Abortion: moral clarity can be a powerful force

There is no issue that divides Democrats and Republicans more deeply than abortion. It is, after all, a matter of life and death.

How can liberals, Democrats, and the left be such enthusiastic supporters of something that is, at best, a necessary evil? Why are they so protective of unlimited abortion and paranoid about placing any restrictions whatsoever on it? How do they manage to feel so positive about something that is so profoundly negative?

Although liberals give every indication that they believe that abortion is a virtuous and morally neutral act, they also reveal that they are not comfortable with that position. You will rarely hear liberals say they are "pro-abortion." They use various cowardly and misleading obfuscations such as "a woman's right to choose" and "reproductive rights." If they have any conscience at all, they have to be conflicted. If you've ever tried to have a polite discussion about abortion with a liberal, you know that it turns ugly fast.

The abortion enthusiasts have hijacked the word "choice." That word is far too general and anodyne to substitute for the reality of abortion. They're not "pro-choice"; they're pro-abortion. Why can't they just say that?

The very name "Planned Parenthood" is itself a grotesque fraud. Planned Parenthood is an organization dedicated to the prevention of parenthood, not the planning of it, either for the birth mother or for a couple eager for the chance to adopt.

Right-to-life advocates do not believe that the location of an unborn child is equivalent to ownership. An abortion is not morally equivalent to an appendectomy. There is no dispute about who owns your appendix. An appendectomy or the removal of a malignant tumor prolongs a life; an abortion ends a life.

A pregnancy is usually the result of a choice to have sex. Because you did, you now have another human being developing inside your body. The fact that you irresponsibly had sex with someone you were not married to does not give you the guilt-free option of ending the life you started. Roe v. Wade made abortion legal. It did not make abortion either moral or admirable.

Ronald Reagan said, "We cannot diminish the value of one category of life — the unborn — without diminishing the value of all human life."

It is not just unborn children who pay the price for abortion; we all do. The number of abortions committed, as well as the ho-hum way abortion is viewed, does more than anything else to numb our sensitivities about the sanctity of life. There is probably nothing else that has led to the coarsening of our culture as much as the occurrence of millions of abortions.

A debating tactic that liberals like using is to point out that conservatives are against abortion but favor the death penalty. They think it shows that conservatives are inconsistent and hypocritical. Their smugness, however, is undeserved. It demonstrates their refusal to distinguish between the guilty and the innocent. A fetus is as innocent as anything can possibly be, and an unborn child is not in any way equivalent to a convicted murderer.

For too long, Planned Parenthood has been getting away with the lie that it is something other than what it is — primarily an abortion provider and promoter. Furthermore, it discourages adoption. You may as well ask Dr. Kevorkian for pregnancy counseling as to ask Planned Parenthood. Pro-life taxpayers are sickened by the reality of their tax dollars being used to support such a despicable organization.

We hear the chant, "black lives matter." That's true, but it is usually in reference to blacks being killed by police officers. It would be good to keep in mind that the number of black lives ended by abortion is thousands of times greater than the number of black lives ended by police officers.

We who are saddened by the fact that over a million abortions are committed each year in the U.S. can fight back in a number of ways. Let's no longer let the abortion advocates get away with their rampant language cowardice and distortions. Let's vote for politicians who promise to stop public funding of Planned Parenthood. Let's vote for politicians who aren't afraid to speak the truth and say what they believe. Let's make it clear that abortion is not just another form of birth control. Let's make it absolutely clear that adoption is infinitely superior to abortion.

Moral clarity can be a powerful force.

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◼ Abortion: moral clarity can be a powerful forceMay 10, 2022

Ron Ross Ph.D. is a former economics professor and author of The Unbeatable Market. Ron resides in Arcata, California and is a founder of Premier Financial Group, a wealth management firm located in Eureka, California. He is a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma and can be reached at rossecon@gmail.com.

Donald Trump’s Real Crime: Obstruction of Liberalism

As Democrats, the media, and the rest of the left flail from one Trump accusation to another, they have not yet admitted what their real problem with him actually is. The particulars of their complaints are not what bothers them most about the president. For example, it’s not obstruction of justice that offends them — what actually bothers them most is obstruction of liberalism. On that, he is guilty as charged.

Donald Trump poses a real and imminent threat to virtually everything liberals hold dear and much of everything that defines them. By doing so he has made their lives miserable.

It’s not just that Trump is obstructing liberalism, it’s that he’s doing it so efficiently and unconventionally. The list of Trump’s offenses is long and growing. Near the top is the near obliteration of Barack Obama’s legacy. Obama, his policies, and his administration were all cookie-cutter liberalism.

Fortunately, for conservatives, Obama was incompetent and lazy. He frittered away most of his eight years in office. His achievements were not robust. Most of them have not withstood Trump’s onslaught and that onslaught is not over. Erasing the Obama legacy is an enormous step backward for liberalism. It will be very difficult for liberalism to regain its momentum.

Liberal policies and goals are, in their minds, a birthright. Resistance to those policies is blasphemous and sacrilegious. They know that this is a fight for survival. Their fear and panic are understandable. Even their hate is understandable, but it is not excusable.

Liberals have never encountered anything like Trump. They can’t knock him off course. Countless times the Trump despisers have believed he was a goner for sure. We got him this time! It’s almost comical to watch. Nothing they do to stop him works as it’s supposed to. He doesn’t play by their rules. He makes liberals feel impotent. He is relentless; he has no reverse gear. His counter punches pack twice the wallop as the first punch. When criticized, he doubles down. No wonder they’re depressed.

Trump baits his opponents and they always take the bait. They’re obviously not the sharpest knives in the drawer. The left has no sense of humor, which is another way he makes them look foolish.

