We Hold these Truths to be Self-Evident that All Humans are Created Equal!

It is the basic, metaphysical fact of human’s nature—the connection between their survival and their use of reason—that capitalism recognizes and protects. America’s abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free people who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortune. They did not starve the people to pay for America’s industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages and more cost efficient goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance—and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering every step of the way. Capitalism and egalitarianism plainly protect rights to fair terms of cooperation and labour. With people having capitalistic impulses, they have their rights peacefully to pursue their own interests. They may wish to invest, retain and bequeath in economic domains. We are indeed driven, by egalitarian impulses, of a perfectly understandable sort, to protect the egalitarian right to fair terms of cooperation and the enhanced liberty that that brings. However, in any society at all, we live in a World in which there will be some restriction or other, on our rights peacefully, to pursue our interests without interference. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

Part of these restriction are to protect us and also to make sure that society remains rational. I cannot lecture in Albanian or even in French in a standard philosophy class at the University of Calgary, I cannot jog naked on most beaches, borrow a book from your library or read your email without your permission, fish in your trout pond without your permission, take your dog for a walk without your say so and the like. At least some of these things have been thought to be things which I might peacefully pursue in my own interest. Stopping me from doing them is plainly interfering with my peaceful pursuit of my own interests. And indeed it is an infringement on liberty, an interference with my doing what I may want to do. However, for at least many of these activities, and particularly the ones having to do with property, right-wing libertarians think that such interference is perfectly justified, even though they plainly constitute a restriction on individual freedom, because without law and order, no one would be safe, and there would be total chaos, like you see right now with the rioting, and wrongful deaths. Therefore, many restrictions are hardly felt as restrictions on freedom, as in the attitudes of many people toward them believe they are safeguards to freedom and gainful employment. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

The restrictions on liberty preferred by egalitarianism and capitalism are justified, of the various alternatives, for they give us both the most extensive and the most abundant system of liberty possible in modern conditions with their thorough protection of the right to fair terms of participation in the system. Capitalism protects us from the past, the way this nation was born, it protects our civil liberties and these liberties are, of course, our most basic liberties. These are the liberties which are the most vital for us to protect. We have unrestricted liberties to invest, retain and bequeath in the economic realm and we have unrestricted freedom to buy and sell. Theses freedoms strengthen rather than weaken our total system of liberty. If we let power run free this way, through hard work, education, and investment everyone has an opportunity to build wealth and this enhances human well-being and indeed makes for a firmer entrenchment of basic liberties and for their greater extension globally. More people are able to do what they want, and have a greater control over their own lives, in a capitalistic World order with its egalitarian commitments. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

Our society is also currently in the redistribution business. We have entitlement programs that provide affordable housing, medical benefits, retirement benefits, disability insurance, welfare and food assistance for those who cannot provide for themselves. Yet, we do not have a welfare state because people are encouraged to work and have a desire to work. This desire and incentive to work is fueled by our need of autonomy and economic prosperity. Everyone wants new things, such as big houses in Cresleigh Ranch, an Ultimate Driving Machine, saving and retirement accounts and that is because they believe in the American Dream, which is a religious doctrine. “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will no be dependent on anybody,” reports 1 Thessalonians 4.11-12. And that is why, during this COVID-19 crisis, many Americans are fighting to reopen the country. They are able to work and feel that sitting idle has stripped them of their heritage, identity and religious obligations. We love and will the World as an immediate, spontaneous totality. We will the World, create it by our decisions, our fiat, our choice; and we love it, give it affect, energy, power to love and change us as we mold and change it. This is what it means to be fully related to one’s World. We do not wish the cutting one person down to size in order to bring about that person’s equality with another person who was in a previously disadvantageous position. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

Taking wealth from someone who has worked for it and redistributing it to others who have not earned it is morally objectionable and it would indeed be deeply morally objectionable in many circumstances. We should not confiscate the property of capitalist because they pay their taxes to support the government, which funds welfare and entitlement programs and public works project. Taxes, when they are reasonable, certainly protects more liberties and more significant liberties than anyone can imagine. However, the inheritance tax should totally be eliminated. No one should be taxed on their legacy, which already has been taxed, it is double taxation. Capitalism is really beneficial. If people have talents, they will want to use them. And if they use them, they are very likely to come out ahead. Coming out ahead means being paid well for the use of our talents. Talents can be recognized and acknowledged in many ways. First, in just the respect and admiration of fine employment of aptitudes that would naturally come from people seeing them so displayed where these people were not twisted by envy; by having these natural gifts, interesting and secure work that their talents fit them for and they merit in virtue of those talents. Capitalism allows for an abundant society because it rewards people for their work and efforts. Recall that in such a society of abundance everyone will be well off and secure. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

