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Dear Editor:
Dan Wasserman's cartoon today depicts countless gloomy Santa Clauses queued up before a "Unemployment Benefits" office. 2008 will indeed be a bad year for shopping-mall Santas, but other Santas are quite jolly.
I speak of politicians. Like shopping-mall Santas, their job is to entertain requests from strangers for goodies. These strangers (like those on the laps of shopping-mall Santas) give no thought to who pays for the requested goodies - so their requests are childish and ample. Politician Santas are naively taken at their word that they can create wondrous things for all good boys and girls. Assisted in the magical Capital City by self-abnegating elves, who need only avoid giving gifts to the naughty, Politician Santas promise the nice a wonderful bounty.
Alas, one important difference between a shopping-mall Santa and a Politician Santa is that the former immediately forgets each child's request the moment that child pops off of his knee. The Politician Santa, in contrast, works hard at the impossible task of making the magic come true.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux, Chairman, Department of Economics, Enterprise Hall, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030
http://www.cafehayek.com/
http://marketcorrection.powerblogs.com/
Parliament of Ho, Ho, Hos. 21 November 2008 The
Boston Globe
More evidence of the "Jesus the Socialist" demagoguery of the Bellamys is below in excerpts from an article by Edward Bellamy. "Christmas in the Year 2000" was published during the Holiday season in 1894 in the popular magazine Ladies Home Journal (Jan. 1895, Vol. 12, No. 2):
During the present bi-millennial year 2000, now so near its end, let us imagine, if we can, an American of today caught up by some miracle of translation and set down on Christmas Day among our forefathers a hundred years ago, say in the last quarter of the 19th century. Our contemporary would be astonished to discover that in America a hundred years ago Christmas was remembered.
And this astonishment would certainly be a most rational feeling. To anyone previously ignorant of the real facts, no suggestion would seem more absurd on the face of it than that a society illustrating in all its forms and methods a systematic disregard of the Golden Rule, would permit any notice, much less any open celebration of Christ's birthday.
One would have taken for granted that as December 25th drew near the police would be doubled and detectives in citizens' clothes stationed on every corner to arrest any who should so much as whisper that tremendous name of Jesus. For what treason so black could there be to the social state of that day as any act in honor of the mighty leveler who laid the axe at the root of all forms of inequality by declaring that no one should think anything good enough for another which he did not think good enough for himself, and who struck at the heart of the lust of mastery when He said that our strength measured our duties to others, not our claims on them, and that there was no field for greatness but in serving? It would plainly be the only reasonable supposition that if there were any who loved this revolutionary doctrine, so irreconcilable with the existing order, they must live in hiding.
How, then, shall we imagine the stupefaction of our contemporary, who, thus expectant, should awaken on Christmas morning to hear the day ushered in by a chorus of jubilant bells and popular rejoicing? How shall we measure his mounting amazement on going forth to find the disciples of the Golden Rule celebrating the praises of its author, not in caves or forest depths, but in lordly temples in the high places of the city, and what, above all, shall he say when he observes that the rich and the rulers not only permit, but encourage, the toiling masses who serve them to render homage to the memory of Him who came expressly to preach deliverance to the captive, to set at liberty them that are bruised, and to break every yoke save that of love?
But no. In that day of which I write, one had but to pause a moment and listen to catch the deep voice of perpetual lamentation, the cry of the blood of Abel against his brother, which ceasing not from the beginning, has only in these last days been hushed in blessed silence. And if our contemporary, for this reason, did not recognize the dolorous sound, yet he would need but to look about him to see that this generation which so loudly cried, 'Lord, Lord!' had yet no more mind to do the things Christ said than the generation He addressed. On every hand the contrast of pomp and poverty, the full and the hungry, the clothed and the naked -the picture that broke Christ's heart- remained.
Our whole order is but an application of that rule so simple that a child could not fail to deduce the result from the terms. What is the rule? Simply that if people would live well together every one should see that every other fares as well as he. Individual efforts are inadequate to secure this end. If the Golden Rule is to be realized in society the only method is a collective guarantee from all to each of what each owed individually to every other, namely, as good treatment as he himself had, which means as applied practically, the guarantee by all to all of equality in everything that touches material and moral conditions. So our state is founded, and ingrates, indeed, should we be found if we did not celebrate Christmas as founder's day in honor of Him who gave us in a phrase the master-key of the political, the humane and the economic problems.
