As we noted with C. S. Lewis, the problem with being a prophet is that your powers are acknowledged only after it is too late. Once it's all caved in, or blown up, or come crashing down, everyone sees that you were right. 

Things are a bit different for Friedrich von Hayek's classic The Road to Serfdom. Published in Britain in 1944, its warnings about state socialism were immediately recognized as profound and pertinent to the dismal post-war economic situation. Once published in America the following year, it became a bestseller, and Hayek, a hitherto unknown Austrian economist living as an expatriate in England, became an international celebrity. A Reader's Digest version of the book alone sold over 600,000 copies. People at the time obviously understood the seriousness of his warning.

Hayek was responding to the European and American infatuation with socialism, i.e., with the notion that we'd all be better off if the central government would take control of everything, and direct the political, social, and economic activities of the nation. The logic of socialist thinking went something like this. Scientists have made great headway in conquering nature, and even approach god-like knowledge in physics, chemistry, and the other material and mechanical sciences. Shouldn't we be directing human beings and human society with the same kind of technical efficiency? Couldn't society itself purr along happily if we ran it like a large, well-oiled machine? Wouldn't an elite panel of scientific experts be the obvious candidates for firmly and boldly steering the wheel of state?

Sounds inviting, even thrilling to those given to fantastic visions of our utopian future. All that was needed was to clear the nay-sayers, luddites, traditionalists, yokels, and all obstructive institutions standing between the state and the individual from the decks of the ship of state. Then, full steam ahead.

Hayek was horrified at such a vision, and not merely for economic reasons. While Hayek was an economist, he had a much broader, deeper education that guided his economic arguments. In fact, he describes The Road to Serfdom as a "political book." By "political" he meant something much broader and deeper than we do today, more like what the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle meant by calling human beings "political animals." We are rational creatures that live together in community, not just to supply our physical needs, but also to enjoy the higher human goods and perfect our moral nature. Part of our moral perfection is learning to govern ourselves, to guide our own lives.

Democracy, at its best, is a school of self-government. If democracy is to work properly, it must be built from the local ground up, layer by layer—the very opposite direction of top-down totalitarian socialism. In Hayek's words,

"Least of all shall we preserve democracy or foster its growth if all the power and most of the important decisions rest with an organization far too big for the common man to survey or comprehend. Nowhere has democracy ever worked well without a great measure of local self-government, providing a school of political training for the people at large as much as for their future leaders. It is only where responsibility can be learned and practiced in affairs with which most people are familiar, where it is the awareness of one's neighbor rather than some theoretical knowledge of the needs of other people which guides action, that the ordinary man can take a real part in public affairs because they concern the world he knows."

But as Hayek pointed out, the associations and institutions that are so important for schooling us in self-government—town councils, civic organizations, churches, clubs, county governments—are the very intermediate institutions that state socialism seemed to think were not only unnecessary but downright obstructive to top-down utopian visionary planning.

Again, for Hayek, the socialist desire was rooted in scientism, the notion that the social sciences should imitate the material sciences, and manipulate and reform human beings like some kind of mechanical objects according to some techno-utopian scheme.

"Those who argue that we have to an astounding degree learned to master the forces of nature but are sadly behind in making successful use of the possibilities of social collaboration are quite right so far as this statement goes. But they are mistaken when they carry the comparison further and argue that we must learn to master the forces of society in the same manner in which we have learned to master the forces of nature. This is not only the path to totalitarianism but the path to destruction of our civilization and a certain way to block future progress."

For Hayek, an essential bulwark against the scientific management of man was freedom from government centralizing power. Centralization of power leads to micromanaging the daily lives of citizens from Washington. Decentralization puts economic, political, and social decisions on the local level where they belonged, the place where people can make the best decisions because they are the ones who are most familiar with the details.

But even more important, putting economic, political, and social decisions on the local level is a moral imperative. "What our generation is in danger of forgetting," warned Hayek, "is not only that morals are of necessity a phenomenon of individual conduct but also that they can exist only in the sphere in which the individual is free to decide for himself and is called upon voluntarily to sacrifice personal advantage to the observance of a moral rule." If someone takes that responsibility from us, they have stripped us of our moral nature. "Responsibility, not to a superior, but to one's conscience, the awareness of a duty not exacted by compulsion, the necessity to decide which of the things one values are to be sacrificed to others, and to bear the consequences of one's own decision, are the very essence of any morals which deserve the name."

That is what the economic "collectivism" of a socialist-style government destroys. "A movement whose main promise is the relief from responsibility cannot but be antimoral in its effect, however lofty the ideals to which it owes its birth."

Now we must ask ourselves, in all seriousness, are we now on the road to serfdom to an all-powerful, all-encompassing federal government? Even more painful, is our liberty being taken from us because we have shirked our moral responsibility to govern ourselves well? Failed to provide for our own families? Frittered our own way into hopeless personal debt? Carelessly destroyed our own health? Foolishly mismanaged our own businesses?

Such are the moral failures that can pave the road to serfdom, and bring us to run gladly into the arms of the state to save us from ourselves.