An amazing thing about Trump is that his behavior is not dictated by other people’s opinions. The importance of that can hardly be exaggerated. That attitude is extremely rare and incredibly empowering. One of the keys to understanding the over-the-top hatred of Trump is this: people who have no backbones hate people who do have backbones.

A column by Wayne Allen Root was titled, “Trump Proves the Torture Works.” Specifically, it works to force confessions. His words and deeds have smoked them out and they can no longer contain themselves. They are showing their true colors.

They are controlled by their hatred. They hate every fiber of his being and everything about him — his personality, his attitude, his appointees, and his supporters. The same things liberals hate about him are the things his supporters love about him.

Because of their hatred, they cannot think straight. They can barely think at all. They can only react; they’ve become reptilian. They are still in a state of shock that he won and that he is president.

Trump totally dominates Democrats thoughts and actions. They are completely obsessed with “resistance.” They have no energy or time left to define or advance their own objectives. He has cast a spell on them and taken control of their brains.

An example is his signature motto, “Make America Great Again.” His opponents cannot get those four words out of their minds. They don’t know how to deal them. They have said, “[America] was never that great” (Andrew Cuomo), and “America was always great” (Meghan McCain).

Another example is Trump’s use of tweets to communicate with his base. The media and the rest of the Trump haters despise his tweets. However, they absolutely cannot ignore them. They read them all and report on many of them. In a very real sense, they act as his publicists. Ironically, it’s one of the reasons he got elected. They are drawn like a moth to a flame.

Tweets have provided Trump with a direct and unfiltered connection with friends and foes alike. That is an incredibly valuable asset and it’s one of the ways he has neutered the media. They are no longer the gatekeepers of his message.

For conservatives this is a fun time to be alive. For the others I would only ask, “Hey, Trump haters, how’s that working for you?”

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◼ Donald Trump’s Real Crime: Obstruction of Liberalism September 6, 2018

Ron Ross Ph.D. is a former economics professor and author of The Unbeatable Market. Ron resides in Arcata, California and is a founder of Premier Financial Group, a wealth management firm located in Eureka, California. He is a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma and can be reached at rossecon@gmail.com.

Are Liberals Misanthropes?

On the surface liberal policies and positions don’t seem to make sense. However, they do make sense if you keep one thing in mind — liberals do not like humans or humanity. An unfair accusation? Consider the evidence.

Liberal policies make sense if their objective is to punish rather than benefit humanity. Furthermore, without recognizing this aspect of liberalism you will never make sense of it. Their policies are consistent with their basic values. Liberals can’t like humanity. It would be contrary to everything else they believe.

Much of damage liberalism does to society results from the suppression of human freedom. There are a variety of opinions about what is unique about humans, about what distinguishes them from other animals. More than anything else, the uniqueness comes from free will.

Reducing an individual’s freedom diminishes that person and makes him smaller, makes him have less of what makes us human. Without free will we cannot develop our uniqueness nor fulfill our potential. Morality can only exist in the context of free choice.

Individual freedom is a low priority for liberals. In fact, they see individual freedom as a problem, not a blessing. Liberals fear freedom. They don’t like freedom because they don’t like what people do with their freedom. If you don’t like humans and don’t approve of their behavior, you will not want them to be free. If you dislike humans, you’ll dislike liberty. In their view, humans are just no damn good.

That’s why most of liberalism involves constriction of individual freedom. Liberals love government. They advocate taking choice away from individuals and putting it in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats. That is a dehumanizing process.

An axiom of conservatism is “the bigger the government, the smaller the individual.” Liberals think that’s a good thing. Liberals yearn for smaller individuals. They believe that if humans could just be prevented from making the stupid choices they all make, society would be better off.

Liberals love mass transit. They think it’s impossible to spend too much on it. They generally despise automobiles. Automobiles have done more for individual freedom than almost any other human achievement. Liberals think that automobiles are the chief culprit in global warming and the destruction of the planet. For conservatives, our endowment of fossil fuels and hydrocarbons is seen as a blessing. For liberals, it is seen as a curse.

In the view of liberals, humans are the one species that is destroying the planet. Humans deplete “non-renewable” resources and do things that emit carbon dioxide. In their view, carbon dioxide (an absolutely essential building block of all life) is a pollutant that is destroying the planet. Environmentalists have often likened humanity to a virus or plague. “Population control” targets only humans.

Why are liberals so uncaring for the unborn? Why are they such passionate defenders of “abortion rights”? Why do they care more about baby seals than they do about human fetuses?

Their enthusiastic and almost fanatical advocacy of abortion is partly the result of their desire for fewer human beings. Abortion is the issue that generates the most passion and energy for liberals. You can’t believe that killing a human fetus is something positive and admirable unless you don’t like humans. How can anyone enthusiastically support the termination of innocent life? It’s easy if you don’t like humans.

They are reflexively opposed to wealth-expanding projects such as the Keystone pipeline and fracking. If you don’t like humans you won’t care about doing them any favors. The pipeline, fracking, offshore oil drilling, and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve would all benefit humans and do no measurable or lasting damage to the environment. The benefit-cost ratio would be enormous, but only if you see benefits to humans as a benefit. Imaginary and grossly exaggerated environmental damage is a ruse for their real objective of denying humans comfort and happiness. Wealth is liberating. Preventing wealth creation diminishes freedom.

Dislike of humans explains why liberals love regulations. Left on their own humans will buy large sugary soft drinks, showerheads that use too much water, watch Fox News and listen to conservative talk radio. Liberals never met a regulation they didn’t like. Only those who care little about freedom can reflexively love regulations. The cost of regulations for the U.S. economy is conservatively estimated to be $1.7 trillion and growing. Excessive regulations are reducing our standard of living by at least a tenth. That enormous cost is of no concern to liberals. After all, it’s only humans who are affected.

