AFTER COMMON PASSION

After common passion

The feeling spirals away,

and its weakness

Makes passion into mere joy against it.

How will I accomplish that idea?

It is one million miles away.

And yet, I know it is here,

Inside, beating with my heart.

Where is that perfection?

Behind a veiled invisible block

That will not fall like so many obstacles

Before?

Where is that realization?

That glaring, blinding,

Earth-shattering realization

That can save this man

From inner death?

Where is that strength?

That hurricane conviction

That I live by,

But cannot apply

In this final battle

For my life?

There is no curse,

No word, no language

That can express what I desire.

Because I

Am the only person I know

Who seeks that idea,

That perfection,

That realization,

And that strength;

And who means it more

Than common passion can approach.

The Free Flow of Capital is an Individual Right

Few people think that the free flow of capital is a civil or individual right. Few people fight for the right to do what they want with their capital. Few would die for that right or engage in civil disobedience over it or even protest for it. But, in truth, it is an important right for which men should fight. If we are to recover a proper society, we must demand it, fight for it and get out on the street for it.

The free flow of capital is the right of every individual to use his investment capital in any way he decides. It is such an important right that the capitalist system is thwarted without it. Capitalists hold that the government should protect it because it keeps people free and advances their abilities to live and prosper. It is essential to the growth and success of capitalists and workers, so much so that its frustration can destroy the capitalist system and the prosperity that comes with it. 

Today, progressives and other leftists believe that government should restrict and control the flow of capital to ensure that investment capital is used in a way that benefits the least among us. They hold that productive individuals and businesspeople should be forced to advance “social justice” over private profit without consideration of the scientific fact that re-distribution of income and capital destroys prosperity and sends society into deeper and deeper poverty.

Why is this so? Let’s try to understand the role that capital investment has in society. First, let’s understand how investment capital works in society. Who provides capital for investment? The answer is people who save their earnings so they can gain interest. These people include pension plans, individual savers from the middle class and upper classes and, finally, venture capitalists. This last group is usually called the 1% and despite the fact they are very small in number, they make the largest part of the income in society. For want of a better word, the 1% make up the people who work harder and smarter. They are inventive and hard-working people who have found the best way to use their money. They create the newest and best products, find the most efficient companies and invest their huge earnings in order to take advantage of those efficiencies and high profits. They are the real “worker bees” in society and they produce the bulk of the profits. Let’s examine their impact on society.

Let’s look at how the 1% earn their money. 

The following chart shows how people earn their money.

We see that the top 1% earn significantly more money from investments and from running their own businesses. On the other hand, the 99% earns more money from employment and since they invest very little and even fewer of them run their own businesses, they don't earn very much compared to the 1%. The implication of this is that the 1% invests better than the 99%. They use their money better and it reflects more earnings from capital investments. That's why they are rich. They are smarter about money.

The critical questions are “why are we taking any money from the rich and giving it to the poor? Isn't it true that most of the poor will spend their money in economically wasteful consumption?" 

Remember the key difference between investment/production and consumption: The money invested in product creation is not consumed. It comes back to the investor along with profits. But the money spent on consumption does not come back to the spender; it is consumed – destroyed. This means that we lose the benefit of letting the 1% invest their money wisely. That money is destroyed through consumption when it could have been preserved through investment.

Who pays the largest amount of taxes? As individuals, the top 1% pays the most taxes. But if we look at a percentage of the total taxes paid, here is what we get:

This chart was done with IRS data updated by FinancialSamuri.com on 1/27/15. It shows that, during that time, the top 50% of people paid 97% of the taxes. This means that by punishing the very people who invested we were seriously affecting our economic stability and growth. 

Government force through taxation is a violation of the right to the free flow of capital. Additionally, it violates the freedom of expression, the freedom of association and property rights. Yet, the truth is that if you produce something and earn a profit, that profit should be yours to do with as you decide. The free flow of capital is the expression of your freedom to use your mind and survive to the best of your ability. The free flow of capital represents your right to use your property as you see fit. 