People are not going to worry about being a little better than someone else since everyone is provided with equal opportunity to achieve their desires. The talented are in no way, in such a situation, robbed to help the untalented, less affluent and disadvantaged. No one is prevented from amassing wealth. The moral authority for capitalism believes that the interest of everyone matter and matter equally, and it comes from its being the case that is it required by the moral point of view. In life there are two types of identity, which are social and personal identity. Both types of identity can be better understood by bracketing the together and contrasting them to what is called “ego” or “felt” identity, namely, the subjective sense of one’s own situation and one’s own continuity and character that an individual comes to obtain as a result of one’s various social experiences. Social and personal identity are part, first of all, of other persons’ concerns and definitions regarding the individual whose identity is in question. In the case of personal identity, these concerns and definitions can arise even before one is born and continue after one has been buried, existing, then, at time when the individual oneself can have no feelings at all, let alone feelings of identity. On the other hand, ego identity is first f all a subjective, reflexive matter that necessarily must be felt by the individual whose identity is at issue. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

Thus, when a criminal uses an alias one is detaching oneself from one’s personal identity; when one retains the original initials or some other aspect of one’s ego identity. Of course, the individual constructs one’s image of oneself out of the same materials from which others first construct a social and personal identification of one, but one exercises important liberties in regard to what one fashions. There is, for example, a well-known tendency for a person to self-rate the prestige of one’s occupation higher than do those who are otherwise employed. The concept of social identity allowed us to consider stigmatization. The concept of personal identity allowed us to consider the role of information control in stigma management. The idea of ego identity allows us to consider what the individual may feel about stigma and its management, and leads us to give special attention to the advice one is given regarding these matters. Given that the stigmatized individual in our society acquires identity standards which one applies to oneself in spite of failing to conform to them, it is inevitable that one will feel some ambivalence about one’s own self. Some expression of this ambivalence have already been described in connection with the oscillation of identification and association the individual exhibits regarding one’s fellow-stigmatized. Other expressions can be cited. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

The stigmatized individual exhibits a tendency to stratify one’s “own” according to the degree to which their stigma is apparent and obtrusive. One can then take up in regard to those who are more evidently stigmatized than oneself the attitudes the normals take to one. Thus do the hard of hearing stoutly see themselves as anything but deaf persons, and those with defective vision, anything but blind. It is in one’s affiliation with, or separation from, one’s more evidently stigmatized fellows, that the individual’s oscillation of identification is most sharply marked. Linked with this self-betraying kind of stratification is the issues of social alliances, namely, whether the individual’s choice of friends, dates, and spouse will be held to one’s own group or occur “across the line.” A visually impaired girl expresses the matter: “Once—a few years ago—I thought that I would much rather go out with a sighted man than with a blind man. However, I have dates off and on, and slowly my feelings about this have changed. I value the understanding of the blind for the bind, and now I could respect a blind man for his own qualities and be glad for the understanding he could give me. Some of my friends are sighted and some are blind. This, somehow, seems to me the way it ought to be—I cannot understand regulating human relations one way or another. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

Presumably the more allied the individual is with normals, the more one will see oneself in non-stigmatic terms, although there are contexts in which the opposite seems true. Whether closely allied with one’s own kind or not, the stigmatized individual may exhibit identity ambivalence when one obtains a close sight of one’s own kind behaving in a stereotype way, flamboyantly or pitifully acting out the negative attributes imputed to them. The sight may repel one, since after all one supports the norms of the wider society, but one’s social and psychological identification with these offenders holds one to what repels one, transforming repulsion into shame, and then transforming ashamedness itself into something of which one is ashamed. In brief, one can neither embrace one’s group nor let it go. (The phrase “concern with in-group purification” is used to describe the efforts of stigmatized persons not only to “normify” their own conduct but also to clean up the conduct of others in the group.) This ambivalence seems to be found most acutely in the process of “nearing,” that is, of the individual’s coming close to an undesirable instance of one’s own kind while “with” a normal. It is only to be expected that this identity ambivalence will receive organized expression in the written, talked, acted, and otherwise presented materials of representatives of the group. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

