China: Malls witnessing gold rush as shoppers fear inflation

A customer checks gold products at Caibai jewelry store. Wang Jing / China Daily

Jewelers at shopping malls across the capital are witnessing a gold rush as residents spooked by inflation fears look to protect their money.

Statistics from Beijing Caibai, the city's largest jewelry store, show sales of gold and other jewelry have totaled about 4 billion yuan so far this year, a 70-percent increase year-on-year.

Wang Chunli, general manager, told METRO that hundreds of customers are lining up outside every day to buy gold accessories, such as necklaces and rings. To cope with demand, the store has even introduced a string-weave service, she said, adding: "We've also arranged experienced staff to be on duty and increased the number of security guards."

After seeing the enthusiasm for gold investment, insiders predict prices will continue to rise this year.

Zhou Xiangrui, deputy general manager of Guo Hua, an established gold and jewelry store, even suggested that the surging demand could set a new record, saying: "The price is estimated to increase by 10 percent this year."

The price has already reached 338 yuan a gram at Caibai and 375 yuan a gram at Beijing branches of Chow Tai Fook and Chow Tai Seng, according to data from cngold.org, a popular gold investment website.

Concern over the volatile conditions in the Middle East and the debt crises in Europe could also impact gold prices, said Ji Zhiguo, an analyst the Beijing Gold Trade Center. "This year we might see some investors purchasing more than 10 kilograms of gold bars again," he said. "A booming gold market coupled with a stable price increase could prompt more individuals to rush in and invest."

Gold sales in large shopping malls citywide increased by at least 40 percent year-on-year during the first two months of 2011, Legal Mirror reported.

According to China Central Television, about 40 investors are rushing to purchase gold bars every day at the Wang Feng shopping mall in the Xinjiekou area, with most snapping up several kilograms at a time.

Wang Qiming, 34, who lives in Haidian district, said he has purchased both gold bars in malls and paper gold online. "The capital has limits on house and car purchases, and it might be hard to preserve the value of my assets if I save cash in a bank account. So, I've started to focus on gold investment," he said, explaining that he plans to spend 300,000 yuan on 100 grams of gold bars.

"Stock markets change very fast and are not stable," said Wang. "Gold investment seems much safer."

A report released by the World Gold Council at the end of 2010 said China is the strongest market for gold investment and gold accessory purchase.

China Daily

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-02/28/content_12085402.htm

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A New Hope: The First High School Tea Party Club in America

Caleb Yee, president of The A-Team Tea Party Youth, addresses an enthusiastic crowd

It’s quite natural for a culture to value its young. Since mortality is an as-yet irreversible aspect of the human condition, our children are the means by which we perpetuate ourselves, preserve who we are, and pass on what we believe.

Given this plain truth, the most discouraging aspect of attending any given conservative event is the sea of silver hair present in just about every crowd. At 32, I often mind myself among the youngest, if not the youngest person in a room.

Reaching our youth with the conservative message is an essential mission. However, in an age where they are bombarded from every direction with the propaganda of the Left, trying to convey the wisdom of elders can be like lighting a match in a hurricane. That is why it is so encouraging to come across young people who already bear a torch for conservatism lit and maintained on their own.

Friday night, I was among several activists gathered in a downtown Phoenix restaurant during a brief intermission of the Tea Party Patriots American Policy Summit. We were already feeling good, having sat through some valuable breakout sessions throughout the afternoon. But none of that held a candle next to the elation we all felt upon meeting The A Team.

No, not the crack commando unit. This A-Team is a cadre of young conservatives from southern California who claim to be “the first high school Tea Party club in America.” Together, these young men stand in defiance of expectation. Not only are they high school aged. They are racially and ethnically diverse. More importantly, chatting with them reveals a genuine concern about the world they live in. “We’re still focused on all the same things other kids are,” they told me at dinner. “Video games, television, girls. But we also care about our country.”

The A-Team, high school Tea Party club

NRB: How did you guys get started?

Benjamin Kunzler: It really started when our teachers – we noticed that they’re liberal leaning, as most teachers are in California. And we wanted to change that.

Caleb Yee: We really wanted to change the stereotypes.

