Barack Obama, America’s Selective Salary Policeman

Personal Freedom and Power 103:  Possessions
 
“….private property, production, and voluntary exchange that are the ultimate sources of human civilization.”  Hans-Hermann Hoppe
 
Utilizing possessions greatly advances a person’s opportunities to invest their time, intellect, and labor. This fosters inspiration and resourcefulness and propels commerce, science and art.  Civilization advances.

Barack Obama, America’s Selective Salary Policeman

President Obama said, “I think at some point you have made enough money.”

Michelle Malkin in Real Clear Politics observed the President’s bias and intent to limit a person’s lawfully earned wage, and his weak recognition of what made America the economic powerhouse.  Malkin quoted the President: “I think at some point you have made enough money.”  Peddling financial regulatory reform at a rally in Quincy, Ill., Obama then ad-libbed peculiar definitions of what he called the “American way” and the profit motive: “(Y)ou can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or providing good service. We don’t want people to stop, ah, fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow our economy.”

Next Malkin, citing her Fundamental lesson of Capitalism 101, states why America is exceptional:

Governments and bureaucrats don’t make what people want and need. They only get in the way. It is individuals, cooperating peacefully and voluntarily, working together without mandate or central design, who produce the world’s goods and services. They make what people desire and demand for themselves, not what Obama and his imperial overlords ordain that the masses should have.

Malkin correctly observes the benefits of people freely exchanging ideas, goods and services.  What does this have to do with restricting the amount of money a person makes?  A core element of freedom is liberty to labor as a person chooses, reaping the fruits of their labor (money), and directing how their money is used.  Utilizing their money greatly increases their opportunity to invest their time, intellect and labor. This fosters inspiration and resourcefulness and propels commerce, science and art.  Personal freedom best advances civilization.
America is exceptional because of the philosophy of freedom acknowledged in our founding documents.  Indispensable for personal freedom is the liberty to contemplate, reason, communicate, exchange and work and to possess the gains made by these endeavors.  

George Mason codified the elements of freedom in the Virginia Declaration of Rights when he stated, “certain inherent rights, namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”  

Tragically, few of our governing imperial overlords, Republicans and Democrats, appreciate and practice the philosophy of freedom.