Thursday, August 26, 2010

Leftist Politics and Hacienda Luisita

Recently there have been talks of a compromise deal between the peasants and the legal owners of Hacienda Lusita. As it turns out, the peasants prefer stock distribution options over ownership of the physical land itself. Meanwhile, leftists all around are astounded at the peasants' decision. They just cannot fathom that the peasants would simply compromise in fighting for land that was worth blood fighting for. In other words, the leftists cannot believe that the peasants' wishes are actually different from THEIR wishes and THEIR politics.

The peasants of Hacienda Luisita just want to live in peace just like they were before the leftists came in and radicalized them, inflated their minds with grand ambitions and sinister anticapitalist sentiment. The peasants involved in Hacienda Luisita were content in earning an income by tilling a land not their own. Of course, the leftists do not understand this, for when they look at the poor peasants all they can think of is how 'exploited' they are. Society is an arena of conflict where the rich are always exploiting the poor, males are always exploiting females, whites are always exploiting the blacks, etc. In doing this they are the ones perpetuating the tension which they zealously seek to alleviate. Nitpicking and minding other peoples' business is what the left is all about. One can just imagine how self-righteous and arrogant they are to identify themselves with peasants in Hacienda Luisita and recommend politics as the solution to a 'problem' that the peasants never knew they had.

I hope the Hacienda Luisita compromise deal will be an rude awakening for leftists in the Philippines. I hope they become embarrassed in thinking that they know better than the people who actually have substantial interest in the matter. I hope they become sorry for the anguish and suffering that they have rendered unto the Hacienda Luisita farmers.

And yes, they have done harm to the peasants. Agrarian reform has done much more harm than good to the people it is designed to help. Make no mistake about it!

What are these harms done?

1. Politically-charged murders of peasants by hired assassins of the landowners
2. Mass conversion of agricultural land to industrial and residential land
3. Stagnant agricultural sector due to no additional capital investment for fear of land expropriation

But aren't I being too extreme in blaming leftist politicians and activists for something not intended by them? No! Political actions have unintended consequences.
Whether intended or not, and even if harm to the peasants was indirectly caused by leftist politics, those three enumerated above would never have happened without Marxist relgiosity infecting innocent farmers. Intentions don't matter, results do. Land reform activists and politicians should be jailed for what they have done!

Stop Defending the "National Image"!!!

I am disgusted of the fact that there are Filipinos who want to defend the actions of the Philippine government in handling the Manila hostage tragedy vis-a-vis talking with foreigners. These assclowns want to protect our 'national image' and 'national pride' by being apologizers for the state. I would like to ask these retards how exaclty does that improve any Filipino's lot in a substantial way, except make them ready to let go of the government's crimes and totally hand over their safety to the police thugs.

A person I know of is going to fly abroad and is actually preparing defenses for when curious foreigners ask about the terrible hostage crisis and the Philippine government. What he should do is berate and smear the Philippine government in front of foreigners. There's no reason to sacrifice individual pride to so-called 'national pride' which is merely an artifice used to sedate the childish and weak-minded. I remember the words of H.L. Mencken in saying that 'every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under'. How true for our times! Decades of heavy bureaucracy, politicized media stupidity and democratic propaganda have actually created a culture that is overly tolerant of the abuses of power, esteem-lowering, self-shaming, miseducated beyond the ability to reason, docile sheep!!!People who want to apologize for evil governments are subsidizing evil by excusing the government of its criminality.

There are actually some who are intelligent enough to know that the Philippine government is unsalvageable but continue to preach the gospel of 'democracy' and 'good governance' on the basis that 'pag-asa nalang ang natitira sa atin bakit mo pa iyan sirain'. While somewhat understandable, they do not realize that the dream has to come to an end and the longer you prolong the dream the worst the end is.The idea that we need to preserve hope in the hopeless is a result of the moral relativism and postmodernist bullcrap prevalent in the universities. If only these 'uplifters of spirits' looked at the facts --- say --- the national debt--- they will realize that they are doing a great evil by perpetuating a sick fantasy.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

The More Fundamental Issue Behind the Manila Hostage Tragedy

What happened on August 23, 2010 near the Quirino Grandstand was just the most pronounced illustration of government incompetence, thuggery and cowardice seen in a long time. To think that the bus hijacker in this case, Rolando Mendoza, was a former police and awarded as one of the top ten policemen at that, is just mind-boggling and says a lot about the Philippine government in general.

Every aspect of the tragedy from negotiations to the assault to the media to the actions (or inaction) of the president was just an epic failure and deserving of a national face palm.

The main motivation of Mendoza's hijacking of the bus centered around government in the first place. Mendoza together with other killbots in the Philippine National Police were making a lot of money out of extortion in artificial checkpoints. Mendoza felt threatened when he learned about a chef named Christian Kalaw and other victims of extortion told the authorities. So like a typical thug he went to Mr. Kalaw and falsely accused him of illegal parking and taking drugs. The indignant Kalaw demanded a drug test so the state thugs took him to the public hospital where they beat him up and made him swallow shabu before letting him take the drug test. Kalaw was jailed and only released after his fried gave P20,000 to the police.