Liberals don’t want humans to enjoy themselves. They feel guilty about living and existing, and especially about living opulently.

If they feel guilty they have convicted themselves of some wrongdoing. They seek absolution by buying Priuses and recycling. Driving a hybrid is the modern equivalent to sacrificing a goat to appease the earth gods. It’s like going to confession and a way of doing penance for too much consuming.

If you don’t like your own species, your own country, can you like yourself? It’s ironic that those who focus so much on the importance of self-esteem are the ones who do the most to make it difficult. Which comes first, self-hatred or species-hatred?

Public schools teach our children that humans are destroying habitat and the eco-system, driving millions of species to extinction, and generally destroying the planet. They essentially teach them that their parents are no damn good.

Liberals have a utopian mindset. As Mark Levin shows in his book, Ameritopia, all utopian variations throughout history have envisioned building a new kind of human. Wanting to fundamentally change human nature shows that you don’t approve of human nature as it now exists.

If you want to change something it’s because firstly, you think it needs to be done, and secondly, because you think it’s possible. An important dividing line between liberals and conservatives is the question of whether or not human nature is subject to manipulation. Liberals think it is, conservatives think it isn’t.

The fact that liberals do not like humans is why it is such a mistake to grant them so much power over our society, economy, culture, and public policies. Liberals advocate policies that constrict progress and wealth creation rather than enhance them. They want wealth prevention, not wealth creation. They are, at best, ambivalent toward economic growth which, in their view, only increases humans’ ability to destroy the planet. We are being governed by people who don’t like us.

The people who are in charge of public policy don’t really want good things to happen to humans. Humans don’t deserve good things. If it’s a policy that harms humans they’re just getting what they deserve anyway. Liberals are not that motivated to help humans. They’re “just not that into you.”

If someone is put in control of something he doesn’t like, the outcome will not be favorable to that something. Human achievement will be a fraction of its potential until liberalism is seen for what it is and how much damage it does.

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◼ Are Liberals Misanthropes? November 14, 2016

Ron Ross Ph.D. is a former economics professor and author of The Unbeatable Market. Ron resides in Arcata, California and is a founder of Premier Financial Group, a wealth management firm located in Eureka, California. He is a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma and can be reached at rossecon@gmail.com.

Liberalism’s Simple-Mindedness on Defiant Display

Once again the scourge of minimum wage laws is in the news. In California Governor Jerry Brown has just signed legislation that will increase the state’s minimum wage from its current $10 level to $15, to be phased in over a six-year period. In a statement President Obama commended California for its new law and added, “It’s time for Congress to step up and do what is right for every hard-working American and for our economy.” New York governor Andrew Cuomo also signed legislation increasing that state’s minimum wage to $15 over a three-year period. The city of Seattle already has in place increases that will bring its minimum wage to $18 by the year 2025.

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders advocates increasing the federal minimum wage to $15, more than doubling the current $7.25. Hillary Clinton, always a voice of moderation, advocates a federal minimum wage of $12.

Minimum wage laws are so wrong for so many reasons it’s hard to know where to start. Most polls indicate that a majority of Americans support such laws. That fact reflects an extremely low “EQ” level of the citizenry. By EQ I mean economics quotient.

Presumably, most people who support minimum wage laws do so because they believe they will reduce poverty and decrease income inequality. The opposite is the case, however. Simple economic logic proves the point, as well as mountains of evidence.

A question that has been asked numerous times of minimum wage advocates is this — if a $15 minimum wage will help low-income earners, why not $20 or $50 an hour? I have yet to hear a coherent response to that question. The answer is obvious, of course. Many workers are not worth $20 or $50 an hour. Many fewer workers would be hired at those wages. Unemployment would skyrocket.

Apparently there is an implicit belief that although many workers are not worth, say, $30 an hour, all workers are worth whatever the minimum wage is. That makes no sense. A frequent assertion is that all workers are entitled to a “living wage.” According to Bernie Sanders, “If you have a full-time job you should not live in poverty.” That may be true, but the policies he advocates will increase, not decrease, poverty.

On what basis do Sanders, Brown, and others believe that all workers generate $15 an hour of value for their employers? Do they expect employers to hire them if they don’t?

David Neumark, an economist at University of California Irvine, has studied the employment impacts of minimum wage laws extensively. He estimates that the new California law will result in a five to ten percent decrease in low-skilled employment. In other words, increasing the minimum wage will result in some incomes not increasing but rather decreasing all the way to zero. The unemployment caused by minimum wage laws is an all too common example of “unintended consequences.”

At the beginning of 2016 California’s minimum wage went from $9 to $10. Although that was not the only factor, a local golf course cut its greens crew from 11 to 6. The course will not be as well maintained and five jobs have been eliminated.

An analysis by a California legislative agency estimates the new law will cost California taxpayers $3.6 billion a year in higher pay for government employees. Where is that money going to come from? The proponents probably assume it will all come from the top one percent.

A perfect example of the muddled thinking of minimum wage proponents is illustrated by the following statement from the president of a local chapter of the American Federation of State, County, and Federal Employees union: “Experts say a responsible minimum wage policy is good for workers and good for business. When people have more money in their pockets, they put that money back into the economy with spending on essential goods and services.” Ah, yes, those all-knowing “experts.” Apparently, minimum wage laws are like manna from heaven. Those economists who tell us “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” must not know what they’re talking about.

Wages are a form of prices. The fundamental nature of the price system is that prices are relative. When the price of some item goes up it becomes more expensive relative to other alternatives. Mandated higher wages make labor-saving equipment and technology relatively less expensive. That results in substitution of capital for labor which in turn reduces the demand for labor and thereby increases unemployment.

In economics a central tenet is what’s called an “equilibrium price.” That is the price, or wage, that equalizes quantity supplied and quantity demanded. That is the price where there is no shortage or surplus, the price where the supply and demand curves intersect.