In terms of how we started it… One summer day I just realized how much trouble [our generation] would be in after listening to radio talk show hosts. And from that, I really wanted to do something…

It’s really hard to start a club by yourself. You really need a strong group of friends. I kind of knew that [two other members of club] were conservative. I didn’t know them too well. But then I messaged them on Facebook and we came up with the idea. So the three of us got together – C.J. [Webster], Ben, and me – and we said let’s do this…

NRB: Let me take it back further than that, because I know I went through a series of experiences in high school which brought me to conservatism. Before you got the notion that you wanted to start this group, obviously you arrived at a conservative identity…

Benjamin: I was listening to talk radio since the second [George W.] Bush election… I was listening to that in the car, learning a lot about politics. But what really sparked it was when I found out that one of my classmates was an outspoken communist socialist.

The boys went on to detail how prominent and accepted socialism was in their school. By contrast, as Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler related, the idea of a conservative political club met with resistence.

There were parents at school who were upset that they were going to charter a Tea Party club… That’s free speech in our high schools. Caleb was undeterred.

Caleb explained his mentality further in a speech delivered to an enthusiastic crowd on Saturday.

We knew that, if we continued to hide our patriotism and our values, then we would have to pay the consequences [in] our future… We knew that we could wait no longer, like our peers, blasting away on a video game system when, in reality, our soliders were dying to protect us. We knew that we could no longer wait as our friends were watching reality TV when, in actual reality, our nation was in a whole lot of trouble. We knew that we had to take the initative and make a difference in America, because we are the sleeping giants of America.

Together we decided to come out of the shadows and form a voice that would wake up the youth of America. This voice will be the A-Team Tea Party Youth Movement. The youth played a major role in the ’08 election. And we realized that the youth is a powerful force that could either be used to harm our nation or protect our nation.

The boys found themselves instant celebrities at the summit. As the group’s president and spokesman, Caleb found himself particularly trust into the spotlight. At the dinner on Friday, he told me they were overwhelmed by the attention they were receiving. That was before his speech on Saturday. Afterward, no less than Dick Morris was quipping that he wanted to advise Caleb’s future senate campaign.

Dick Morris poses for a keepsake with an overwhelmed Caleb Yee

Such attention was no doubt a tremendous inspiration to these young men, and rightfully so. As exciting as it is to see a group of young people committed to expressing conservative values, we must sober ourselves by remembering why. The fact is the A-Team is an exception to the rule. Their presence is exciting because it may portent an eventual rewriting of that rule. But getting from here to there will take time and commitment from patriots young and old.

http://www.newsrealblog.com/2011/03/01/a-new-hope-the-first-high-school-tea-party-club-in-america/

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Get ready for $4 gas and $1500 gold

Brent crude oil futures finished Tuesday at their highest level in 2-1/2 years, U.S. crude rose over 2 percent, and investors quest for safety sent gold to an all-time high, on fears political turmoil in Libya would spread to other oil producing countries.

Copper gave up three days of gains to end lower on those same fears and as rising oil prices ignited inflation concerns.

The 19-component Reuters Jeffries CRB commodity price index .CRB was up about 0.75 percent by the day's close, driven higher by the surge in oil, gold, and other commodities.

For year-to-date performance of CRB components :link.reuters.com/kew48n

Brent crude oil futures ended at the highest level in 2-1/2 years on mounting worries Libya's upheaval could spark tremors in other Middle East and North African oil producers.

U.S. crude pushed above $99 a barrel after Reuters reported that human rights activists said Saudi authorities had detained a Shi'ite cleric, fueling fears of sectarian conflict in the world's top oil exporter.

Clashes between opposition supporters and Iran's security forces in Tehran added to investor concerns of unrest and flow of oil supplies in the region.

"The Saudis had seemed to be walking the tightrope and avoiding problems, but the cleric story had people worried that it signaled problems there," said Robert Yawger, senior vice president, energy futures at MF Global in New York.

Brent crude futures for April rose $3.59 to $115.39 a barrel by 2:44 p.m. EST (1944 GMT). U.S. crude rose $2.66 to settle at $99.63 a barrel, the highest close since front-month crude ended at $100.64 on September 30, 2008.

The chaos in Libya and political turmoil in the Arab world prompted safe-haven buying that drove gold up over 1 percent to a record high of $1,432.10 an ounce. Soaring oil prices boosted bullion's inflation hedge appeal. Its previous record of $1,430.95 was set on December 7.

"What gold needed was a catalyst, and it found it in the form of tensions that are surfacing in the Middle East and rising oil prices," said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist of Janney Montgomery Scott.