In the macro sense, the free flow of capital means that money flows to its best uses when people are free to decide how best to live their lives. It represents the choice to remove capital from poor uses and put it to better uses. It is a choice for the individual to make and properly not a choice for the government to make.

The free flow of capital is an expression of individual choice not a collective choice that decides upon the social goals that capital should serve. Every individual has the right to use his savings and surplus capital as he sees fit. These freedoms are individual rights that are as inalienable as are the rights to freedom of speech, freedom of association, belief and self-defense. In fact, all examples of self-defense and individual rights should include the right to the free flow of capital.

Copyright 2019 by Robert Villegas. This post is taken from a forthcoming book making the moral case for capitalism. To see Mr. Villegas' books available for purchase go to Books by Robert Villegas

Are you a Luddite?

A Luddite is a person opposed to new technologies or ways of working. One argument made by Luddites and anti-capitalists in general is that robots and new production technologies take jobs away from people and leave them to suffer and die because they can't keep up with the progress of society.

This argument is wrong and destructive. If you are a Luddite who wants to destroy industrial progress and restrict manufacturing firms from "destroying jobs", I would like to suggest the following:

Learn to adapt to change, don't complain about jobs being lost because of automation. When people went from the abacus to the calculator they did it because calculators and computers were logically better tools for increasing production and saving money. 

Eliminating a job through new automation technologies liberates individual men to do other things - that's not a narrative but a fact. We now have 3.5 % unemployment. What are the people whose jobs were eliminated doing? They are working. You can buy a computer for a few dollars and be more productive and this benefits your life. 

Eventually, most (or all) motor vehicles will be self-driving. People will learn to do other things with their time while they are transported in a self-driving automobile. There is nothing illogical in that. You can use your drive time to be more productive in other areas.

Don't forget, there are more ways to move products than by trucks. Drone deliveries are coming. On demand production is coming (or already here in part). Have you noticed the rails are carrying packed trailers now? That has been going on for decades. Where are all the unemployed drivers? Working other jobs. Robots and other industrial advances will reduce prices, increase salaries as well as increase efficiencies. Get used to it and adapt to change. It will mean a better life for you.

We need more capitalism not less.

Read Crushing the Alinsky Radicals

The Lady

The Lady

The lady had a mission, for she loved the sound of words:
to be a thunderous presence in the world of the mind,
to shout the truth
so that truth would change the path away from oblivion.
And her voice grew strong
with the beauty of her words,
and the strength of her vision.
And she shouted with mountainous eloquence.
But to the world the sound came
as a singular tinkling bell
inaudible--except like a tiny bird's chirping.
But it reached one mind

and that was enough.

Copyright 2015 by Robert Villegas from the book, The Poetic Prose and Poetry of Robert Villegas

https://www.amazon.com/Poetic-Prose-Poetry-Robert-Villegas-ebook/dp/B0142XBE3C/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Poetic+Prose+and+poetry+Robert+Villegas&qid=1575055571&sr=8-1

How to See the Unseen

I am in the process of editing my book "Has Capitalism Failed?" and changing the title to something more provocative. The following is an edited chapter from this book.

I was recently re-reading Henry Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson” and was inspired by his discussion of the advantage that liberals have when they recommend large spending programs:

“…there is a…factor that spawns new economic fallacies every day. This is the persistent tendency of men to see only the immediate effects of a given policy, or its effects only on a special group, and to neglect to inquire what the long-run effects of that policy will be not only on that special group but on all groups. It is the fallacy of overlooking secondary consequences.

“In this lies the whole difference between good economics and bad. The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of a proposed course; the good economist looks also at the longer and indirect consequences. The bad economist sees only what the effect of a given policy has been or will be on one particular group; the good economist inquires also what the effect of the policy will be on all groups.”[1]

Hazlitt accuses progressives of pointing to a problem and then recommending government spending as the solution; focusing on the problem but ignoring the “unintended consequences” of government action. He says elsewhere that you can easily point to the job or money that the government beneficiary receives but you cannot point to what was lost - because it no longer exists. The loss is in the products the taxpayer could not buy and the job that was not created because the money went to the government or the beneficiary.