An undeniable reality is that, although laws can be passed to dictate a legal price, there is virtually no way laws can determine an equilibrium price. Legislating a price above or below the equilibrium price will result in either a shortage (excess demand) or a surplus (excess supply). Shortages or surpluses can do serious damage to an economy.

An overlooked aspect of minimum wage laws is that they essentially commandeer private businesses to execute social policy. Under threat of fines or arrest, private businesses are drafted by lawmakers into the war on poverty. When someone starts a business, is he aware that he is also volunteering to do community service?

To businesses politicians say, “You will pay your employees what we tell you to pay. Too bad if that offends you or that you think it does more harm than good. Too bad if it causes you to go out of business.” Because minimum-wage laws are popular with voters, destroying jobs for workers preserves jobs for politicians.

If Congress passed a law mandating that all businesses give all their employees a ten percent raise, it would probably cause an uproar. However, there’s no fundamental difference between that and a minimum wage law. Both constitute obnoxious and counterproductive intrusions into economic and personal freedom.

A favorite term used by the left is “social justice.” Is it “socially just” that a law-abiding private-business owner is told how to spend his legitimately-earned revenue and that he is told exactly how he is going to compensate his employees? When was it decided that private businesses are responsible for alleviating poverty? How does the enthusiastic use of coercion fit into the concept of social justice?

Spending other people’s money is probably the favorite pastime of politicians. They have no “skin in the game” when it comes to issues such as minimum wage laws (or spending tax revenue). It’s not their money they’re spending. It’s just some poor shmuck businessman’s. Why should politicians care what damage is done? It’s easy to be generous with someone else’s money.

The fundamental damage of legislated prices is the blockage of voluntary exchange. Minimum wage laws block some of the voluntary exchange between employers and employees. The employer would be willing to hire someone for $6 an hour, the job seeker would be willing to work for $6 an hour, but such a transaction is illegal. Unquestionably, it’s a lose-lose situation.

As is usually the case, labor unions were the main driving force behind the new California law. Since most union members already earn more than the minimum wage, it raises the question, what is their motivation? One thing’s for sure, it’s not altruism. Labor unions do not like competition from workers who are willing to work for less. It would be equivalent to BMW getting a law passed prohibiting auto prices below $50,000.

Minimum-wage laws illustrate the simple-mindedness of liberalism. Such laws are based on an abiding faith the ability of laws to solve societal problems. When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When you’re a liberal politician, every problem cries out for another law. There’s been a population explosion of new laws and regulations over the past several decades. There’s little evidence we’re better off as a result. The opposite is closer to the truth. Minimum wage laws could be Exhibit A.

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◼ Liberalism’s Simple-Mindedness on Defiant Display April 8, 2016

Ron Ross Ph.D. is a former economics professor and author of The Unbeatable Market. Ron resides in Arcata, California and is a founder of Premier Financial Group, a wealth management firm located in Eureka, California. He is a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma and can be reached at rossecon@gmail.com.

Liberalism and Happiness Don’t Mix

Although liberals probably don’t realize it, liberalism and happiness don’t mix. A “happy liberal” is almost an oxymoron.

Why so? The reasons are many. For one, liberals, especially white American liberals, are highly critical and dissatisfied with their country, culture, race, and gender. If you don’t like the society, race, culture, and gender that you’re part of, your ability to feel good about yourself becomes much more challenging.

Liberals are humans, but they think humans are destroying the planet. They’re Americans, but they think that America is primarily responsible for most of the problems in the world. White liberals wallow in guilt about “white privilege,” which diminishes any sense of personal accomplishment they might have. Liberals firmly believe in the importance of the “collective,” yet they don’t like the collectives they’re parts of.

In regard to love of country, conservatives far exceed liberals. If you’re “proud to be an American” you’re probably a conservative. If you’re ashamed to be an American, you’re probably a liberal.

A fundamental and defining difference between liberals and conservatives is in regard to the locus of responsibility. Liberals place the blame for problems on society, conservatives emphasize individual responsibility.

If you subscribe to the belief that society is primarily in control of what happens to you in life, you’ve essentially “given away your power.” Hence, liberalism is disempowering. If that’s your outlook, you’re stuck. Feelings of impotence are definitely not conducive to happiness. If society is at fault for your circumstances you’re screwed. In other words, if you have to wait for society to cure itself before you can be successful, you’re in for a long, unhappy, and frustrating wait.

Liberals talk endlessly about racism in society. There’s no question that racism is a serious societal problem. Nevertheless, if you believe that you’ll never be successful or happy until racism no longer exists, you’ll be dead and gone long before that happens.

Liberal policies virtually never achieve their stated objectives. In fact, they make things worse. For example, minimum wage laws increase, rather than decrease, poverty and inequality. Liberals can never be happy because their solutions never work.

Most liberal policy objectives are unattainable. One of their dreams is complete equality. That, of course, is never going to happen. Having unachievable objectives leads to never ending frustration, not happiness.

If you’re a liberal you’re not supposed to be happy. You will not feel that you deserve to be happy. If there’s misery anywhere in the world you don’t have the right to be happy.

Liberals are profoundly pessimistic. They think we are going to run out of resources. They believe that climate change will doom us. These are remote possibilities, not certainties. They are worst case scenarios. Liberals disregard and grossly underestimate human creativity and adaptability. Rather than using our vast endowment of fossil fuels for human benefit, liberals want to leave them in the ground.

Liberals’ emotion of choice is guilt. They feel it in their bones and they employ it expertly to achieve their policy objectives and demoralize their opponents. They feel responsible for the sins of their forebears. For example, Democrats are currently distancing themselves from their previous heroes, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. They feel guilty about the past, present, and future. It’s hard to be happy when you’re wallowing in guilt.