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After a Second Look, Romney Still Gets Thumbs Down

Intellectual Conservative's resident Mathematics Professor takes another look at Mitt Romney as a presidential candidate.  

In a previous article in The Intellectual Conservative (Will I Have to Hold My Nose Yet Again?), I confessed that the not unlikely prospect of Mitt Romney securing the Republican presidential nomination filled me with dismay. I pointed out that every Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan was a faux conservative and that I voted for all of them - with my fingers firmly clamped on my nose. In contemplating a vote for Romney, I rued the fact that my fingers would be similarly deployed.

Nothing has happened in the last few months to change the probabilities. Romney continues to build his organization and position himself for a successful run; none of his so-called major competitors (Gingrich, Huckabee, Palin - each of whom, I pointed out in the article, is damaged goods) has done anything to elevate his or her stature; and none of the minor contenders has been able to break out of that forlorn status of "little dwarf."

So I decided that a closer look at Romney was in order. I read his book No Apology. Here's the good news. Romney makes a convincing effort toward burnishing his conservative credentials. He hits all the conservative touchstone issues in the book and professes his allegiance to virtually all the principles that identify one as a true conservative: limited government, low taxes, deregulation, strong national defense, family values, free market capitalism and traditional culture. He comes across as sincerely patriotic, reverent of the men who founded our country and the ideals they espoused, inspired by and loyal to the Constitution. He apparently understands that prosperity is created by individuals who develop products and services, and form the businesses that deliver them - not by government programs, spending or regulation. He has a track record of successful executive and managerial experience. And best of all, he clearly loves the United States of America and would strive mightily to protect it - unlike the current occupant of the White House.

On the other hand, there are some disquieting revelations in the book - the most prominent of which include: an enthusiastic reaffirmation of Massachusetts Health Care; the fact that he has drunk from the environmental Kool-Aid and is on the global warming bandwagon; an admission that he basically endorses TARP and the resulting bailouts; and his advocacy of a major role for the Federal Government in education.

These positions are disturbing indeed and worthy of concern. They suggest strongly that at the core Romney is a big government Republican in the mold of Nixon, Ford, Dole, McCain and the Bushes. The pejorative RINO does not seem to be inappropriate.

The matter is of course not yet settled. Is it foolhardy to hold out any hope that the eventual nominee could be a true conservative like Pence, DeMint or Santorum? The history of the Republican presidential nomination process is not encouraging. Thus there might be some solace in the observation that Romney could be the best of the rest of the sorry lot that are chasing the GOP 2012 nomination. Perhaps he'll take his own book to heart and govern like Reagan if he does achieve the presidency. One can only hope.

Such was my thinking after finishing Romney's book. And then the March issue of the American Spectator arrived with an article by W. James Atlee entitled "Front-runner Failure." In it, Atlee points out that Romney would be the latest installment in a long line of candidates to whom the Republicans awarded their nomination as a reward "for long years of service, finishing second the last time around, and politely waiting their turn." That description most aptly describes Dole and McCain, but it also applies to Nixon, Ford, both Bushes and even Reagan. With the exception of Reagan, these nominations resulted in either an ignominious defeat or a victory by men that "left the Republican Party weaker than they found it." Atlee's assessment also accounts for the decades of nose-holding on my part. For heaven's sake, why would the Republican Party do it yet again?

A Romney presidency would not signal the end of the century-long slide toward progressivism, socialism and the loss of freedom that our country has endured. A Romney presidency is unlikely to exploit the fact that a substantial part (perhaps even a majority) of the American people has awakened to the horror that we have inflicted upon ourselves. America's star is dimming today; and in order to rekindle it, we must: reverse the cancerous growth of government by reigning in spending, taxation and regulation; reaffirm our commitment to free market capitalism by deemphasizing unionism, statism and crony capitalism, and re-empowering individual entrepreneurs who create prosperity; call a halt to multiculturalism and reassert the primacy of American exceptionalism; and rededicate ourselves to the ideals expressed by our Founders in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Mitt Romney is not the general we need to lead that crusade. Whom it might be and how he or she is to be catapulted to the head of the Republican Party can only be read in the Tea leaves.

http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2011/03/01/after-a-second-look-romney-still-gets-thumbs-down/

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IBD: HOPING the Democrats CHANGE

Government Waste: While the Democrats grouse about a mere $61 billion spending cut, duplicative services at the federal level may account for $200 billion in needless spending. Here's a chance for bipartisan lawmaking.