I would like to suggest a way that you can see the unseen consequences of government action as they affect you personally. But first you have to understand that re-distribution is a form of altruism. You’ll also have to acknowledge the role of abstractions in human understanding. You will recall Marx’s axiom “from each according to his ability to each according to his needs.” This is a statement of altruism and it establishes the enslavement of ability for the sake of the needy, the person who cannot survive by means of his own effort. This Marxist axiom is a call for re-distribution, and because re-distribution is altruism, it represents a loss (the unseen) for the productive and a gain for the recipient of altruism who has not earned it. The unseen, here, is the effects or taking from the productive, and once we understand this, we can begin to recognize that every form of re-distribution is destructive of human values.

Notice that Hazlitt’s formulation here does not take cognizance of this altruistic element and this blinds him to the real cause of the broken window fallacy which is the desire to affect re-distribution by means of altruistic taking from the able to the needy. It is not merely that the loss to the able is unseen, it is unseen because altruism is considered good. It is blindly thought that the result of altruism is good which is a false notion that justifies every looting politician and gives him the sanction of a false morality. So, one could say that the broken window fallacy not only creates unseen consequences but those consequences can only be seen by observing that altruism is implicit in any act of re-distribution.

Take a look at your latest tax filing form and identify how much money you paid through out the year on taxes. Then ask yourself what you would have bought with that money. Then take a trip to a store where that item is sold and find it on the store shelf. Now you can see with your own eyes what you have lost, what you do not have. Then you will understand what altruistic “giving” has done to your life. Now notice that the poor are still poor.

Would it have been immoral for you to have that item? Is it a new Recreational Vehicle, a new Home Theater, hundreds of books you could have read or even a new Jacuzzi? Look at them in the store; spend a few minutes contemplating what you would be doing if you had that item in your possession right now; how much better your life would now be with that item. Then realize that this item has been taken from you by the government because it holds to the principle of altruism, that your goal in life is not to enjoy your earnings but to give them up for someone else. Feel better? Those people who take your money and spend it on something else don’t seem to have much concern for you and your needs – yet you are the one working to make their spending possible.

If you want to get even more wistful, look at the latest report you received from the Social Security Administration detailing how much you have paid into that program. Depending on the number of years you’ve paid into the system, I’ll bet you could have bought a much nicer house; or perhaps several vacations over the years, maybe even a real pension that isn’t threatened by extinction. Remember that Social Security came from the government’s altruistic notion that you are better served by their taking your money now, having the government spend it on other programs, and then taxing your children and grandchildren to take care of you.

Now go to an online Real Estate website and look through some houses whose prices match the amount of money taken from you for your Social Security account; or look at some travel agency brochures and figure out how many places you could have visited with that money. Savor the pictures of the places you were not able to visit. Now you can see what you have sacrificed. I might add, parenthetically, that the house you might have bought with this money could have been a retirement house, which means you would have retained all that money as equity. Now, as a pensioner, you will only get it back in small monthly payments that are barely enough to survive on. Again, ask yourself what good all this altruism is doing for you compared to whatever good you could have done for yourself with your own money.

Some would say that the exercise I am recommending is a selfish way of looking at the issue and that you should instead consider the good that the government has done with your money. Rather, I would say, do some research on government waste and identify a program that has not been a boondoggle or that has not benefited a Congressman by setting up a phony business so he (through proxies) could pocket your money. Or learn about how much money was paid by government to friends or relatives of politicians and you’ll see the harm that has been done to you. You may also consider that the house you could have bought would not involve anything but your own sense of self and what you can accomplish for your life. If that is selfish, make the most of it.

