Two Realities
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“Food for Thought” is an original column appearing every other Tuesday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Norman Imberman. Norman is a retired podiatrist who loves playing piano, writing music, lawn bowling, bridge, reading, classical music, going to movies, plays, concerts and traveling. He is not a member of any social network, nor does he plan on becoming one. Dr. Imberman has written a fantastic Christmas song which he had professionally recorded as a demonstration record. He is looking for a publisher, or A & R man, or record producer to listen to his song. It deserves to be a permanent member of the lexicon of familiar and favorite Christmas songs. Archived columns can be found here. FFT-only RSS feed available here.
Basically, there are two groups of people that exist in the world, when it comes to metaphysics and epistemology. The basic premises they maintain are at odds and determine how they conduct their lives and the conclusions they come to when it involves moral and political issues. They see reality differently—one hundred eighty degrees of difference. This is an attempt to verbalize those reality differences. Reality will dictate the outcome of the battle and a battle it is—an ideological battle. The lists below represent a general list of what most of each group believes. However, it stands to reason that one cannot predict the beliefs of any one individual of the group. I will call one group Non-Statists or Limited Statists and the other group Statists-Collectivists. It should be quite obvious that these opposite ideas demonstrate why there can never be compromise between them.
In reality, the two groups should be divided between Anarchists (Voluntaryists) and Statists but I have used a more general dividing line to give the Limited Statists the benefit of the doubt by categorizing them with the Non-Statists (Anarchists)
Non-Statists and Limited Statists
- Contradictions do not exist in reality
- Many things are absolute
- Some things are impossible
- Theft is the taking of property without the consent of the owner. There is no alternate definition.
- All opinions are not equally valid
- The law of supply and demand is an absolute, a Natural Law of Human Action
- Wishing, hoping, praying and a positive attitude cannot accomplish most things
- The knowledge of basic principles is paramount in order to solve problems on a consistent basis
- One man’s need does not constitute a moral obligation upon the actions of another
- One man’s need does not constitute a right to the property of another
- Truth exists
- The ends do not justify the means
- Like all things, Man has a Nature, which must be considered when trying to manipulate him
- Natural law cannot be violated without impunity
- Evil does exist
- Profit, to the highest degree, is good and necessary for a thriving nation
- There is nothing immoral about a person who has much abundance and wants more
- Calling slavery by another name will not change the meaning— will not make it freedom
- Redistribution of wealth falls under the definition of theft and therefore, is still theft
- Reality is an absolute and cannot be molded according to anyone’s desires
- Innovation, investment and production is the engine that creates jobs and prosperity
- Government handouts are not the way to end poverty
- Heroes: Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Ford, Rockefeller, Gates, Paine, Hayek, von Mises, Bastiat, Rothbard, Rand, Galambos, Snelson, Pugsley, Paterson, Newton, Faraday, Bell, Tesla, Westinghouse, Whitney, Fulton
- Freedom is a primary and necessary goal towards attaining a lasting, prosperous, secure civilization
Statists-Collectivists-Progressives
- Contradictions do exist in reality
- Everything is relative
- Nothing is impossible (Anything is possible)
- Theft is involuntary servitude but involuntary redistribution of another’s property is not theft
- All opinions are equally valid
- The law of supply and demand is an artificial construct
- Wishing, hoping, praying, and a positive attitude can accomplish most things
- Understanding and applying basic principles is an ivory tower waste of time and can be discarded with impunity
- One man’s need does constitute a moral obligation upon the actions of another
- One man’s need does constitute a right to the property of another
- There is no such thing as truth since everything is relative.
- The ends justify the means
- Man has no Nature. He can be manipulated without negative consequences
- Natural law can be violated without impunity
- One man’s evil is another man’s good
- Most profit is evil and must be regulated
- The needs of the individual must be sacrificed to the needs of the many
- Any person who has much abundance and desires more is greedy and/or evil
- Taxation is the coercive taking of property, but it is not theft. It is simply necessary in order to redistribute wealth
- Calling slavery by another name will make it non-slavery
- Calling theft by another name will make it non-theft.
- Consistency does not matter
- Reality is not an absolute and can be molded according to one’s desires. One way of molding reality is by changing the names given to concepts
- Government is the engine that creates jobs and prosperity
- Government handouts is the way to end poverty
- Heroes: Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Black Panthers, New Black Panthers, Sinclair Lewis, Charles Dickens, George Bernard Shaw, Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Chavez, FDR, Pelosi, Obama, Schumer, Holder, Reid, FDR, Lyndon Johnson, Clinton
- Freedom is an arbitrary construct made up by those who have and want to manipulate those who have not. It should be ignored. It is an unworthy goal.
- Equality is the primary goal of a civilization
The Republicans, conservatives and limited statists preach items 1-24 but betray those principles when it comes to practice. Although the limited statists betray those principles the least, it makes all of them inconsistent hypocrites.
The Democrats, liberals, collectivists and progressives preach items A-AB and actually live them through their legislative preferences. That makes them consistent enslavers, either Fascist-style or Communist-style.
Note: It is evident that there cannot be compromise between the two groups. Both sides believe that compromise would eventually spell the end of civilization. Since all opinions are not equally valid, you decide which side is closer to the truth.
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