A probe by the Government Accountability Office found, hopefully to no one's surprise, that the federal government is a massive web of absurdly entangled and overlapping programs.

Released Tuesday, the 345-page GAO report reveals that 15 federal agencies "collectively administer at least 30 food-related laws," while Washington relies on 80 separate programs across four agencies for economic development.

The probe also learned:

• There are five Transportation Department agencies using 6,000 employees to "administer over 100 separate programs."

• The government has "more than 2,000" data centers, many of which "often house similar types of equipment and provide similar processing and storage capabilities."

• There are 47 separate job-training programs.

• "The federal government spent more than $62.5 billion on 18 domestic food and nutrition assistance programs in fiscal year 2008."

• "In 2009 federal agencies spent about $2.9 billion on over 20 programs targeted to address the various needs of persons experiencing homelessness."

Moneynews.com did the math and reports that the pile of money "could simply have bought 145,000 homes" at $200,000 each.

• In 2003, there were eight federal departments running 62 programs that provide transportation services to the "transportation disadvantaged" public, which includes the elderly, the disabled and the poor.

• There are 10 federal agencies administering 82 distinct programs that are designed to help improve teacher quality.

Washington even has "more than 20 different federal agencies providing about 56 programs related to financial literacy"; sent out $1.1 billion in farm program payments "to more than 170,000 deceased individuals" a few years ago; and last year lost roughly $125.4 billion from improper payments by more than 70 programs.

The GAO didn't place a dollar figure on the amount of waste through duplication. But Sen. Tom Coburn, whose amendment to a debt-limit bill last year required the GAO to compile the report, believes the cost is at least $100 billion and could be as high as twice that.

"It makes us all look like jackasses," the Oklahoma Republican said, comparing the entire Congress to the symbol of the Democratic Party, which apparently isn't interested in cutting even a nickel from federal spending.

Perhaps we're guilty of hyperbole and there are a few nickels, and maybe even dimes, that the Democrats would cut. How they treat the GAO report and its damning catalog of waste will tell voters a lot about their plans for the future.

Are the Democrats determined to dig a bottomless pit of debt that they think will enable them to hike taxes in perpetuity? Or will they make a serious attempt to help Republicans rein in spending?

We can only hope that congressional Democrats will take a cue from their party's leader, who noted in his State of the Union address that "The Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they're in freshwater, but the Commerce Department handles them when they're in saltwater," and humorously lamented "that it gets even more complicated once they're smoked."

If not, the country's long-term prospects are bleak, even if Republicans take the Senate and White House in 2012 while keeping the House.

The damage caused by having to wait two more years for real change won't be easy to reverse.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=564637&p=1

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Jobless rates of minorities linked to illegals - Is the Congressional Black Caucus Paying Attention??

Calling for stricter enforcement of existing laws, House Republicans said Tuesday the nation’s broken immigration system is making it more difficult for minorities to land jobs because they are competing with illegals willing to work longer hours for less pay.

Democrats, though, countered that the GOP was using immigration to pit blacks against Hispanics while ignoring the “real” problems in minority communities, including the lack of education and job-training resources, that drive unemployment.

The sniping came during a hearing of the House Judiciary immigration policy and enforcement subcommittee as Republicans sought to highlight potential conflicts that could break the coalition that Democrats put together to try to pass broad immigration reform in recent years.

It also served as the latest reminder of the Republican takeover of the House, where the GOP is now in position to shape the agenda and appears determined to make immigration enforcement part of the debates over federal spending and the nation’s 9 percent unemployment rate.

Reading from a prepared statement, House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith, Texas Republican, pointed to a Pew Hispanic Center report that showed more than 7 million people are working in the country illegally and noted that the unemployment rates in minority communities - about 12 percent among Hispanics and nearly 16 percent among blacks - are well above the national average.

“These jobs should go to legal workers, many of whom would be minorities,” Mr. Smith said.

But Rep. John Conyers Jr., Michigan Democrat, the ranking member of the committee, said that instead of tackling the “deeper issues underlying our weakened economy, high unemployment and continued inequities, we seem to be blaming all of our problems on undocumented workers.”