Americans are re-evaluating the reach of Washington in everyday life

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/State_of_the_Union/state-union-2010-fact-check-president-obamas-address/story?id=9680549

The Road to Serfdom in Cartoons

http://mises.org/books/TRTS/

Atheists vs. Mother Teresa

Small wonder that atheists want to stamp out Mother Teresa. She is obviously an affront to atheists. Virulent atheist Christopher Hitchens wrote a vile little book attempting to tar and brush her, Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice. Now comes the latest assault against the world-renowned and world-beloved saint, this time from the Freedom from Religion Foundation. They’re in froth and dither about the U.S. Postal Service’s announcement of a Mother Teresa stamp for 2010.

“With this stamp, the U.S. Postal Service recognizes Mother Teresa, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work. Noted for her compassion toward the poor and suffering, Mother Teresa, a diminutive Roman Catholic nun and honorary U.S. citizen, served the sick and destitute of India and the world for nearly 50 years. Her humility and compassion, as well as her respect for the innate worth and dignity of humankind, inspired people of all ages and backgrounds to work on behalf of the world’s poorest populations….

When Mother Teresa accepted the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize—one of her numerous honors and distinctions—she did so ‘in the name of the poor, the hungry, the sick and the lonely,’ and convinced the organizers to donate to the needy the money normally used to fund the awards banquet. Well respected worldwide, she successfully urged many of the world’s business and political leaders to give their time and resources to help those in need. President Ronald Reagan presented Mother Teresa with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985, the same year she began work on behalf of AIDS sufferers in the U.S. and other countries. In 1997, Congress awarded Mother Teresa the Congressional Gold Medal for her ‘outstanding and enduring contributions through humanitarian and charitable activities.’”

Not good enough for the Freedom from Religion Foundation. They claim she is a “polarizing Roman Catholic figurehead” who should not be enshrined on a stamp, and that fellow atheists should fire off angry emails to the Post Office letting them know they’ve violated the sacred—or unsacred?—boundary separating Church and State. They suggest using this outrage as a teaching moment to inform others of the “darker side of Mother Teresa’s religious activism.”

If you wonder how atheists can find fault with someone so evidently holy and selfless that even the secular media inclined its head in awe, then you’ve missed an obvious point. It is precisely because Mother Teresa was so evidently holy that the atheists feel they must attack her. She is an affront to their self-congratulatory notion that atheists are just as—nay, even more—moral than Christians. She is undeniable proof that, while some atheists may act with more moral integrity than some Christians, no atheists ever come close to the kind of radiant sanctity of someone like Mother Teresa.

Dr. Benjamin Wiker

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.printable&pageId=122843

Pro-choice leaders show their pro-abortion advocacy in their opposition to Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow's Super Bowl Ad.

Pro-Life, Pro-Abortion Groups Clash on Tim Tebow Super Bowl Ad, Lobby CBS

"Marjorie Dannenfelser, the head of the Susan B. Anthony List, another pro-life women's group, also weighed in on the debate.

'NOW and company are losing their grip as their pro- abortion position sinks in public opinion,' she said.

'What is real here is their desperation to keep full information from women,' Dannenfelser continued. 'Shouldn't the 'pro-choice' position respect Pam Tebow's decision to choose Life?'

'What is the worst case scenario in allowing the ad to air? Women are exposed to an example of sacrifice for the sake of an unborn child. NOW needs to explain where the harm and threat to women and children is here,' she told LifeNews.com.

In an interview with reporters on Sunday, Tebow defended the ad.

' know some people won't agree with it, but I think they can at least respect that I stand up for what I believe,' Tebow said. 'I've always been very convicted of it (his views on abortion) because that's the reason I'm here, because my mom was a very courageous woman. So any way that I could help, I would do it.'

The Super Bowl ad would be costly -- as a spot during the game and three 30-second commercials before it would reportedly run about $2-3 million -- but provides a unique exposure to a large national and international audience."

LifeNews.com

The Moral Case Against the Nanny State

Friedrich Hayek’s economic argument against socialism in The Road to Serfdom was in large part a moral argument.

The moral case against state socialism is rooted in individual responsibility.

No one can be good for us, reasons Hayek. If I am to be good, I must act kindly in my daily life to my family, my friends, and my neighbors, I must act justly to those with whom I deal in my business relationships, I must provide for my family by my work. If the government assumes my moral responsibilities as a husband and father, it takes away more than half my soul, and removes from me the very conditions and opportunity in which I can be a moral being.

“What our generation is in danger of forgetting,” warned Hayek, “is not only that morals are of necessity a phenomenon of individual conduct but also that they can exist only in the sphere in which the individual is free to decide for himself and is called upon voluntarily to sacrifice personal advantage to the observance of a moral rule.” If the government takes that responsibility from us, it has stripped us of our moral nature. “Responsibility, not to a superior, but to one’s conscience, the awareness of a duty not exacted by compulsion, the necessity to decide which of the things one values are to be sacrificed to others, and to bear the consequences of one’s own decision, are the very essence of any morals which deserve the name.”

That is what the economic “collectivism” of a socialist-style government destroys. “A movement whose main promise is the relief from responsibility cannot but be antimoral in its effect, however lofty the ideals to which it owes its birth.”

http://www.amazon.com/Road-Serfdom-Fiftieth-Anniversary/dp/0226320618

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