Rational Nation USA

by: Les Carpenter Rational Nation USA Liberty -vs- Tyranny President Obama and the Occupy Wall Street crowd has succeeded in turning the nation's focus increasingly to the idea of wealth redistribution. This of course is allegedly to make things a bit more "fair", to use one of my favorite anti-concepts . Recently thinking about this my mind turned to the concept of property rights . While I knew the framers of our Constitution were advocates for individual property rights and set themselves to the task of insuring their protection I went searching for some on line reference material to help put things in proper perspective. I found it at the National Center for Constitutional Studies . Below is from the Center's front page. I encourage everyone concerned with the present day trend towards wealth redistribution and its cousin, collectivism to visit the Center . Protecting individual property rights is critical to protecting freedom and individual liberties. ...

by:   Les Carpenter Rational Nation   USA Birthplace of Independent Conservatism Liberty   -vs-   Tyranny A person's right to their life is fundamental. The right to their property constitutes the secondary  upon which all  other rights flow. Specifically the right of every individual   to retain control and use of their property as they see fit. Properly understood, property rights stand in direct opposition to the premise held by statists that the   State   has the ultimate right   to arbitrarily confiscate an individual's property and redistribute its worth as the state sees fit. This discussion has, in one form or the other, dominated philosophical and political debate going back to the   Age of Reason   and   The Enlightenment .   The Enlightenment   and the   Age of Reason   were profoundly influenced by  Aristotelian logic . Enli...

Property Rights   The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave. Bear in mind that the right to property is a right to action, like all the others: it is not the right  to an object , but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that a man  will  earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values. by: Les Carpenter Rational Nation USA The above words are taken from  page 110 of  "The Virtue of Selfishness". This book was first published in 1961 by Ayn Rand and it defines the mor...

by: Les Carpenter Rational Nation USA I read Jonathan Karl's ABC article entitled "  Dem Senator: Negotiating with Republicans "Almost" like Negotiating with "Terrorists " with great interest. The very idea of equating  Republican lawmakers  with "terrorists" is at best a lapse of reason and at its worst simply a lie intended to pander to the progressive ideologues that hate anything that resembles  a touch of reason. In excerpts from Mr. Karl's  remarks {as reported by CBS News} one can easily recognize, at least IMHO, that many progressives {read Democrats} are indeed out of touch with reality. Following are excerpts from his article. Did Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) just compare Republicans to terrorists? Well, not really.  But he did compare negotiating with Republicans to negotiating with terrorists. Menendez lashed out at Republicans for opposing Democratic effor...