“If my colleagues really care about minorities, they should focus on policies and programs that will actually help them,” Mr. Conyers said, noting that some economists contend the gloomy jobs picture in minority communities can be attributed more to a lack of educational opportunities, high crime rates and the loss of factory and other blue-collar jobs than to the influx of immigrants.

“Yet Republicans consistently oppose programs aimed at addressing those problems such as increasing the minimum wage, health care reform, equal pay for women, and foreclosure relief.”

The three witnesses Republican called for the hearing were black and Hispanic.

In the opening months of the 112th Congress, the debate over immigration has been overshadowed by fights over federal spending, the annual budget deficit and the $14.1 trillion national debt.

But immigration re-emerged last week after Senate Democrats inserted the issue into the ongoing budget battle, saying cuts Republicans have proposed in their 2011 budget plan would cut money for border fencing and could scuttle much of President Obama’s Border Patrol surge.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said that under theGOP’s plan, more than 800 Border Patrol agents and $273 million of fencing and other infrastructure along the border will be put on the chopping block.

The subcommittee hearing Tuesday suggested more of that approach is to come, as Republicans rammed home the message that the lack of immigration enforcement is squeezing low-skilled minorities out of the work force and replacing them with illegal immigrants with little, if any, education.

“They are the real victims of the American failed immigration policy,” said Rep. Elton Gallegly, California Republican, chairman of the immigration policy subcommittee.

After the hearing, Steven A. Camarota, of the Center on Immigration Studies, said that it is hard to justify the idea that the country has a “terrible shortage of unskilled workers at the bottom end of the labor market.”

“America right now has 25 million native-born people who have no education beyond high school and who are not working,” Mr. Camarota said.

But Frank Sharry, founder and executive director of America’s Voice, a pro-immigration group, described the hearing as a “pretty transparent attempt to pit African-American workers against Latino workers, and I think it failed.”

“It was like Lamar [Smith] and company threw a fat pitch down the middle of the plate, and Democrats hit it out of the park,” Mr. Sharry said.

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Liberty and Democracy are NOT the same thing!

By Tim Dunkin

For months now, the Middle East has been wracked by one convulsing revolution after another against tyrants, dictators, and monarchs. The list of countries that have or are attempting to overthrow their rulers in this region continues to grow — Yemen, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, Bahrain, Egypt, and now Libya. There is talk of "democracy in the air," as Western commentators look at the situation and assume that it heralds a new dawn for this oft-benighted region of the world, one in which peace, freedom, and cute furry puppies will be the new inheritance of its inhabitants.

I must admit — I don't share these sanguine assessments.

Sure, there is no doubt that in some of these countries, steps will be made towards more democratic forms of government. In others, such as Egypt, we merely saw the military government using the protests as a vehicle for removing one unelected President-for-life with another. Nevertheless, there does appear to be a movement across the region towards more popular involvement and control over their own governments.

The mistake, however, is in assuming that this will bring greater "liberty."

One of the most common errors that is made by Western observers, leftists and conservatives alike, is to assume that "democracy = liberty." It does not. In fact, democracy can be one of the greatest enemies of true liberty, as our Founders well knew. If (or rather, when) democracy becomes a vehicle by which the majority can enforce its will onto a powerless minority, it becomes a scourge to mankind.

This is why our Founders established this nation as a republic, rather than as a democracy. In a republic, you have the right balance between the principle of order and human freedom of action. Go too far in one direction, and you certainly have law and order — but at the price of a dictatorship. Go too far the other way, and you have for the 51% who can vote themselves power and goodies at the expense of the other 49%. In a federal republican form, with its divided power and subsidiary authorities in a representational system, you maintain the ordered liberty necessary for good society and true freedom.

Democracy doesn't maintain that. So, while democracy may come to many countries in the Muslim Middle East, it will be a democracy that is subverted and used by the forces of evil. We are already seeing, for instance, the Muslim Brotherhood (the spiritual ancestor of al-Qaeda) organize itself as a guiding force in several of the places where the mob is getting the upper hand. Can we really say that a democracy that leads to theocracy is "liberty"? Of course not.

So no, I find it difficult to get too excited about the prospects of Muslim democracy — not that I think the form can't be put into place, but rather that it won't lead to the sparkling secular freedom of cell phones and liberated women that many Westerners seem to assume will come into being.

Or, to put it more bluntly, you can lead a horse to the ballot box, but you can't make him vote to respect the natural liberties of others.