Hazlitt was a classical economist who taught his generation to look at all aspects of a government program, not just the beneficiaries but the harm that is done to the people who earned the money. Classical economists were not blind to the fact that the government was violating the individual and property rights of some people in order to give benefits to their voting blocks. Their arguments were critical of socialist ideas but they missed the truth that the government did not have the moral right to take the property of citizens. They considered themselves to be number-crunchers; like dutiful pragmatists, they only wanted to consider the actual results of socialist schemes and thought that questions of value were irrelevant to a discussion of economic effects. So they never (or seldom) brought up the impropriety (or evil) of the idea of re-distribution. Needless to say, armed with the moral argument for altruism and the imposition of guilt upon anyone who refused to sacrifice, the left won the day.

Working hard in order to live a better life and educating yourself so you can earn more money, are both moral actions and anyone who decides to engage in such acts is a moral agent, a good person. To look at those actions and then to claim that there is no moral issue involved is a crude mistake, if you don’t mind my saying so. You have a moral right to better yourself and it is immoral for the government to violate your right to a better life. Well, look with your own eyes at the benefits you have been denied; the very benefits that have been forbidden to you; benefits that would enable you to have a better life and also to create more jobs so other people can live better lives. Isn’t the denial of your right to be moral a denial of morality? Is this not evil?

You did the work, did you not? You exerted your energy and your thinking in order to make this money, did you not? Was it not a moral decision to decide that you should be the beneficiary of your actions? Since morality is a normative study, how could someone say that living and making the decision to live (well) are not moral decisions? How can someone make mere statistics out of being moral?

Why should anyone take your money from you? Who gave the government the authority to expropriate your property? Who gave them the moral authority, the moral right, to decide what to do with your money; money that would not have been created without your effort? The answer is that there is no such authority, no such right held by any man anywhere to decide what to do with your earnings and property.

To see my books on Amazon go to https://amzn.to/2P0qnH5

---

[1] Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlitt, Three Rivers Press

New Book on the American Corporation

Phoenix AZ – Writer Robert Villegas has released a book entitled What's Wrong with the Corporation. This book is written for anyone seeking to understand the modern mind.

PHOENIX - Oct. 1, 2019 - PRLog -- It is written from the perspective of the writer who is a former employee of a large international company. It is based upon an analysis of the philosophical ideas known today as pragmatism.

The ideas and principles presented in this book can help understand what pragmatism is doing to the modern mind and turning society into a social justice campaign against capitalism. The book discusses the recent effort by the Business Roundtable to change the definition of the term known as the "corporation". The author analyzes how this change is nothing more than an effort to change peoples' minds about the corporation as a profit-seeking institution. The book description states:

"The modern mind is beset with a number of cognitive errors that bear upon the purpose of this book. They also bear upon a philosophy which essentially prohibits a free flow of ideas and opinions. This is the philosophy of pragmatism. Yet, few people know they are living under the oppressive nature of pragmatism. Instead, they think they are free to do whatever they want to advance new ideas and challenge the status quo. More importantly, they don't know that their deepest held beliefs are destroying their knowledge of reality and fomenting social failure.

"This booklet is part of a wider study about the making of the modern mind. I propose that pragmatism, and its parents in Europe, have negatively impacted man's mind and have restricted human development. In order to understand this, we must understand pragmatism."

You can order What's Wrong with the Corporation? at https://amzn.to/2naH3jH

About the Author:

Robert Villegas is an Arizona Author specializing in fiction, romance, theater and philosophy. He was born in South Texas (Weslaco) but raised in Indiana. He is Hispanic-American but American in every sense of the word. He has spent a lifetime in the business world as a UPS executive and also worked in locations all over the United States and Europe. He is an Army veteran who served in Korea as a telecommunications specialist serving in the 7th Infantry Division in Camp Casey, Korea. He was educated in Indiana and earned a Degree through the University of the State of NY (Albany) via an external degree program. He is divorced with three grown children and three grandchildren.