In a society such as that of the 19th century, based upon inequalities and existing for the benefit of the few at the cost of the many, it was, of course, out of the question to celebrate Christmas in the way we do, as the world's great emancipation day and feast of all the liberties.
The Religion of Solidarity
By Edward Bellamy
The Religion of Solidarity was Edward Bellamy's last book (Antioch Bookplate Company, 1940). It contains fourteen essays by Edward Bellamy, the nineteenth century National Socialist writer of Looking Backward. The title essay, The Religion of Solidarity, written when Bellamy was twenty-four, is a statement of what Bellamy calls "the human need for self-transcendence." The Blind Man's World is a ditzy flight of imagination in which an astronomer learns from Martians the consequences of lack of foresight, a severe handicap which intensifies the fear of death and change. To Whom This May Come examines friendship and intimacy amongst mind-readers. A Republic of the Golden Rule, from Looking Backward, extolls the assumption of control of economic development through totalitarian socialism (a "Great Trust"). Lifelong Education from Equality, considers the use of leisure in under Bellamy's totalitarian plans. Bellamy calls for a socialist system that he calls "fraternal cooperation" in Why a New Nation? He sets forth the "basis for brotherhood" in Declaration of Principles. which is the complete opposite of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. In Nationalism - Principles and Purposes he please for the socialist cliche of "social and economic reform" based upon a programme of nationalization, and he refines his recommendation in Some Misconceptions of Nationalism. Why Every Working Man Should Be a Nationalist touts government ownership of everything (Bellamy, of course, calls it "public ownership"). The Programme of the Nationalists shows other terrifying points to his radical economic revolution. Bellamy looks forward to a Second American Revolution in Fourth of July, 1992 which will reverse the First American Revolution. He indicates the line of thinking that led him to write his infamous novel in How I wrote 'Looking Backward'. The book concludes with his Introduction to 'The Fabian Essays', in which he considers Fabian socialism from his standpoint (he calls his standpoint an "American standpoint").
The principle of the Brotherhood of Humanity is one of the eternal truths that govern the world's progress on lines which distinguish human nature from brute nature. The principle of competition is simply the application of the brutal law of the survival of the strongest and most cunning.
—Edward Bellamy
CHRISTMAS & Santa Claus - http://rexcurry.net/christmas-santa-claus-socialism.html Chanukah: Hanukkah -lit. "a dedication." Also called the festival of lights, due to the origin in an oil lamp burning for 8 days. Objectivists call this Light Bulb Day in celebration of increased productivity and leisure (and overcoming oil lamps for perpetual daylight on demand) through man's invention of the light bulb. HAPPY LIGHT BULB DAY, EVERYONE! The traditional candles (another innovation) replaced the earlier oil. |
CHRISTMAS IN THE YEAR 2000
More evidence of the "Jesus the Socialist" demagoguery of the Bellamys is below in excerpts from an article by Edward Bellamy. "Christmas in the Year 2000" was published during the Holiday season in 1894 in the popular magazine Ladies Home Journal (Jan. 1895, Vol. 12, No. 2):
During the present bi-millennial year 2000, now so near its end, let us imagine, if we can, an American of today caught up by some miracle of translation and set down on Christmas Day among our forefathers a hundred years ago, say in the last quarter of the 19th century. Our contemporary would be astonished to discover that in America a hundred years ago Christmas was remembered.
And this astonishment would certainly be a most rational feeling. To anyone previously ignorant of the real facts, no suggestion would seem more absurd on the face of it than that a society illustrating in all its forms and methods a systematic disregard of the Golden Rule, would permit any notice, much less any open celebration of Christ's birthday.
One would have taken for granted that as December 25th drew near the police would be doubled and detectives in citizens' clothes stationed on every corner to arrest any who should so much as whisper that tremendous name of Jesus. For what treason so black could there be to the social state of that day as any act in honor of the mighty leveler who laid the axe at the root of all forms of inequality by declaring that no one should think anything good enough for another which he did not think good enough for himself, and who struck at the heart of the lust of mastery when He said that our strength measured our duties to others, not our claims on them, and that there was no field for greatness but in serving? It would plainly be the only reasonable supposition that if there were any who loved this revolutionary doctrine, so irreconcilable with the existing order, they must live in hiding.