A year later and after many dismissed proceedings, Mendoza was finally removed from his position by the Ombudsman, but was removed without due process and without his retirement benefits.

These events led to the bus hijacking on August 23, 2010. It is important to note that the hostage tragedy was the result of government 'blowback' from its own operations. First, the government for the longest time has tolerated having thugs in the police force even though corruption and brutality in the PNP is common knowledge. Second, the government acted irresponsibly by releasing this highly trained and well-armed criminal into the open, and released him hungry, that is, without retirement benefits. When you find a criminal you put the criminal in jail, you don't just relieve him of his duties. I guess it works differently in government. The quote below is taken from a respectable blog named 'Dona Victorina'.

"Before this hostage taking, I remember asking my friend in the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) why these rogue policemen were being kept on the force (they were first suspended and even considered being shipped to Mindanao). He told me it was better to keep them within the police where their actions can be “controlled.” If they are no longer policemen then, he said, they will be more uncontrollable as criminals."

And my guess is right. We cannot overemphasize the blame that the government deserves for this.

Let us now move on to the blunders of the government in handling this tragedy that it itself created.

1. The brother of the hostage-taker, Gregorio Mendoza, was denied his first request to talk to the hijacker.

2. The media televised the actions taken by the authorities in response to the crime, and gave Mendoza a tactical advantage since the bus had a television in place.

3. Mendoza's brother was shown to be arrested (and harassed) by the police on national television which made Mendoza shoot people on the bus out of fury.

4. The authorities did not acquiesce, at least partially and superficially, to the demands of Mendoza which made the struggle last for eleven hours.

5. The president, the proud protector and servant of the people, could not be contacted by Hong Kong officials and ,as if quite leisurely, delegated the task to local authorities.

The result is nine people dead (including the perpetrator) and national shame. The communists in Mindanao must have gotten a kick out of watching this event unfold on television.

Of course the likelihood of these crimes happening would be very low if people were allowed their natural right to protect themselves. That is, if they could be allowed to bear arms. Without gun control, thugs like Mendoza would think twice before entering a busload of potential gun-carriers.

But no, we have to rely on the police for our safety because guns placed in private hands runs the risk of increased crime and immorality. Only the police are responsible and wise enough to carry guns. Well apparently this thesis has been proven totally wrong by recent events.

The bus tragedy maybe represents a new high for governmental failure but the lesson that it teaches is not new: government does not work. Which is why I am still dumbfounded by leftists advocating socialist health care and socialist education in spite of all its failures in more basic tasks like defense and road building. If the government cannot do its most basic task of protecting the people, how can it do more difficult tasks.

How can the police protect society from crime and immorality if the police is itself the most criminal agency of government?

A more fundamental question would be 'what causes crime and immorality in the first place?' The answer: increased politicization of society causes crime and immorality to flourish. You expect this to happen when the power gap between the ordinary citizen and the police is so big that the police can get away with false accusations and torture . You expect this to happen when you create the largest bureaucracy in the form of the PNP. You expect this to happen when citizens are dependent sheeple living in a dream who think social change can happen by electing a new president.


Sources:

http://donavictorina.blogspot.com/2010/08/uncontrollable-criminals-in-pnp.html

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20100824-288458/Bloodbath_at_Rizal_Park

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20100825-288632/TIMELINE-11-Hours-of-Madness

Monday, August 2, 2010

Favorite Jefferson Quotes

"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers."

"The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory."

"There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents."

"Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching."

"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."

"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock."

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."

"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government."

"There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world"

"I swear upon the altar of God, eternal hostility to every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

Beginner to Intermediary Reading List

Books and websites that refute leftist professors a million times over. This is the intellectual ammunition that the youth need if we are to stave off despotism from finalizing in the Philippines.


Important websites:


http://mises.org/

Easily the best economics website in the world. Make this your homepage! :D

http://www.lewrockwell.com/

Confronting the United States Predatory Interventionism

Books on Philosophy:

http://marsexxx.com/ycnex/Ayn_Rand-The_Virtue_of_Selfishness.pdf

"The Virtue of Selfishness" by Ayn Rand

Rand's most important contribution to philosophy, a rational ethics.

'Atlas Shrugged'
and 'The Fountainhead' both by Ayn Rand

"The Ethics of Liberty" by Murray N. Rothbard

Social ethics applied

Free books on economics and political economy:

http://jim.com/econ/

"Economics in One Lesson" by Henry Hazzlit

The easiest and surest way to understand economics


http://www.fee.org/pdf/books/The_Law.pdf


"The Law" by Frederic Bastiat

No genuinely liberal education is complete without having read Frederic Bastiat

http://jim.com/hayek.htm

"The Road to Serfdom" by F.A. Hayek

What you need to learn about political economy


http://mises.org/etexts/SocCap.pdf


"A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism" by Hans Hermann Hoppe

Analyzes all political-economic systems and proves capitalism as best

http://mises.org/books/whathasgovernmentdone.pdf

"What Has Government Done To Our Money" by Murray N. Rothbard

Easiest way to understand money

http://mises.org/books/manwelfarestate.pdf

"Man vs. The Welfare State" by Henry Hazzlit

Welfare state is the wet dream of the democratic left. They will hate this.

Go. Speak truth. Love Freedom.