There are, of course, liberals who are happy. Nevertheless, they are happy in spite of their political ideology. For most people, including liberals, politics is not everything. If your non-political life is going well and you were born with a happy disposition, you can be mostly happy most of the time.

Even achieving policy objectives don’t make liberals happy for long, the legalizing of same-sex marriage, for example. Almost immediately they start worrying about another societal injustice that needs to be remedied, such as the supposed discrimination against transsexuals.

Political correctness is a liberal creation and is yet another barrier to happiness. Comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock, among others, have lamented that political correctness is killing humor, particularly on college campuses. Constricting and diminishing the role of humor in our lives is about as mean a thing as anyone could do. Again, the result is a reduction in happiness.

One of the interesting ironies of the liberalism-happiness disconnect is that a primary purpose of being a liberal is to feel good about yourself. Liberalism is a self-indulgent, feel-good endeavor and a way to feel superior to others. It gives its adherents a warm feeling when they show concern for minorities, the homeless, or the oppressed. Insofar as happiness is their objective, they’ve taken the wrong road.

If liberals ever wise up about how liberalism is making them miserable, there will be a significant reduction in their ranks. Maybe conservatives should fund-public service announcements with themes such as, “You only get one life to live. Don’t blow it by being a miserable liberal.”

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◼ Liberalism and Happiness Don’t Mix August 25, 2015

Ron Ross Ph.D. is a former economics professor and author of The Unbeatable Market. Ron resides in Arcata, California and is a founder of Premier Financial Group, a wealth management firm located in Eureka, California. He is a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma and can be reached at rossecon@gmail.com.

Liberals, Conservatives, and Abortion

There is no issue that divides liberals and conservatives more deeply than does abortion. It is, after all, a matter of life and death.

It would be hard to say what issue is closest to the hearts of liberals — inequality, diversity, labor unions, or maximizing the size and reach of government. What seems to get them most exercised, however, is the issue of abortion. That attitude leaves conservatives in a state of bewildered disbelief. How can liberals, Democrats, the left, be such enthusiastic supporters of something that is, at best, a necessary evil? Why are they so protective of unlimited abortion and paranoid about placing any restrictions whatsoever on it? How do they manage to feel so positive about something that is so profoundly negative?

Although liberals give every indication that they believe abortion is a virtuous and morally neutral act, they also reveal that they are not comfortable with that position. You will rarely, if ever, hear liberals say that they are “pro-abortion.” They will almost always use various cowardly and misleading obfuscations such as “pro-choice” or “a woman’s reproductive rights.” Is this done just for appearance sake or are they themselves uncomfortable with what they advocate? If they have any conscience at all they have to, at the very least, be very conflicted. If you’ve ever tried to have a quiet discussion about abortion with a liberal you know that it turns ugly quickly.

The abortion enthusiasts have hijacked the word “choice.” That word is far too general and anodyne to substitute for the reality of abortion. They’re not “pro-choice,” they’re pro-abortion. Why can’t they just admit that? In the now famous Planned Parenthood video the abortionist/organ harvester refers to babies’ heads as “calvariums.” Language corruption is a deeply ingrained habit with the abortion community.

The very name “Planned Parenthood’ is itself a grotesque fraud. Planned Parenthood is an organization dedicated to the prevention of parenthood, either for the birth mother or for a couple eager for the chance to adopt.

Right-to-life advocates do not believe that the location of an unborn child is equivalent to ownership. An abortion is not morally equivalent to an appendectomy. There is no dispute about who owns your appendix. You have no control or responsibility for the existence of your appendix. An appendectomy or the removal of malignant tumor prolongs a life; an abortion ends a life.

A pregnancy is the result of a decision to have sex. Because you did you now have another human being developing inside your body. The fact that you irresponsibly had sex with someone you would not consider marrying does not give you the guilt-free option of ending the life you started. Roe v. Wade made abortion legal. It did not make abortion morally right.

Ronald Reagan said, “We cannot diminish the value of one category of life — the unborn — without diminishing the value of all human life.” Truer words were never spoken.

It is not just unborn children who pay the price for abortion, we all do. “Send not for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee” (John Donne). The number of abortions performed, as well as the ho-hum way that is viewed, does more than anything else to numb our sensitivities about the sanctity of life. The manifestations of that are all too apparent across our society and culture. There is probably nothing else that has led to the coarsening of our culture as much as the occurrence of millions of abortions.

A favorite debating point that liberals believe is a “gotcha moment” is when they point out that conservatives are against abortion but favor the death penalty. They believe it shows that conservatives are inconsistent and hypocritical. Their smugness, however, is unearned. It demonstrates their refusal to distinguish between the guilty and the innocent. A fetus is as innocent as it is possible to be, and an unborn child is not in any way equivalent to a convicted murderer.

For too long Planned Parenthood has been getting away with the lie that it is something other than what it is — primarily an abortion provider and promoter. Furthermore, it discourages adoption. You may as well ask Dr. Kevorkian for pregnancy counseling as to ask Planned Parenthood. Pro-life tax-payers are sickened by the reality of their tax dollars being used to support such a despicable organization.

We hear the chant, “black lives matter.” That’s true, of course, but it is usually in reference to blacks being killed by police officers. It would be good to keep in mind, however, that the number of black lives ended by abortion is thousands of times greater than the number of black lives ended by police officers.

People who are sickened by the fact that over a million abortions are performed each year in the U.S. can fight back in a number of ways. One way is to no longer let the abortion advocates get away with their rampant language cowardice and distortions. Vote for politicians who promise to stop public funding of Planned Parenthood.

It needs to be made absolutely clear that adoption is infinitely superior to abortion. Whether or not abortion should be illegal, society should at the very least make it clear that abortion is not just another form of birth control.