This is because the Muslim Middle East, and the Muslim world in general, has no culture of liberty, and never has. By this, I mean that the Muslim world does not have several key elements that are necessary for truly representative, truly free society to function successfully.

Liberty essentially requires two things to exist for very long. The first of these is a set of what I call "freedom values." Freedom values are those offshoots of Lockean commonwealthianism that allow human beings to exist together in civil society without killing, enslaving, or otherwise oppressing each other.

One of these freedom values is the respect for the individual. A free society views the individual citizen as a being worthy of independent value and existence. A person in a free society is not considered a cog in some impersonal apparatus greater than his or herself, whose only value, as such, exists in what they can be made to give to the system. He or she is not owned, by whatever name this ownership is given, by the state, as they are in communism, socialism, and fascism. In the same way, he or she is not owned by a man-made theocratic system.

Instead, the individual is free to think, act, create, and enjoy as he or she sees fit and is able to the best of their abilities. The individual is able to "valuate" himself by using his God-given abilities to better both himself and those around him. It is this truth that makes capitalism work. It is this truth that gives a free society the prosperity that comes when each of us have the liberty to create and make things for ourselves and other (enlightened self-interest) that make us more productive, allow our lives to be longer, allow us to specialize our labor so that more of us can do different things that interest us and for which we have a more natural ability to improve and perfect. It is this truth that that brings about real learning and progress, as the mind is unshackled to think, to explore, and to investigate.

This leads to the second freedom value, which is the voluntary society. Flowing from the respect for the individual is the understanding that we must respect others as individuals as well. Others are as deserving of consideration as we ourselves are. The natural outflowing of this should be a desire to help those who are genuinely less fortunate than ourselves. However, complementary to this is that we will refrain from using the force and power of the police state to make others do so. This is where the concept of the voluntary society comes into play. As charity and concern move us, we join together with like minds to fulfill roles that many today think only the welfare state is able to fill.

However, as de Tocqueville noted, in early America, our people were forever coming together in voluntary associations for various purposes, religious, philanthropic, and otherwise. We don't need a welfare state, and we showed that we didn't for the first century and a half of our national existence. The voluntary society concept is what enables a nation to walk the line between heartlessly allowing the truly needy (and note, I am not talking about the able-bodied lazy here) to freeze and starve in our streets, and ensnaring us all in a nanny state that inevitably will result when government "do-gooders" are given the power to force us all to take one for the team.

And that is why the voluntary society is a freedom value — it works to replace the role of government with the role of individuals, something which usually runs in the opposite direction. It rolls back the scope and influence of the government, and returns it to the hands of the people themselves. Further, when we do decide to help someone else out, we get to have a say in where that help goes, on what terms, and in what way. If you don't want your money going to feed a perfectly able-bodied homeless guy's crack cocaine habit, you can certainly keep that from happening in a voluntary society — whereas this is not the case with the money taken from you at gunpoint by the government and handed out as a check through a faceless, unaccountable bureaucracy. The voluntary society allows your charity to be truly virtuous, because it is truly voluntary.

The third freedom value is that of the rule of law. What we conservatives need to understand is that fundamentally, "law" itself is not the enemy of liberty. In fact, law is a buttress of liberty. The rule of law is what makes us all of equal social value and worth. The rule of law says that the same rules apply to all of us evenly. This takes maturity. It takes political and social maturity to be willing to apply the same standard to yourself that you would apply to someone else.

The rule of men, on the other hand, allows for all kinds of evils and perversions. It can take the form of tyranny, in which one person or a small oligarchy get to rule society through their own whims — a situation in which they and their lackeys certainly do not operate under the same rules that the common man does. It can also take the form of rule by bureaucrat and administrator (the form usually preferred by today's more sophisticated statists). In such cases, people are usually unaware or unable to abide by all the rules that are made, but which generally do not apply to the upper echelons of the social democratic state apparatus. As such, the people do not know or cannot fulfill their obligations before the law, but nevertheless are held to them by members of the hierarchy who are not under these same obligations.

The rule of law, however, alleviates this. When we all know the law, and the law is the servant of the people, happiness will follow. The rule of law is what enables us, for instance, to be secure in our property. It is what enables us to have the expectation that a contract we enter into will be respected, regardless of who we made it with. It is what enables us to be secure in enjoying the use of our natural liberties — I can say, worship, or print what I want, and you can't tell me that I can't. And vice versa. I have to respect your rights, and you have to respect mine. I can't step in and toss you in jail for something, just because I'm the Second Assistant Vice-Director of some faceless bureau and you happened to offend me.

