Thursday, August 30, 2012

The Last Line of Defense: Property

"Property is theft."  Proudhon's classic anarchist paradox is more than a catchy slogan for international leftism.  It encapsulates a complete and comprehensively absurd view of humanity -- one which finds its contemporary apotheosis in President Obama's more prosaic rendition, "You didn't build that."  In other words, "You didn't build that" is just "Property is theft" without the irony.
By speaking his true mind for a change, without teleprompted euphemism, Obama conveniently highlighted the heart of today's civilizational crisis: the war over the meaning and legitimacy of property.
The "fundamental transformation" Obama seeks to impose on America has many practical manifestations, but all his sundry means relate to one basic end.  This is the permanent "transformation" of a nation grounded in the principle of individual self-ownership (the philosophical foundation of property rights) into a nation grounded in the principle that everything you have is merely on loan to you from the great gods of collectivism -- "society," "history," and "government." 
Let's begin with the progressive argument against private property, expressed in Obama's own infamous words.  (Recall that the context is his call for the wealthy to "give back"):
If you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. ...  I'm always struck by people who think, "Wow, it must be because I was just so smart" -- there are a lot of smart people out there.  "It must be because I worked harder than everybody else" -- let me tell you something, there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. 
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.  There was a great teacher somewhere in your life....  Somebody invested in roads and bridges -- if you've got a business, you didn't build that.  Somebody else made that happen.  The internet didn't get invented on its own.  Government research created the internet so that all the companies could make money off the internet.

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