Isaiah Roman

Confederate Socialism

Slavery. For thousands of years it was an economic tool. It was a debt-relief program. It was a way to keep conquered nations oppressed. It was a way to force bad men into subjugation. Then it became a tool of greed.

When your entire income is based upon the cost of labor, you try to find ways to negate the cost of labor. That’s why jobs are fleeing this country. In order to maximize profits, you have to cut your costs. There’s only so much equipment cost you can cut and still remain competitive. So, eventually you have to get down to the basic cost; people.

The greatest cost to a society is it’s people. We build roads; why? We build sewers and waterworks; why? We build community buildings and governmental buildings; why? People. When the government starts to think of itself as a business, a profit center, then it begins to examine things in terms of economics. When government officials begin to see government as a career path, they begin to think of things in terms of profitability. When government is about profitability, then it has to look to costs. In government you can’t outsource people, so you have to cut costs. How? Make slaves.

Main-stream, moderate Republicans see the government as the mechanism for the creation of economics favorable to monetary growth. They see things not too much differently than Democrats. The southern Confederate States saw government this way. They wanted a government that was supportive of the commercial interests of the people. The size of the government wasn’t the issue. The Confederacy wanted as tiny a central government as possible. It needed to stay out of the civil affairs. This was their definition of the pursuit of happiness and promoting the general welfare. So too, moderate Republicans, today, believe that a limited government designed to promote business growth best suits the needs of the people; staying out of civil affairs.

What remains is the cost of labor. We still have to build roads. We still have to build sewers… if we intend to live the way we now live. If you want to change how we live then you can change whatever you want, but if not then you have to deal with the facts on the ground.

There are two ways for a government to maintain the infrastructures required for society. Slavery, and not slavery. The streets of Rome were paved by slaves. The sewers of Rome were built by slaves. Slaves were people who worked exclusively for one master; were owned by one master. The master gave them food and a place to lie down. The better the treatment, the better the work-output. The worse the treatment, the worse the work-output. You keep a slave happy by giving them things, because intrinsically slaves own nothing. They have nothing. Every little extra bit is a bonus. You start out by giving a slave the barest essentials. Then, as they become more ingratiated to you, give them more. They become more ingratiated, but you have to keep them in check. Every once in a while you make an example out of one of them, just to remind the others who’s in charge. The phrase “firm but fair” is a well used axiom of the slaver.

In the “not slavery” category you have to pay your workers. You have to give them incentive to do the job. Some public works jobs are really difficult. Some are just down right disgusting. How do you convince someone to take on these tasks? There are actually two ways. One is through remuneration. The other is through a sense of altruism. If you use remuneration you incite greed. After all, sewer workers can just stop keeping the sewers and demand higher wages, then where would you be? Unions capitalize on this paradigm. In fact, unions attempt to hold government hostage through this thought process in the effort to maximize profits. It’s a way to make the workers their own form of government, above the civil government. “Of the people, for the people…” right?

And here we come back full circle. Moderate Republicans have taken on a new god; Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand professed a radical, cartoon ideal for altruism. Yet, if you deny altruism and embrace greed, then you have to deal with greed. Thus, you have a battle between unions and businesses for control because of greed. Through this caricature of altruism, Rand changes the Golden Rule and actually begins the promotion of the idea that greed is good. The character Gordon Gekko in the movie “Wall Street” is, in turn, a caricature of John Gault (Ayn Rand’s hero in her book “Atlas Shrugged”). But that’s not what Ayn Rand was trying to say.

Here is the real Golden Rule;
“Do to others as you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” – Matthew 7:12

The quote says “as you would have them do unto you.” In another famous quote, Jesus says “love your neighbor as yourself…” Altruism has within it the necessity of self-respect. It necessarily presumes that you have a love of self from which you reference your love of others. Altruism is not, in any real sense, a complete selflessness. There is no prescription within altruism that says you have to give everything to find salvation. Thus, these quotes are without context. The context is referent to God’s grace towards his creation, not man’s grace towards other men. This changes the entire conversation.

Government’s role is not to promote business growth as a means of personal happiness, because money cannot provide happiness. The idea that government, either through it’s restriction, or it’s expansion, has any role whatsoever to play in the role of economics as a means of happiness, welfare, or liberty is a fundamentally flawed concept. Everything must be placed into a context.

Slavery exists anywhere men seek power over other men. When the government tries to expand it’s power, it must do so on the backs of slaves. Thus, democracy becomes the “oligarchy of the indigent.” When the government is tasked with ensuring economic growth it becomes a business concern, and thus it is financially motivated, no matter how small it is. Financial motivations, without context, always lead to greed. You cannot keep the fox out of the hen-house by putting a fox on guard duty.

The men who founded this nation couldn’t have been more clear. Government is not about economics. Government is about law and law is about morality. The moment you begin believing that government is about economics you must equate economics to morality. The reason socialism stresses the idea that government needs to provide for the people is because socialism believes that subjugating the “masses” is the only way to force people into removing their old social paradigm and embrace the utopian concepts of Marxism. In essence, by making men slaves they intend to make men free by exchanging the old moral set with a new moral set through force. Marxism focuses everything; history, government, science – everything – into an economic model. The thesis is that money is the great equalizer and that personal equality is found in economic equity because money buys happiness. Therefore, in order to promote equality, governments must equalize wealth. The truth is that money is the means of buying souls. Socialism assumes that the government owns everything and you get the bare minimum. Every once in a while the government gives out a little more and each time it does you get more ingratiated to the government. Yet, the government needs to keep everyone in check, so…

By the time the Civil War broke out in this country the importation of slaves had been banned by Congress. The southern states had every incentive to remove the system of slavery and replace it with a system of industry, yet they didn’t. In fact, they tried very strongly to get all of the new states to become slave states. They couldn’t import from over seas, so they needed to expand the slave trade domestically. They weren’t about to give up the basis of their entire economic system and were in fact actively working to expand its influence throughout the continent. They saw government as the institution tasked with providing for their general welfare and pursuit of happiness. So, when the north changed it’s mind and elected an abolitionist president, they broke away and formed their own government, which affirmed their financial model, which in turn promoted their own idea of happiness and welfare.

Here’s the underlying truth; both the north and the south were moral, but their morals weren’t the same. The whole idea of conservancy is to conserve. What is it that you are conserving? Underneath it all there are the laws of morality. A government cannot create morality, but it will enforce the morality of it’s members, whatever that morality may be. In reality there are only two theories of government; those who believe that government is power (slavery) and those who believe that government is law (not slavery). It’s not about whether you’re a conservative or a progressive; it’s about what you choose to preserve. This is the “secret” beneath all societies. This is the “secret” of government, the unique basis of our republic, revealed by the men who founded this nation and it is the “secret” that most people today are never shown:

“The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.” – John Quincy Adams.

“The religion of the New Testament – that religion which is founded on the teachings of Jesus Christ and his Apostles – is as sure a guide to duty in politics and legislation as in any concern of life.” – Daniel Webster

“Righteousness exalteth a nation.” – Bible