On some issues there is often little real difference between Republican and Democrat politicians’ attitudes and reactions. Not this time. Republicans are not mincing words about what the Planned Parenthood videos reveal. On this issue Republicans are showing some backbone. Democrats, on the other hand, “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” The abortion debate that is now front and center provides an unambiguous contrast between the two parties. Moral clarity can be a powerful force.

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◼ Liberals, Conservatives, and Abortion July 24, 2015

Ron Ross Ph.D. is a former economics professor and author of The Unbeatable Market. Ron resides in Arcata, California and is a founder of Premier Financial Group, a wealth management firm located in Eureka, California. He is a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma and can be reached at rossecon@gmail.com.

Mayor Bloomberg’s Lessons in Liberalism

New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has ignited a minor firestorm by proposing a ban on what he calls “sugary soft drinks” in larger than 16 ounce containers. Even though it’s an asinine idea that will have no tangible impact, it is notable because of what it says about divisions in our political philosophies. This is a learnable moment.

The proposed ban is not just a reflection of “Nanny Bloomberg,” it is a reflection of nanny liberalism. If you think Bloomberg’s proposal makes sense, you’re a liberal.

In Mayor Bloomberg’s view, “We’re not taking away anybody’s right to do things, we’re simply forcing you to understand that you have to make the conscious decision to go from one cup to another cup.” That’s interesting. How can anyone possibly believe that someone can be forced to understand? “You have to make a conscious decision?”

The Mayor admits that he’s applying force but claims that is will not diminish anyone’s freedom. He’s illustrating the mental contortions that are necessary to liberalism.

The Mayor went on to say, “It’s not perfect, it’s not the only answer, it’s not the only cause of people being overweight — but we’ve got to do something. We have an obligation to warn you when things are not good for your health.” Does the government actually have “an obligation to warn you?” Says who? Where did such an obligation come from?

If the government doesn’t warn us about something, does it mean it’s safe? “We’ve got to do something” are five of the most dangerous words in the English language. More often than not the “something” we’re told “we’ve got to do” does far more harm than good.

Bloomberg claims to have our best interests at heart: “I would just like to push that from the consumer point of view and to force the consumer to hopefully move over to the less fattening drinks and everybody will be better off.” To put it mildly, that is debatable.

When conservatives advocate for personal responsibility it isn’t only for philosophical reasons. When you start down the road of idiot-proofing society you should not be surprised when the result is a population explosion of idiots. Idiot-proofing society reduces the cost of idiocy. When you reduce the cost of something you invariably get more of it. The doctrine of caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) is not as callous as liberals think it is.

When the government sends us a message that it is assuming responsibility for our health and safety it’s telling us we don’t have to worry about it ourselves, so we don’t. Individuals have the best information and incentives for making the right decisions, even though they don’t always do so. The question is can the government do better?

Super-sized sugary soft drinks are only one of millions of potentially harmful choices available to us. There is no way the government can warn us and protect us from them all. Our objective should be maximize the amount of responsible behavior. Delegating responsibility to the government is the worst way to accomplish that.

Responsibility is one of those things that has a natural limit of 100 percent. When an entity like the government takes responsibility for a particular problem, peoples’ individual responsibility for that problem is necessarily diminished. Mayor Bloomberg’s assumption of responsibility for his citizens’ weight issues effectively takes them off the hook, at least in part. His presumably well-intentioned policy is training people to be irresponsible. That, in a nutshell, is the problem.

Another way to frame the issue is that it is about where in our society we are going to locate responsibility — at the center (government) or at the periphery (individuals). In other words, is responsibility going to be centralized or decentralized? An inseparable question related to that choice is do we want to depend on force or freedom?

Like liberals generally, the mayor is tone deaf when the issue is freedom. Freedom is well down their list of priorities and they assume that ought to be true for everyone. They always seem surprised when people bristle about being told what kinds of light bulbs or the maximum size of the toilet tanks they can buy. In their view society and the planet simply cannot afford to let individuals exercise their freedom. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson’s Colonel Nathan Jessup role in A Few Good Men: “You want the freedom? You can’t handle the freedom!”

To pilfer a phrase from Barack Obama, “Yes, we can.”

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◼ Mayor Bloomberg’s Lessons in Liberalism June 12, 2012

Ron Ross Ph.D. is a former economics professor and author of The Unbeatable Market. Ron resides in Arcata, California and is a founder of Premier Financial Group, a wealth management firm located in Eureka, California. He is a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma and can be reached at rossecon@gmail.com.

The Liberals’ Reality Problem

A basic problem for liberals is their rejection of and discomfort with reality. That attitude, unfortunately, creates a number of problems for them as well as for the rest of us.

There is, for example, much about human nature that bothers liberals. They do not like the fact that self-interest is the prime motivator in human decision making. This is at the root of why they speak so disdainfully of profits. The profit motive makes them cringe. For liberals “profits” is a four letter word. They would prefer people to be motivated strictly by charitable impulses and altruism. Rather than recognizing that being motivated by self-interest is a necessary survival tool, liberals conflate self-interest with greed and then blame greed for many of society’s ills.

Part of the genius of Adam Smith was his non-judgmental acceptance of human nature. He recognized that self-interest is the primary motivator in human behavior. Rather than wasting his time denying or lamenting that, he explained how a market economy does the best job of bridling that force and can actually lead to beneficial outcomes for society in general. He wrote, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.”

There are a number of features of a market economy liberals do not like, and they do everything they can to suppress or eliminate them. In their minds a market economy leads to an unacceptable level of inequality. In a market economy, some people get extremely wealthy. Liberals simply cannot abide that. It irritates them beyond belief. Because it results in an unequal distribution of wealth, liberals are willing to essentially scuttle the entire market economy. Their attitude is essentially, “Stop the economy! I want to get off.”