Contact

Robert Villegas

www.robertvillegas.com

robertv1989@outlook.com

Putting Others First

If you want to understand how Sanders and Cortez are gaining popularity, consider this:

"Imagine for a moment, the mind of the individual who holds as his fundamental premise that others are better than he is. This person awakens each morning with these fundamental thoughts: “What do others think I should do? What do others think of my actions? How will they judge me? Who should guide me to my duties and requirements? Whose judgment should I accept in order to have my own judgment?” Such a person can get no first-hand understanding of existence because existence, for him, is not as important as the opinions of others. Others are his existence. Neither can this person learn to develop concepts, how to think and how to determine proper action; he has cut off the activity of deciding such issues by looking at others first.

"If you want to know the cause of neurosis, paranoia and schizophrenia, it is the practice of putting others above the self. Even worse, this form of thinking becomes subconscious; this person can only float between his fears of the opinions of others and his lack of understanding. He is constantly afraid of displeasing someone, somewhere, somehow. This is how many people destroy their ability to know and be certain. They are limited to only a few moral choices such as to do what will make other people happy, to make them like him and to help others as his highest goal. These are the second handers who only know how to live through other people.

Don’t be surprised that so many people, then, vote for politicians who foster collectivism (group thinking) and altruism (self-sacrifice)." - Robert Villegas, from a forthcoming book. Copyright 2019 Robert Villegas

See Mr. Villegas' books on Amazon at https://amzn.to/2HtyR5f

The Green New Deal - A False Promise

The following is excerpted from my book, The Green New Deal versus the Call to Reason. 

The philosophy of the Green New Deal is the philosophy of force against man. It is coercive government hidden under false promises of a better life. More than this it is the idea that force is a practical means for improving society. It holds that the end justifies the means.

Yet, history has shown that societies operating on the principle of force are corrupt and failing. This is the case in every situation where forced sacrifice (fascism/socialism/communism) was the governing principle of society. With that said, it is important to understand the real meaning and consequences of the philosophy that guides both left and right in all parts of the world. That philosophy is pragmatism, the idea that activism (force) accomplishes good.

Progressive policies are failures that lead to more failures that eventually lead to totalitarianism; which is the biggest, bloodiest failure in the history of man. Yet, progressives do not see the illogic of their position. They consider central planning to be a practical form of political power and they blindly advocate more of it despite the evidence of the impracticality of their policies.

The inexorable logic of the progressive position is that once they gain power, their solutions for solving human problems will create a better world. Yet, inevitably, progressive attitudes toward capitalism (that it exploits people and elevates the profit motive) require a fight against any activity that results in market dominance and high profits. These policies are couched under protestations of protecting people against predators while, in fact, the progressives are the predators. Their confiscations destroy the rights and affluence of the people. The eventual wreckage of their policies begins to accumulate.

Inevitably, they blindly advocate more government power in response to the wreckage they have created. They voice the loudest moral certitude that government control will improve the situation against the capitalists while denying all along that it is their forceful policies that are actually destroying society, not the capitalists.

Eventually, they arrive at total force under the false premise that this would accomplish the most good of all. They argue that giving power to technocrats will be more efficient and produce more jobs and affluence – if only the people agreed to work for the collective rather than mere profit. You end up with totalitarianism and everything this implies, poverty, decline, political murders and mass death.

The proponents of the Green New Deal insist that men belong to society and that government is tasked with the responsibility of directing men’s actions and appropriating their property for the sake of the whole. This falsely implies the efficacy of coercion.

If you doubt the truth of this charge against the Green New Deal, consider the attitude taken by Ms. Ocasio-Cortez when she assumed office as a representative of her district in New York. Her local officials were in the process of making a “deal” with Amazon to build new facilities and create as much as 25,000 new jobs in return for some tax concessions. Ignorant of the long-range benefits of this deal for her voters, she voiced demands that moved Amazon out of the deal. Her attitude toward Amazon was applauded by other progressives as a principled stand; but her “stance” could only have been truly principled if she hated the profit motive and its true positive impact on the lives of her constituents. Her communistic impulses could be the only reason for opposing Amazon’s interests. This is not principle; it is nihilism. This is real damage to real people.

