By John Seiler

I got some pretty good response to my article, “Brown official: You’re our slave.” I was attacking the statement by Gil Duran, Gov. Jerry Brown’s press secretary, “We have to look beyond our personal interests to where we are going as a society.”

I wrote, “Translation: As a taxpayer, you’re the slave of government.”

I just found an article with a similar theme to mine by David Mamet, the writer and director. He’s been moving to the right for some years. In the liberal Village Voice in 2008, he wrote, “Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal.'”

His latest, for Newsweek no less, “Gun Laws and the Fools of Chelm,” worth reading in full. He doesn’t pull any punches and at the top brings up Socialist No. 1:

“Karl Marx summed up Communism as ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.’ This is a good, pithy saying, which, in practice, has succeeded in bringing, upon those under its sway, misery, poverty, rape, torture, slavery, and death.

“For the saying implies but does not name the effective agency of its supposed utopia. The agency is called ‘The State,’ and the motto, fleshed out, for the benefit of the easily confused must read ‘The State will take from each according to his ability: the State will give to each according to his needs.’ ‘Needs and abilities’ are, of course, subjective. So the operative statement may be reduced to ‘the State shall take, the State shall give.’”

Right. That’s the operative mode of Duran-Brown. It’s also that of President Obama in his statement, “You didn’t build that.” And Obama’s State of the Union Address on Jan. 21 positively dripped with contempt for individual freedom and with the glorification of the collective.

Bureaucrats

More Mamet:

“All of us have had dealings with the State, and have found, to our chagrin, or, indeed, terror, that we were not dealing with well-meaning public servants or even with ideologues but with overworked, harried bureaucrats. These, as all bureaucrats, obtain and hold their jobs by complying with directions and suppressing the desire to employ initiative, compassion, or indeed, common sense. They are paid to follow orders.

“Rule by bureaucrats and functionaries is an example of the first part of the Marxist equation: that the Government shall determine the individual’s abilities.

“As rules by the Government are one-size-fits-all, any governmental determination of an individual’s abilities must be based on a bureaucratic assessment of the lowest possible denominator. The government, for example, has determined that black people (somehow) have fewer abilities than white people, and, so, must be given certain preferences. Anyone acquainted with both black and white people knows this assessment is not only absurd but monstrous. And yet it is the law.

“President Obama, in his reelection campaign, referred frequently to the “needs” of himself and his opponent [Mitt Romney], alleging that each has more money than he ‘needs.’

“But where in the Constitution is it written that the Government is in charge of determining ‘needs’? And note that the president did not say ‘I have more money than I need,’ but ‘You and I have more than we need.’ Who elected him to speak for another citizen?

“It is not the constitutional prerogative of the Government to determine needs. One person may need (or want) more leisure, another more work; one more adventure, another more security, and so on. It is this diversity that makes a country, indeed a state, a city, a church, or a family, healthy. ‘One-size-fits-all,’ and that size determined by the State has a name, and that name is ‘slavery.’”

Slavery

Mamet gets it. About 40 percent of my money is seized by the government. And faceless government bureaucrats minutely control at least another 25 percent of my life through mindless regulations. So, about two-thirds of my life is not mine, but the government’s. I’m their slave.

Sure, I get to “vote” for which of two whip-yielding masters takes my money. But I never get to vote to set myself free. As to elections, see “Wag the Dog,” screenplay by Mamet.

As Walter Williams, whose ancestors were chattel slaves here in America before 1865, pointed out:

“A good working description is: slavery is a set of circumstances whereby one person is forcibly used to serve the purposes of another person and has no legal claim to the fruits of his labor.

“The average American worker toils from January 1st to the end of April, and has no legal claim to the fruits of his labor for that period. Federal, state and local governments, through the tax code, take what he produces. A small portion of the fruits of his labor is used to provide for the constitutional functions of government. Most of what’s taken, up to two-thirds, is given to some other American in the forms of farm and business subsidies, Social Security, Medicare, welfare and hundreds of other government handout programs. As in slavery, one person is being forcibly used to serve the purposes of another person.”

If we followed the Constitution, government would be about 2 percent of what it is today, and wouldn’t regulate us at all. But we don’t.

A slave revolt is brewing.

By John Seiler

If you listen closely, sometimes government officials tell you what they really think of you. Concerning the controversy over whether golfer Phil Mickelson might leave California because of the massive Proposition 30 tax increase, Gov. Jerry Brown’s press secretary, Gil Duran, said: “We have to look beyond our personal interests to where we are going as a society.”

Translation: As a taxpayer, you’re the slave of government.

“look beyond our personal interests” means government orders, you obey.

“where we are going” means where your master, government, orders you to go as a slave.