How, then, shall we imagine the stupefaction of our contemporary, who, thus expectant, should awaken on Christmas morning to hear the day ushered in by a chorus of jubilant bells and popular rejoicing? How shall we measure his mounting amazement on going forth to find the disciples of the Golden Rule celebrating the praises of its author, not in caves or forest depths, but in lordly temples in the high places of the city, and what, above all, shall he say when he observes that the rich and the rulers not only permit, but encourage, the toiling masses who serve them to render homage to the memory of Him who came expressly to preach deliverance to the captive, to set at liberty them that are bruised, and to break every yoke save that of love?
But no. In that day of which I write, one had but to pause a moment and listen to catch the deep voice of perpetual lamentation, the cry of the blood of Abel against his brother, which ceasing not from the beginning, has only in these last days been hushed in blessed silence. And if our contemporary, for this reason, did not recognize the dolorous sound, yet he would need but to look about him to see that this generation which so loudly cried, 'Lord, Lord!' had yet no more mind to do the things Christ said than the generation He addressed. On every hand the contrast of pomp and poverty, the full and the hungry, the clothed and the naked -the picture that broke Christ's heart- remained.
Our whole order is but an application of that rule so simple that a child could not fail to deduce the result from the terms. What is the rule? Simply that if people would live well together every one should see that every other fares as well as he. Individual efforts are inadequate to secure this end. If the Golden Rule is to be realized in society the only method is a collective guarantee from all to each of what each owed individually to every other, namely, as good treatment as he himself had, which means as applied practically, the guarantee by all to all of equality in everything that touches material and moral conditions. So our state is founded, and ingrates, indeed, should we be found if we did not celebrate Christmas as founder's day in honor of Him who gave us in a phrase the master-key of the political, the humane and the economic problems.
In a society such as that of the 19th century, based upon inequalities and existing for the benefit of the few at the cost of the many, it was, of course, out of the question to celebrate Christmas in the way we do, as the world's great emancipation day and feast of all the liberties.
The Religion of Solidarity
By Edward Bellamy
The Religion of Solidarity was Edward Bellamy's last book (Antioch Bookplate Company, 1940). It contains fourteen essays by Edward Bellamy, the nineteenth century National Socialist writer of Looking Backward. The title essay, The Religion of Solidarity, written when Bellamy was twenty-four, is a statement of what Bellamy calls "the human need for self-transcendence." The Blind Man's World is a ditzy flight of imagination in which an astronomer learns from Martians the consequences of lack of foresight, a severe handicap which intensifies the fear of death and change. To Whom This May Come examines friendship and intimacy amongst mind-readers. A Republic of the Golden Rule, from Looking Backward, extolls the assumption of control of economic development through totalitarian socialism (a "Great Trust"). Lifelong Education from Equality, considers the use of leisure in under Bellamy's totalitarian plans. Bellamy calls for a socialist system that he calls "fraternal cooperation" in Why a New Nation? He sets forth the "basis for brotherhood" in Declaration of Principles. which is the complete opposite of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. In Nationalism - Principles and Purposes he please for the socialist cliche of "social and economic reform" based upon a programme of nationalization, and he refines his recommendation in Some Misconceptions of Nationalism. Why Every Working Man Should Be a Nationalist touts government ownership of everything (Bellamy, of course, calls it "public ownership"). The Programme of the Nationalists shows other terrifying points to his radical economic revolution. Bellamy looks forward to a Second American Revolution in Fourth of July, 1992 which will reverse the First American Revolution. He indicates the line of thinking that led him to write his infamous novel in How I wrote 'Looking Backward'. The book concludes with his Introduction to 'The Fabian Essays', in which he considers Fabian socialism from his standpoint (he calls his standpoint an "American standpoint").
The principle of the Brotherhood of Humanity is one of the eternal truths that govern the world's progress on lines which distinguish human nature from brute nature. The principle of competition is simply the application of the brutal law of the survival of the strongest and most cunning.
—Edward Bellamy
