August 14, 2007
by Clay Barham

There are only two world traditions.  One is our New World American tradition, and the other the tradition found in the rest of the world, the Old World. The New World tradition of individual liberty rose out of rebellion to the ancient, established and long-endured Old World tradition, where the few rule the many.  America's new tradition proved a success and the Old continues as a failure. Americans prospered from freedom, something the Old World never provided their people. 

How, then, can Americans justify sending their treasure to shore up the failings of the Old World?  Why should people who are free and prosperous pay to line the pockets of those who tyrannize their own people, as well as threatening their benefactors with assault?  None of this even qualifies as a good Lewis Carroll wonderland story. It is irrational!

Individual freedom, where the legitimate self-interests of individuals, using their own skills and talents to pursue their own aspirations, provide men and women, their families and communities, levels of prosperity far beyond what Old World societies create. Should Americans financially support nations where failure comes from an old and outworn tradition?  Monies taken from those who are free, as taxes, go to nations to build the personal wealth and defense of rulers and governments who savage and enslave their own people. Those monies keep the people of those nations in bondage and misery.  Why would any American, who has tasted freedom and prosperity, ever want to pay to enslave people from other parts of the world?

The practice of sending American's hard-earned money to prop up an Arafat or Amin may be a preview of what we should expect in America when the next crop of politicians take control of the treasury.  Will politicians, who prefer the few managing the many, give our taxes as aid to their domestic cronies and those who support them at election time?  If that is the case, why not start now and give foreign aid only to those nations who pledge to support the interests of the United States, instead of sending us terrorists in payment?

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Politicians lead us to believe that our taxes are really buying peace by shoring up the Old World tradition, where the few rule the many.  It would lead a sane person to believe those giving away our taxes to some of the world's worst scum, paves the way for those generous bureaucrats and politicians to buy a similar peace at home, in America, for them.  They have been trying to sell Americans on the need for a few of their elite to take charge anyway, so they can better plan, engineer and manage our society to fit their respective views in support of community interests.  We seem to be working hard to pay for our own enslavement, with our own taxes.

If an Old World nation really wants help, to keep their people from starving and to build their own nation's prosperity, let them prove it by becoming a nation of laws, not men.  Let them create an atmosphere where their people can rise above their own poverty, by pursuing their own interests, skills, talents and aspirations, attracting private investment from the New World Americans willing to risk venture capital.  Let it not be taxes taken from Americans with bureaucratic strings attached.

If the people of those nations were free to exploit their own resources for profit, the whole New World tradition would spread to them and insure their chance for what we here call the American Dream.  Would the few who rule the many welcome such a move, knowing their personal power and wealth would disappear? 

No, they would fight it, using the monies given them from the American taxpayer to make sure no man or woman will rise in wealth and stature with freedom in the nation they manage.  The American politician already has to deal with many free and prosperous people, and to go back to their preferred Old World tradition, they must bankrupt their own government first.  Giving more and more foreign aid to dictatorships may be the quickest way to get that job done.

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Clay Barham [send him email] has been a candidate for the California legislature and a stand-in talk show host for ABC.  He was educated in physical and behavioral sciences, with a Ph.D. in sociology.  He is the author of five books, with his latest being Foundations of Modern American Conservatism and Liberalism: The Roots of Freedom and Tyranny.  Visit his website at http://www.claysamerica.com.