Thus, in the published and stage-performed humor of the stigmatized is to be found a special kind of irony. Cartoons, jokes, and folk tales display unseriously the weakness of a stereotypical member of the category, even while this half-hero is made to guilelessly outwit a normal of imposing status. The serious presentations of the representatives can exhibit a similar ambivalence, telling of a similar self-alienation. The sadistic person, as we have seen one thus far, is one who because one feels excluded and doomed runs amok, venting one’s rage at others in blind vindictiveness. And we understand, now, that by making others miserable one seeks to alleviate one’s own misery. However, this can hardly be the whole explanation. The destructive aspects alone do not explain the absorbing passion characteristic of so many sadistic pursuits. There must be some more beneficial gains, gains that for the sadistic person are of vital importance. This statement might seem to contradict the assumption that sadism is an outgrowth of hopelessness. How can a hopeless person hope for something and go after it, what is more, with such consuming energy? The fact is, however, that from a subjective standpoint there is considerable to be gained. In degrading others one not only allays one’s intolerable self-contempt but at the same time gives oneself a feeling of superiority. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

When one molds the lives of others one not only gains a stimulating feeling of power over them but also finds a substitute meaning for one’s life. When one exploits others emotionally one provides a vicarious emotional life for oneself that lessens one own sense of barrenness. When one defeats others one wins a triumphant elation which obscures one’s own hopeless defeat. This craving for vindictive triumph is probably one’s most intense motivating force. All one’s pursuits serve as well to gratify one’s hunger for thrills and excitement. A healthy, well-balanced person does not need such thrills. The more mature one is the less does one care for them. However, the emotional life of the sadistic person is empty. Almost all feelings except those of anger and triumph have been choked off. One is so dead that one needs these sharp stimuli to feel alive. Last but not least, one’s sadistic dealings with others provide one with a feeling of strength and pride which reinforce one’s unconscious feeling of strength and pride which reinforce one’s unconscious feeling of omnipotence. During analysis an individual’s attitude towards one’s sadistic trends undergoes profound changes. When one first becomes aware of them, one is likely to assume a critical attitude toward them. However, one’s implied rejection is now wholehearted; it is rather a matter of giving lip service to current standards. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

Intermittently one may have spells of self-loathing. At a later period, however, when one is on the verge of relinquishing one’s sadistic way of living, one may suddenly feel that one is about to lose something precious. One may then for the first time consciously experience elation at being able to do with others as one pleases. One may express concern lest analysis turn one into a contemptible weakling. And again, as so often in analysis, the individual’s concern is subjectively warranted: bereft of one’s own power to make other serve one’s emotional needs one sees oneself as a wretched and helpless creature. In time one will realize that the feeling of strength and pride one derived from being sadistic is a poor substitute. It was precious to one only because real strength and real pride were unattainable. When we are away of the nature of these gains we see that there is no contradiction in the statement that a hopeless persona may be frantically searching for something. However, it is not greater freedom or greater self-fulfillment that one expects to find: all that goes to make up one’s hopelessness remains unchained, and one does not count on changing it. What one pursues are substitutes. The emotional gains are achieved by living vicariously. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

To be sadistic means to live aggressively and for the most part destructively, through other persons. However, this is the only way a person so utterly defeated can live. The recklessness with which one pursues one’s goals is the recklessness born of despair. Having nothing to lose, one can only gain. In this sense sadistic strivings have a beneficial goal and must be regarded as an attempt at restitution. The reason why the goal is so passionately pursued is that in triumphing over others the sadistic person is able to remove one’s own abject sense of defeat. The destructive elements inherent in these strivings cannot, however, remain without repercussions on the individual oneself. We have already pointed to the heightening of self-contempt. An equally significant repercussion is the generation of anxiety. This is in par a fear of retaliation: one fears that others will treat one as one treats them—or wants to treat them. Consciously, it appears not so much as a fear as in simply taking it for granted that they would “give one a real deal” if they could—that is, if one does not prevent it by being constantly on the offensive. One must be so alert in foreseeing and forestalling any possible attack that for all practical purposes one will be inviolable. The unconscious conviction of one’s own inviolability often plays a considerable role. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