This leads to the fourth and final freedom value I want to talk about here, which is that of social toleration. By this, I don't mean the "toleration" that those on the Left talk about, which typically means giving special preference to perverts or criminals over people who just want to live their own lives in peace. Rather, social toleration refers to the willingness to allow others to exercise the same rights and liberties that you yourself would want to be able to exercise, so long as we are not doing harm to one another. Social toleration means that we may not like each others' religion, politics, or whatever else, we may even try to convert each other by arguments and reason, but ultimately, we have to respect the fact that at the end of the day, you can make your choice, and I can make mine. As free individuals who can make voluntary choices and whose rights are protected the same as anyone else's, we have the liberty to determine our own contribution to the fabric of the greater society around us.

The Muslim world, from its inception through to today, has precious little of these four ingredients. The submission of the individual to the theocraticshari'a system negates the ability of the individual Muslims who live in such societies to think or act independently of the imams and ayatollahs. Because of the fatalism inherent in Islam, true voluntary society is virtually unknown — the well-known zakat, the donation of 2.5% of a Muslim's wealth as a religious obligation, is more akin to socialism than it is to true charity, and is often used to fund jihad rather than help the poor (something which is allowed by theahadith and the sunnat, the sets of Islamic traditions and examples of Mohammed that regulate the lives of Muslims). In Islam, there is no true concept of the rule of law — there is only the rule of rules determined by the personal interpretation of various religious authorities who have power in a particular area or within a certain community. And of course, it is well-known that there is no social toleration in traditional, fundamentalist Muslim societies towards just about anybody — women, religious minorities, intellectuals, or other dissenters.

Without these four elements, there is no reason to think that these various Muslim countries currently undergoing revolution will see the establishment of liberal democracies. Instead, in the event of successful revolutions, we will most likely see transitional democratic governments which will last only so long as it takes for the radical Muslim groups to manage to get themselves elected by a majority of the gullible people who will be voting in these elections.

But what of America, and by extension, the West? Well, let's face it — the future of true liberty doesn't look too bright here, either.

Above, I said that liberty required two things to exist for very long. The first was the freedom values. The second of these two things is a firm, grounded basis in the Judeo-Christian principles that enable a free people to exercise the self-government necessary to both possess and maintain freedom.

It is this Judeo-Christian substratum that enables the four freedom values I listed above to exist, and without it, you won't really have them for very long.

I'm sure there are some who think this is ridiculous, and who perhaps even think that Christianity is antithetical to freedom. To these folks, I would simply say this — your shiny little secular society has spectacularly failed to maintain true liberty for Americans and those in other Western nations. Indeed, to the extent that secularism has advanced in the West, we have seen true liberty recede into the background. The evidence is all around us, plain for all to see. You want to complain about the past inquisitions and crusades of "Christianity" falsely so called? Well, secular humanism killed more people in one century than "religion" did in the previous nineteen. And today, as our western nations move away from our Christian roots, the power, scope, and extent of the welfare state, the bureaucrat state, the nanny state has increased and continues to increase. Look at Europe — as that continent becomes more and more secular, it has become increasingly socialistic and nannyish, bureaucratic and bullying. The same is happening in America, as well.

It's simple, really, to see why the Judeo-Christian worldview is vitally necessary to have these freedom values. Take the respect for the individual. The Christian worldview understands that each one of us is a unique creation of God, who is loved by that same God, and for whom God made the ultimate sacrifice in sending His own Son to save. We all were made in the image of God. We all have worth and value that is intrinsic to each one of us. As valuable individuals, we can claim the heritage of our natural liberties given to us a by a God who intended for us to enjoy them.

The Christian worldview flatly rejects the notion that we are soulless, materialist conglomerations of random atoms that have no ultimate meaning to our existence. Yet, this is all the secular humanist can really say about us. No single one of us really means anything, in and of ourselves. We are all just blips of matter who appear, disappear, and are then forgotten. This is why secular humanism, inevitably, ends up subjugating the individual to the state. Which of us knows or cares about any of the individual diodes that operate inside the computers we use — at least until the diode "acts up" and needs to "have something done about it"? So also the humanist, if he is to be rational and self-consistent, can only see each of us as cogs in some ongoing "progess" machine which isn't really progressing. This is the way every aggressively secular humanist regime — the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Maoist China, and the rest — has dealt with its own people.