A critical component of the market is competition. Competition results in winners and losers, but liberals don’t want anyone to lose. Of course, competition isn’t unique to the market; it occurs almost everywhere and bestows profound benefits. Competition is quite literally a fact of life. As Darwin made clear, it’s a key component in the process of evolution. The late economist George Stigler called competition “the patron saint of consumers.” It’s difficult, perhaps impossible, to like reality if you don’t like competition.

Because intentions govern their policies, liberals show no interest in looking at evidence. Their denial and disregard of evidence is another reflection of their dislike of reality. Evidence is about reality; intentions are about fantasizing and self-indulgence.

Another clear example of the liberal rejection of reality is their absolute dislike of budgets. Budgets are one of the clearest instances where reality meets the road. Living within a budget is a form of living in reality. Liberal Democrats in Washington and various state capitals do everything they can to delay passing budgets or living within them once they’re passed. Deficits as far as the eye can see are the unfortunate result.

Humanity is another part of reality that liberals aren’t particularly happy about. They’re convinced that humans should be far less plentiful. In terms of global population, the smaller the better. Many of them feel that in most instances an abortion is preferable to a live birth. A variation of liberalism is environmentalism. Environmentalists consider humans to be much more a curse than a blessing.

The problem with the liberal dislike of reality is how it’s affecting the rest of us. If you don’t like reality one response is to deny that it exists. Denial is a frequent cause of individual and societal problems. From a practical standpoint, this means behaving as if consequences don’t exist or don’t matter. We will be dealing with the damage done by their ill-considered good intentions for many years to come.

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◼ The Liberals’ Reality Problem August 23, 2011

Ron Ross Ph.D. is a former economics professor and author of The Unbeatable Market. Ron resides in Arcata, California and is a founder of Premier Financial Group, a wealth management firm located in Eureka, California. He is a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma and can be reached at rossecon@gmail.com.

What Defines Our Differences?

What is the encompassing issue that divides liberals and conservatives?

Consider, for example, the following debates: socialism vs. a free-market economy, higher taxes vs. lower taxes, more regulations vs. deregulation, bigger government vs. smaller government, federal control vs. state and local control, government ownership vs. private property, government-run health insurance vs. private health insurance, or coercion vs. voluntary exchange. All of these debates are different applications of the same principle. What’s at the bottom of the difference between each of the two positions?

The common element in all these debates is this — do we want power and control to be centralized or decentralized? Should control be in the hands of politicians and bureaucracies or individuals and private entities?

For example, think about what actually happens when your taxes are raised. Your control over your own life is diminished, the power of politicians is increased, and control is centralized.

The most commonly used words to describe the two sides of the divide are liberal and conservative. However, the words themselves do not accurately reflect what liberals believe or what conservatives believe. They are not good descriptors. Liberals aren’t really liberal and conservatives aren’t really conservative. Those terms do not help either side understand and define what they believe. The labels “left” and “right” offer even less guidance than liberal and conservative.

Furthermore, the terms have evolved over time. Those who would have described themselves as liberal a hundred years ago would today be called conservative. On the other hand, centralized and decentralized are words that maintain their meanings relatively well.

The centralized-decentralized spectrum closely parallels the tyranny vs. freedom spectrum. Having control over our choices is essentially the definition of freedom. One of Milton Friedman’s most popular books was titled Free to Choose. Friedman saw clearly that freedom is fundamentally about choosing. Another of his influential books was titled Capitalism and Freedom. In that book he explained why true and lasting freedom is a practical impossibility under socialism.

A central difference between liberals and conservatives revolves around the issue of individual responsibility. The more we take the power to choose away from individuals, the more we diminish the meaning of, and opportunity for, individual responsibility. If you do what you do because you’re forced to, are you exercising morality? Are you responsible for your actions? The most insidious result of liberalism is that when control is centralized, so is morality.

There is what could be called the logistics of information — having information at the right place at the right time. Leaving control in the hands of individuals leaves it closest to the information and incentives required for efficient decision making.

No one can know as much as you do about your goals and priorities. Even if you assume that Harry Reid and his fellow lawmakers are smarter than you are, does it follow that they should make your choices for you? It’s not very efficient if information has to make a round trip from you to Washington, D.C. and back.

Not only is the best information held by individuals, so are the most powerful incentives. It’s only natural that you will work harder for your own goals than for someone else’s. This is one of the main reasons why free market economies are by far the most powerful generators of prosperity and economic growth.

The Heritage Foundation’s recently released 2011 Index of Economic Freedom once again confirms the almost perfect correlation between freedom and economic vitality. Terry Miller, one of the survey’s authors, confirms that the freer economies are “more efficient at protecting the environment, better at improving health, and better… in enhancing life satisfaction and overall happiness.” Rather than “spreading the wealth” as Mr. Obama wants to do, we would be better off if we spread the control.

When making choices with their own money, individuals are most motivated to make careful decisions that produce the desired results. Individuals don’t typically spend their own money on mini-versions of “pork-barrel projects.”

If choices are made for you, you will not automatically agree with them. Consequently, centralization always involves force.

Most people have probably not thought about controversial political issues along the lines of centralized and decentralized. Nevertheless, it is probably the best way to frame the debate for a number of reasons.

The centralization-decentralization framework is the most inclusive way to categorize the issues. Framing the debate in this way makes it possible to resolve a whole category of issues rather than countless specific ones and win the debate wholesale rather than retail.

The framework could essentially be thought of as a compass when assessing, for example, proposed legislation. Besides asking, “Is it constitutional?” we could also ask, “Does it centralize or decentralize control?”

Should we begin calling liberals “centralists” and conservatives “decentralists”? Although those aren’t words with much pizzazz, using them, or at least keeping them in mind, would definitely go a long way in making it clear what we’re arguing about.