“as a society” means you have no freedom, but are just a slave on the Big Government Plantation, where “society” takes care of all your needs, makes sure you don’t hurt yourself or somebody else and properly distributes all the fruits of your labor.

You really don’t have any money, because all your money belongs to government. They just dole it out to you. Everybody, essentially, is given EBT cards by government. Those on welfare get EBT cards they use, paid for by the rest of us.

But the rest of us — the taxpayers — are doled back a little, EBT-card fashion, from our own money, the rest of which is enjoyed you our masters. That amount is decided by “society” — that is, by government masters like Brown and Duran.

And of course, those who run the “society” get massive compensation at our expense.

By John Seiler

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan criticized our fair state. That brought an Aug. 19 reply from Gil Duran, Gov. Jerry Brown’s press secretary. But it’s Duran who’s inaccurate.

He wrote:

“Peggy Noonan assumes the role of Chicken Little in her assessment of California, but the facts contradict her gloom and doom (“A Nation That Believes Nothing,” Declarations, Aug. 11). The Golden State is leading the nation in job growth, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

That’s because we still have the country’s biggest population, almost double No. 2 Texas. But our unemployment rate July, as reported Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, remains stuck at 10.7 percent, third worst in the nation. And the L.A. Times reported:

“Still, California employers shed jobs in other industries such as trade, transportation and utilities, which lost 8,000 jobs. Manufacturing lost 3,100 jobs and construction, 1,200 jobs.

“The report also showed that the state’s labor force shrunk by almost 53,000 in July as job seekers stopped actively looking for work.”

Duran:

“California attracts more venture capital investment than all other 49 states combined, according to Standard & Poor’s, and California’s exports are at historic highs after 31 months of steady growth.”

True enough. If you’re an 180-IQ computer nerd from anywhere in the world, you still make the pilgrimage to Silicon Valley, grab venture capital and make your billions — while outsourcing production to China and your server farms to North Carolina.

But if your IQ is <180, then there’s a good chance you’re standing in an unemployment line or heading to the U-Haul lot ready to head out of Dodge, Calif.

Bond ratings

Duran:

“The state’s bond rating outlook shifted from negative to positive under Gov. Jerry Brown’s watch.”

That’s so misleading. In February, S&P did revise the state’s credit rating outlook to “positive.” But just three months later, in May, S&P warned, “We could change the outlook to negative or lower the rating if we believe the state’s credit quality weakens through the budget process.” Throughout that period, S&P gave California an A- rating, the worst of any state.

And on our site, as Chriss Street reported, Moody’s is warning of more California bankruptcies. And the Federal Reserve Board is warning that California and other municipal bonds are risky.

Duran:

“California’s unemployment rate is the result of job losses that occurred when Republicans occupied the White House and the statehouse.”

Fair enough. Bush and Schwarzenegger were terrible leaders. But although the “White House” and “statehouse” parallel allows for a nice alliteration, in fact it’s an inapt comparison. The White House is the locus of federal executive power. But the California statehouse is the state Capitol that houses all three branches of the state government. And during Arnold’s entire dismal tenure, Democrats enjoyed large majorities in both houses of the Legislature.

Jobs

Now, as to federal policy, why is California’s unemployment rate the third worst among the states? Moreover, a Democrat, Barack Obama, has been president for almost four years now. President Ronald Reagan inherited an economy just as bad in 1981, yet by 1983 the economy was humming with 7 percent growth due to his tax cuts.

As to Schwarzenegger, his worst jobs-killing policies — AB 32 and tax increases — are embraced by Brown. The new governor is a big booster of AB 32. And he’s pushing his Proposition 30 tax increases.

Ironically, the slight California economic recovery of the Brown years coincides with the expiration of Arnold’s tax increases in 2011. Remember how Brown spent much of spring and summer 2011 trying to “extend” Arnold’s tax increases, but was blocked by Republicans in the Legislature? For once, California businesses got a break — and it happened because Brown’s wishes were thwarted.

“Under Democratic leadership, jobs are coming back. That’s great news for California but ‘grim salad’ indeed for conservative parroters.”

Again: Then why is California’s unemployment rate 10.7 percent? Why has Michigan, under a conservative Republican governor, Rick Snyder, seen its unemployment rate drop from 15 percent — worse than California’s — a couple years back, to 9 percent and dropping today? It sure wasn’t Obama’s GM bailout, which has failed and cost taxpayers $24 billion.

Moreover, the inland area of California continues to suffer massive unemployment of more than 20 percent. And the municipal bankruptcies are just beginning.

After the hideous Bush and Schwarzenegger years, Republicans certainly still have much to answer for. But Democrats are running the show now, in control of the White House and the U.S. Senate, and especially holding almost total power in the state Capitol. Blame for the ongoing California debacle has to lie with them.