The same, then, can be said for the other freedom values as well. A voluntary society? This has nearly always been driven by Christian charity and the desire to help our neighbor. The secularist alternatives are either Objectivist libertarianism, where you just really don't give a rip who dies on your doorstep (since we all know philanthropy is just a guilt-trip to get Randian supermen to allow somebody else to make claims upon them), or else mega-state socialism (including, by the way, that perversion of Christianity known as "the social gospel") where you're forced to contribute.

The rule of law? What can be a firmer basis for the rule of law than the conviction that we will all — great or small, rich or poor, white or black, tall or short — stand before the same God, and give account of ourselves according to the same judgments from the same eternal laws of God? Christianity is the great equalizer, when it comes to equality before the law. The king and the pauper will each be judged by the same Word. The decisions I make in life will face the same impartial standard as those made by anyone else. Likewise, we each share the same birthright of the same natural liberties, regardless of who we are. They are there to possess and use, if we are able and willing to do so.

What about social toleration? True Christianity, as we see it found in the New Testament, is the reason why we even have this. We have religious liberty, for instance, because Virginian Baptists prevailed upon James Madison and Thomas Jefferson to include it into the Bill of Rights to our Constitution. This, again, is because of the fact that we are each going to be held accountable for our own choices. Granted, a lot of intolerance has been done in the name of "Christianity," but one must ask the critic where he or she finds inquisitions, forced conversion, or crusades in the New Testament (actually, you won't really even find them in the Old Testament, despite peoples' erroneous perceptions, but that involves some arguments more involved than I wish to get into at present). The fact is you won't. The fact that we're all going to be judged for what we do presupposes that we also have the liberty to make our own choices. Those choices will have eternal consequences — but they areour own choices to make. As a result, you and I cannot force another to make a decision about anything. Our standing before God demands that we grant each other the charity of social toleration.

Each of these, however, requires the self-government and self-restraint that only comes with that Judeo-Christian worldview. It doesn't come with libertarianism, nor does it come with socialism, nor does it come with Islamism. Only the influence of true religion, the kind that has an impact on the actions of those in the society in which it pervades, can prepare the ground for the seed of liberty to be planted.

In short, all of this is why Adams famously said,

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

The problem for America and the West, as I alluded, is that the increasing radical secularism of our societies is removing this underpinning that makes liberty possible. As our people abrogate their self-government, they increasingly need to be other-governed, just to maintain a semblance of order. As our people lose their sense of self-worth and self-value in the image of God, they are increasingly becoming criminals and shiftless bums who expect the rest of society to give them everything that they could get for themselves. And even those who do still work for a living have decided to let the government expand into the areas where the voluntary society rightfully belongs. In short, we are giving away our liberty and allowing the government to expand into every area of our life as we lose our grip on our own foundational worldview and basis. We're chiseling out the mortar, and wondering why the bricks are falling out.

We need to understand that just as Islam is not conducive to freedom, neither is secularism and humanism. Both, in their own ways, neglect the principal ingredients for true freedom. Islam subjects its victims to the capricious will of a distant, uncaring moon god. Secular humanism tells people to throw off all restraints to their behavior — which simply means the state is going to have to step in, sooner or later, and impose those restrains from without.

All the time, I will see supposed fellow-travelers in the anti-jihad movement who seem to assume that the only path to freedom is to get rid of all religion and "liberate" Muslims to a wild life of the grossest hedonism. Muslims, they think, will only be free when they are just as uninhibited about running around naked on a beach while participating in drunken homosexual orgies as many Westerners are. Frankly, I think these folks are just as bad, in the long run, as the jihadis themselves. Thinking that hedonism is synonymous with freedom is pure idiocy. It ignores fundamental realities about the way the world works. The Muslim world will be no better off if Pakistan were to morph into Sixpackistan.

Ultimately, though, we need to be worried about maintaining liberty here. As our Founders knew, liberty is the handmaid of the biblical religion that values the worth of man as a creation in God's own image, and values the fact that each of us have to deal with God individually, and that these dealings will have moral, ethical, and eternal consequences. Only when we get serious about turning back to our roots, to the self-government and self-control that obviates the "need" for the government to control us instead, will we have true liberty again


http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/dunkin/110301

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