One big advantage of using the centralism/decentralism terminology is that the words have little or no emotional baggage. The words liberal and conservative carry with them a number of assumptions and stereotypes. These are serious impediments to rational debate.

If you ask, “Are you a centralist or a decentralist?” you are more likely to start a discussion rather than trigger a defensive reaction. Maybe it would even add some “civility” to the debate, if you should care about that kind of thing. It’s also not a bad question to ask yourself to help determine what you believe and why.

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◼ What Defines Our Differences? January 21, 2011

Ron Ross Ph.D. is a former economics professor and author of The Unbeatable Market. Ron resides in Arcata, California and is a founder of Premier Financial Group, a wealth management firm located in Eureka, California. He is a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma and can be reached at rossecon@gmail.com.

How to Defeat Liberals

If we listen up, liberals are telling us how they can be defeated. The challenge for conservatives is to listen closely and build our strategies accordingly.

Recently conservatives have been making major strides in the battle for the hearts and minds of voters. Liberalism in its various manifestations — Democrats, global warmists, organized labor, for example — are hemorrhaging support and influence. Conservatives are on the ascendency.

Liberals and Democrats are dispirited and in disarray. They are rapidly losing support and their reactions are making matters even worse for them. By analyzing why this is happening, conservatives can keep them stumbling backwards and be even more effective in the future. The political battle will go on long after the November elections. Why have conservatives been successful, and what can we do to build and continue to gain support?

One of the keys is to remember that in any battle strategy, “intelligence” is crucial. Knowledge of the enemy, his strengths and weaknesses, is often the deciding factor in who prevails. Football teams, for example, expend great effort “scouting” their future opponents. The “game plan” is largely based on what’s in the scouting report.

What, for example, are liberals telling us about themselves? Why, for instance, do they accuse tea partiers and conservatives in general of being racists? Partly it’s because that’s all they’ve got. They are frustrated and out of ammunition. It is a clear indicator of their weakness and lack of sound ideas.

Liberals are telling us what they fear. Let’s give it to them. Let their squirming and discomfort be our guide. When they squeal like stuck pigs, stick them again. It’s not just effective, it’s fun!

For example, one of Rush Limbaugh’s most effective and influential innovations is his use of audio clips and reading quotations of liberals. This is not something that had not been done before, but he definitely has taken the practice to new levels. Rush turns the words of his political opponents against them and demonstrates the absurdity and inconsistency of what they say and believe. He listens carefully to what they say, takes it seriously, logically dissects it, and then shows just how nonsensical it is. This is not what liberals want to happen. They would prefer that no one actually think about the things they say and do.

Rush is a teacher and most of his classroom materials are provided free of charge by his opponents. This is, no doubt, one of the things about Rush that drives them crazy and makes him an object of their hatred. Also driving them crazy is one of Rush’s favorite riffs, “Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.”

When Democrats and their enablers say something, our challenge is to step back and decipher what they say. What’s even more important than their intended message is the “meta-message.” The website Enclyo defines meta-message as “A message about a message…Meta-messages are higher level messages about: 1. The type of message being sent. 2. The state/status of the messenger. 3. The state/status of the receiver. 4. The context in which the message is being sent.” We can use an awareness of their meta-messages — that their reactions are signs of weakness, for example — to our advantage.

The U.S. is without doubt a center-right country. Part of the proof of this is that even Democrat candidates try to sound like conservatives when they are in tough election fights. Here in California Jerry Brown’s campaign commercials make it sound like he has joined the tea party. Across the country Democrat candidates are distancing themselves from the liberal policies of the Obama administration. Liberals cannot be open about what their beliefs and policy objectives actually are.

Liberals have to hide the fact that they’re liberals. Why can’t they admit and be open about who they are and what their real objectives are? One reason is their realization that voters are not nearly as socialistic as they are.

Conservatives do not have to hide the fact that they’re conservative. Conservatives are proud to be conservative and need to realize that they are playing in a friendly environment. They have the home-field advantage and do not need to act like underdogs. Too many conservatives seem to have self-esteem issues. Conservatives have ideas that people are buying, liberals don’t.

Liberals have also shown that they can’t stand clarity. They don’t really want to communicate, they want to obfuscate. The latest and somewhat comical example is Obama’s science czar, John Holdren, claiming that the term “global warming” is a “dangerous misnomer.” He wants to replace it with “global climate disruption.” If we can’t figure out ways to exploit that kind of nonsense, we need to be trying harder.

Liberalism is essentially the “muddled-talk express.” Political correctness is about as helpful to communication as a mouthful of marbles. We need to answer their wussy double-talk with clear, muscular words that actually mean something. (The Urban Dictionary defines “wuss” as “characterized by being, feeble, cowardly, and generally no fun.”)

You may have noticed lately that liberal commentators can’t resist offering advice to Republicans. Such advice is not offered in good faith. They are not concerned about the well-being of the Republican Party. Whenever liberals give advice and sympathy, do the opposite. They do not wish us well.

Democrats are scared out of their wits that the Republican Party might stand for something. Democrats love liberal Republicans. They can be even more useful to them than liberal Democrats.

The above are only representative of the universe of opportunities available to conservatives. A political-philosophical war is underway and the stakes couldn’t be higher. Conservatism can win the war, but we will need to employ every advantage we possibly can. And the more fun we have in the process the more likely we are to keep up the intensity. Liberals certainly don’t seem to be having much fun lately.

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◼ How to Defeat Liberals September 24, 2010

Ron Ross Ph.D. is a former economics professor and author of The Unbeatable Market. Ron resides in Arcata, California and is a founder of Premier Financial Group, a wealth management firm located in Eureka, California. He is a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma and can be reached at rossecon@gmail.com.