The unfortunate truth for progressives, the fact they vehemently deny, is that the more force they exert, the more damage they do to society. You need only look at the results of fascist and communistic societies throughout history to see this. Forget that every new proponent of progressive policies criticizes the cruelty of past coercive societies, while promising that, this time, they will get it right. Forget that these promises merely start a new cycle of cruelty and control. Forget that the new boss is the same as the old boss because it is the principles of centralized government, the use of force in society that keeps being repeated each time.

The Green New Deal requires that men limit or give up their right to use reason. If you squash reason, who in society will create the products that will make life better? Certainly not the government. Certainly not the technocrats. And over time, the more force they use in society, the more convinced honest people become that reason will not be allowed to flourish; so therefore, there is no reason to work hard. What could society expect of the more able people; that they work hard for the sake of the collective? No, they will do what they have always done in the face of oppression. They will pursue subsistence and nothing more. Therefore, altruism and collective force are impractical.

Totalitarian societies always crumble after their mass murders. They crumble because they are killing or suppressing the best minds. Therefore, progressive and democratic socialist societies are fraught with economic turmoil and recession, corruption and theft. They limit and restrict the free use of the mind and they lead the people on a path toward destruction. Force in society does not work.

The idea of “social justice”, imposed by government, removes all restrictions on government’s power. Once the lives of individuals are less important than the “rights” of the collective, the stage is set for ever more stringent exploitation of good citizens. Because force does not create a vibrant economy, because collectivism always fails, the leaders must charge productive individuals with “crimes against the people” to cover up their own failures. So when you hear arguments such as “it takes a village”, “you didn’t build that”, “the rich are not paying their fair share”, “we need more shared sacrifice”, “capitalism isn’t working”, what you are hearing is the call for a society based upon force. You are hearing the call to dictatorship and you can be sure, by the inexorable logic of ideas, that the result will be lots and lots of dead people…most of whom only wanted to live honest lives in freedom.

The Green New Deal is the next step in the incremental movement to increase force against disarmed citizens. At first, the progressives demanded minor examples of force, such as innocuous rules, regulations, higher taxes and government programs to allegedly solve one or more (invented) problem of capitalism. Their goal, however, has not been to fix society but to establish the principle of force which, once established, sets the precedent for ever wider expansions of government. The Green New Deal is only the ultimate expression of a total takeover of the lives of all people by government. It is the ultimate holocaust, the builder, not of new green buildings but of concentration camps fraught with social experiments by ruthless doctors of control. Do not doubt that the Green New Deal will be the ultimate nightmare of death and destruction. That is why progressives like Ms. Cortez are so insistent that it is the solution to all of our problems. She intends to be the slave driver.

In our schools today, future citizens are taught that government can make things better through regulations and re-distribution (force). This means that progressives are teaching our children that government has the moral authority, for the sake of society, to decide when to interfere in peoples’ lives; when to use force. Children are taught that good citizenship involves the forcible re-distribution of their future earnings for the sake of the less fortunate. They are also taught that capitalism contains many flaws that the government is responsible for correcting, effectively teaching young people that force is the preferred and only practical way of accomplishing change. When they take over, they will make sure that the bad people, the capitalists, the racists, the white supremacists, the white people, as a whole, will be punished for what they have done – although what they have done is based on the identity of skin tone. Scapegoating is the new political correctness. This will not be a free society.

Teachers ignore the fact that government-initiated force eliminates the ability of future citizens to think and make unbiased judgments. In a bizarre twist of logic, they think they are building good minds and good citizens...when, in fact, they are creating the busy bodies who will harass the able and the accomplished people in society. Their acceptance of the principle of force in society leads them to denigrate reason in favor of altruistic moral premises. These children are unaware they are losing their critical faculties and learning to acquiesce to government-sponsored theft.

There is always a “broken window” with such measures. Someone must pay for the government programs and suffer losses - but schools seldom teach children about the pitfalls of a government that must take money in order to equalize them. The idea that there can never be a justification for exerting force against the individual is seldom mentioned. This is because children are taught that ideas like the Green New Deal have made things better in the past.

