the Union. Although the Proclamation initially freed only the slaves in the rebellious states, by the end of the war the Proclamation had influenced and prepared citizens to advocate and accept abolition for all slaves in both the North and South. The 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States, was passed on December 6th, 1865
Fact #10: Lincoln considered the Emancipation Proclamation the crowning achievement of his presidency.
Heralded as the savior of the Union, President Lincoln actually considered the Emancipation Proclamation to be the most important aspect of his legacy. “I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper,” he declared. “If my name ever goes into history it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.”
(SEE MORE: CivilWar.org)
Big Government Defined
“Big Government refers to a government that is very influential in the everyday lives of citizens, often due to its far-reaching agencies.” In other words, the growth of centralized government. Pat Buchanan once put it well:
- The mammoth government we have today is a result of politicians rushing to solve ‘crises’ by creating and empowering new federal agencies.
Thomas Sowell says of this in a recent book he wrote:
- Big Government damages trust rather than enhancing it, by making it more difficult for people to voluntarily cooperate for mutual profit.
Installing new powers for existing departments of government that create more legislation that straps the common man and business owner with more regulation and less freedom (an example would be the EPA and its new powers over more private property). Creating new departments and growing government in it’s scope and regulating powers (for instance, the ACA).
This is why “Dubya” always rated low in polls of people with differing political views. The left didn’t like him because he was on the opposite side of their viewpoint. The right didn’t like him because he teamed up with Kennedy and reinforced the idea of the Dept. of Education in joint legislation to increase its scope and influence WHEN it should be abolished all-together.
✦ Thomas E. Dewey stated the case against Big Government in 1950: “All-powerful, central government, like dictatorships, can continue only by growing larger and larger. It can never retrench without admitting failure. By absorbing more than half of all the taxing power of the nation, the federal government now deprives the states and local governments of the capacity to support the programs they should conduct … it offers them in exchange the counterfeit currency of federal subsidy.”
✦ Dwight Eisenhower deplored what he called “the whole-hog mentality,” which “leans toward the creation of a more extensive and stifling monopoly than this country has ever seen … you don’t need more supergovernment.”
✦ Republican House Minority Leader Gerald Ford, in 1966, blamed it all on the Democrats, labeling them “the party of Big Business, of Big Government, of Big Spending, of Big Deficits, of Big Cost of Living, of Big Labor Trouble, of Big Home Foreclosures, of Big Scandals, of Big Riots in the Streets and of Big Promises.”
✦ “The truth about big government,” said John F. Kennedy in 1962, “is the truth about any other great activity: it is complex. Certainly it is true that size brings dangers, but it is also true that size also can bring benefits.”
✦ A favorite Ronald Reagan line was “Government is not the solution to the problem; government is the problem.” President Bill Clinton astonished some followers and delighted some critics with “The era of big government is over.”
(Quotes are from William Safire, Safire’s Political Dictionary (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2008), 52, cf. big government.)
Professor Thies notes “what conservatism is” in a short numbered way, that defines well what the base of the GOP stands for (or doesn’t stand for):
1. Belief in a transcendent order or body of natural law that rules society as well as conscience. There is objective truth in the universe, and we can know it. All sources of knowledge testify to this truth, and therefore faith and reason must be reconciled. Furthermore, our knowledge of “self-evident truths” grows as we become more aware of our nature and that of the universe.
2. Affection for the variety and mystery of human existence, as opposed to the narrow uniformity and egalitarianism of “radical” systems. We love people, not merely “the people,” and we enjoy our culture and all the cultures of the world. We love the planet on which we find ourselves and the entire universe in its vastness and in its tiniest details. It is all utterly amazing and beyond human comprehension, and we also love that. And, we are suspicious of those who would seek to impose their designs on society, as they only reveal they have no idea of the limits of their knowledge.
3. Civilization needs the rule of law and something Adam Smith described as “useful inequality.” This is in contrast to the notion of a “classless society.” Conservatives believe there are natural distinctions among men, leading to inequalities of condition. Conservatives affirm equality before God and the law; anything more leads not only to servitude but to boredom.
4. The argument for property is more than economic efficiency. It is that by having something a person can call his own, and by earning his living as opposed to depending on the apparatus of the state, a person is enabled to see himself as a unique and wonderful creature, and to love himself; and, loving himself thusly, and relating to others on the basis of mutual advantage and affection, he is enabled to love others as he loves himself. (I got this profound insight into the moral foundation of capitalism from Pope John Paul II.)
5. That social institutions such as the family, churches, fraternal organizations, for-profit business organizations, charities and even governments, are animated and justified by the choices made by those entering into them. (This is a wholesale substitution of the fifth principle of the Kirk Center, which is merely the converse of the second principle.) (I developed this from James Buchanan’s theory of clubs. It is the nexus of libertarian and conservative thought, libertarians being concerned with freedom, and conservatives with social institutions.)
6. Conservatives recognize risk and reward involved in change. While we believe in progress, we accept that mistakes are and will be made by those engaged in the process of discovery. Hayek dedicated his book The Constitution of Liberty to “The unknown civilization taking shape in America.” Hopefully, after the election we should again be excited about the great adventure we embarked upon with the founding of this country.
Three question the left rarely [if ever] ask:
1) compared to what?
2) at what cost?
3) what hard-evidence do you have?
“Broken Windows” Policy In Foreign Policy
Is there a middle ground between the aggressive foreign policy of the Bush Administration and the passive and hesitant foreign policy of the Obama Administration? Yes, and New York City is a model. How so? Bret Stephens, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Wall Street Journal, explains how the NYPD’s “broken windows” policy–swiftly and forcefully punishing even petty crimes–can be applied by the United States on a global scale.