Limited government, restricted to using force only in defense of individual rights, is the only system that liberates the human mind to innovate and produce. It allows people to accumulate wealth, create new products, build large industries and trade value for value. The basic principle of limited government exposes the lie of coercive systems like the Green New Deal. Progressives and other proponents of coercive systems portray themselves as advanced thinkers seeking to improve capitalism (by means of force), but the truth is they are thugs seeking to transform society into dictatorship.

Any system that uses force (by means of economic intervention) poses dangers to society and will achieve the same results as both Soviet communism and Nazi fascism. They are no different from those systems; they represent no serious departure from them and should be feared and avoided.

Any argument claiming that capitalism has failed is categorically false. This is because capitalism is about voluntary trade whose focus is exchanging value for value. In the overwhelming number of cases, mutual benefit to all parties is what happens in capitalism. The consequence of capitalism is an improving standard of living, better products and happiness. This is because capitalism is the only system that eliminates force as a system of economic control.

What we need is the opposite of the Green New Deal. We need a complete separation of economy and government. We need to keep government out of the business of regulating our lives and restricting our choices. When we accomplish this kind of society, we establish the principle that government can make no laws that interfere with the free trade of individuals.

The Marxist claim that capitalism is inherently exploitative, that all transactions are zero-sum, and that capitalism will someday be replaced by socialism are patently false and amount to an effort by the Marxists to create the very circumstances they require in order to take power. There is no mystical movement from capitalism to socialism, no exploitation, no worker’s disenfranchisement and no force exerted by companies who can only survive by convincing customers to trade with them; and by proving to employees that they are providing value in return for value. The lie of Marxism is that capitalism is dictatorship.

Marxism is a series of calculated lies, old-wives-tales, pseudo-science, pseudo-philosophy and balderdash. Anyone who claims that capitalism has failed, that it must be fixed by some form of force, is an anti-capitalist making false charges. It is like saying that a hammer is necessary to fix a computer chip. The idea that you can fix capitalism by violating the principles of capitalism (individual rights and free capital accumulation) should be rejected out of hand…and that means that the entire philosophy of today’s progressives should be rejected as a scam. 

Copyright 2019 by Robert Villegas

To purchase The Green New Deal versus the Call to Reason, go to https://amzn.to/2YEyASM 

Press Release: New Rational Thoughtbook on Identity

Surprise, AZ – Writer Robert Villegas has just invented a new breed of book called the Rational Thoughtbook. The first book is called "Identity: A Rational Thoughtbook by Robert Villegas

As he wrote on the Amazon description of the book:

“The quest for identity is a human yearning. Each of us seeks to define who we are and what is our purpose. This yearning is the desire to integrate our existence, our knowledge and our purpose. To aid in this quest, the authors have created the “Rational Thoughtbook, a new breed of book that uses vibrant images and essential questions to help you think about your most important issues. A Rational Thoughtbook is not intended merely for reading; but for thinking. You don’t read each page; you think about the questions being posed and take your time answering them according to your best knowledge at the time. Rational thinking is the exertion of mental focus and energy to improve internal harmony and cognitive abilities. Through this book, you will use your mind to “see” reality, determine right action, generate energy and prepare yourself for living.”

Mr. Villegas holds that identity is an individual concept. It has nothing to do with the color of one’s skin or place of origin. Identity is about the individual and what he or she chooses to make of the self. This book is about defining the self, not the group.

Mr. Villegas developed the idea for the thoughtbook after seeing a stunning brochure his company created for a client. This brochure used an image of a lady facing massive waves while standing on a beach. It inspired him so much that he realized how stunning images and carefully selected text could help people contemplate important questions.

The process of getting the idea for the book, and then writing the questions, then giving his graphic designer the liberty of choosing the images was quite exciting and only took about 4 days of phone work and texting. Mr. Villegas hopes this new breed of book, that requires contemplation (rather than merely reading), will be beneficial for the reader seeking answers. He has topics for about five more thoughtbooks.

You can order Identity a Rational Thoughtbook by Robert Villegas at https://amzn.to/2Zr2bQD

Other Villegas books include

The REAL Purpose-Driven Life https://amzn.to/2YG0Xjc

Values and Purpose Workbook https://amzn.to/2YDrYrS

Alcoholism and Addiction – A Secular Ten-Step Program on Amazon at http://amzn.to/2q8eQsB

The Secular Ten-Step Program Workbook http://amzn.to/2pGRx5v

The World’s First Drunk: With Counselor’s Talking http://amzn.to/2r6pCRA

The World’s First Drunk – Patient Version http://amzn.to/2r0EBfr

Robert Villegas is an Arizona Author specializing in fiction, romance, theater and philosophy. He was born in South Texas (Weslaco) but raised in Indiana. He has spent a lifetime in the business world as a UPS executive and also worked in locations all over the United States and Europe. He is an Army veteran who served in Korea as a telecommunications specialist serving in the 7th Infantry Division in Camp Casey, Korea. He was educated in Indiana and earned a Degree through the University of the State of NY (Albany) via an external degree program. He is divorced with three grown children and three grandchildren.

Contact

Robert Villegas

Email: robertv1989@outlook.com

www.robertvillegas.com

PRLog link: https://www.prlog.org/12782585-new-rational-thoughtbook-on-identity.html

How to Bring Down the Government of Iran

The Green Revolution in Iran lost its ability to communicate its message while President Obama was seeking his nuclear deal with the government. Harsh and cruel crackdowns that included beatings, decapitations and murder silenced the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom of speech and other freedoms. What can they do now? How can they advance their prospects for self-sufficiency and self-determination? I suggest a Green Revolution of Silence.

To the Iranian people, I’d like to suggest that you starve your government of money, go on strike, and keep from the government the very things it needs to oppress you. It may require short-term suffering but certainly not the level of suffering you have experienced for decades. Here is how it can be done:

1. Stay in your homes after work and refuse to enjoy your free time until the government falls. If you have vacation time available, take it but spend little. This keeps you out of trouble, reduces commerce and yet is a form of protest.
2. Hoard your money, hide it and do not put it in a bank; temporarily remove it from circulation. The government needs a working economy in order to pay for operations. If you save your money and refuse to buy anything, there will be fewer taxes the government can collect.
3. Reduce or stop your production if possible. The government can only collect taxes when surplus wealth is created. If there is no surplus wealth, the government will begin to experience budget deficits.
4. Keep silent and do only what you are told and nothing more. Volunteer no new ideas and act as uf ignorant when you are asked for an opinion or idea.
5. If you can, do only enough to achieve bare subsistence. This should also be done by merchants and factory owners whose taxes feed the economy. If you can sabotage production without being caught, do so.
6. Do not start new businesses or borrow money for major purchases. This will slow the economy and start the process of economic decline that is necessary for the government to fall.
7. If you are a student, learn your lessons and get good grades, but take no position of leadership and show only the support of silence. The entire society should walk in silence without smiles. This is a form of protest.
8. If you are an employee of the government or even a police officer, do everything you can to help the people without being noticed and, if you can, refuse to follow orders. Never ask a citizen to provide you with information. If you can get away with it provide false information to the government. This will be important because the new government, once it is formed, will need good people.
9. Whenever possible, grow your own food and make your own energy but do nothing to improve your standard of living until you are free.
10. If you trade with others, trade in such a way that it is out of sight of government and without reporting. Barter, create your own private currencies and make only verbal agreements that are out of sight of the government. Trust each other and deal only with people who do not support the government.
11. If possible, take advantage of every benefit the government provides so it is spending money on you that it cannot spend on weapons and oppression. Only take a government job if you can sabotage the government without being noticed. Take but never give back.

With a protest of this kind, a silent protest, the government cannot last long, and it will either have to capitulate or fall. Governments need money in order to function and if you can starve them of money, you can win.

After all, you are the highest value in your society; they are the parasites.