It gives one a lordly feeling of security: one could never be hurt, one could never be exposed, one could never, one could never have an accident, or contract a disease or virus; one could not, indeed, ever die. If nonetheless one does get hurt, by persons or circumstances, one’s pseudo security is shattered and one is likely to be seized by acute panic. In part, one’s anxiety is a fear of the explosive, destructive elements within oneself. One feels like a rocket in the hands of a well named dictator of modern times. Excessive self-control and continuous vigilance are needed to keep these dangerous elements in check. If one is not too frightened to loosen up under the influence of liquor, when one drinks, they may come to the surface. One may become violently destructive. The impulses may also come closer to awareness under special conditions that for one represent temptation. Thus when attracted to a girl, the sadist in Zola’s Bete Humaine becomes panicky because this arouses an impulse to take her life. Witnessing an accident or any act of cruelty may bring on a seizure of fear because these awaken one’ own impulse to destroy. “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that Christ’s power may rest on me,” reports 2 Corinthians 12.9. That life is difficult is a self-evident and universally recognized truth. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

The morning newspaper reported that over 40 million jobs were lost in American in two months, making a historically robust economy worse and leaving people without paychecks. And a young man has lost his life while the country is in an uproar. We live in a fallen and sin-cursed World. Even Christians are not immune from the frustrating and often overwhelming circumstances of life resulting from that curse. I think of a could who should be entering their retirement years, but cannot because they are still caring for a grown but partially dependent child. I am reminded of another friend who is faithfully caring for her husband, now stricken with Alzheimer’s disease. This morning I prayed for several families who are trying to cope with teenage and even grown children living in various stages of spiritual rebellion and estrangement from their parents. Only a block away, a mother with young children fights a seemingly futile battle with cancer. Not only are we as Christians not immune from such heartaches, it often seems we experience more of them than do the non-Christians around us. However, for almost two thousand years, multiplied thousands of believers have found comfort, encouragement, and the strength to endure from God’s words to the apostle Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you,” reports 2 Corinthians 12.9. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

Paul was no stranger to adversity. Earlier in 2 Corinthians he had spoken of his troubles, hardships, distresses, beatings, imprisonments, riots, hard work, sleepless nights, and hunger (6.4-5). Yet one particular affliction apparently caused him more pain and grief than all the others combined. He referred to it as “a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me,” reports 2 Corinthians 12.7. We have no idea what Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” was. It is pointless to speculate. Whatever it was, it was probably a natural hinderance to his ministry. We do know it was a Satanic attack (a messenger of Satan), but it was given to him at the direction of the God whom he loved and served with all his heart. Paul have had a unique experience. As he described in the opening verses of 2 Corinthians 12, he had been caught up to the “third Heaven,” to God’s paradise, and had heard inexpressible things—things he was not permitted to tell. This rapturous experience apparently unique to Paul, could have caused him to be filled with pride had he been left to himself. However, God in His infinite wisdom and love for Paul did not leave him exposed to that temptation. Paul himself described God’s gracious bulwark against pride this way: “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

“Three times I pleased with the Lord to take it away from me. However, he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, I am strong,” reports 2 Corinthians 12.7-10. The Christian theology is symbolic follows upon the fact that it claims to be a foundation of faith. Faith, as human’s attempt to assert the Unconditional, cannot be expressed in conditioned language. However, all language is conditioned. It is limited by the very concepts that it seeks to express, and by the linguistic tools at its disposal, which themselves result from long historical evolutions. To speak of formulating human’s search for the Unconditional would therefore be to march towards a mirage, if there were no such thing as an indirect, symbolic use of language. And not only words are involved in this problem. Words correspond to concepts, which themselves depend on previous or simultaneous experience of knowledge. Knowledge is the concept of symbol. The pure in heart receive the pleasing word of God—Lamanite righteousness exceeds that of the Nephites—Jacob warns against fornication, lasciviousness, and every sin. #RandolpHarris 17 of 21

“But behold, I, Jacob, would speak unto you that are pure of heart. Look unto God with firmness of mind, and pray unto him with exceeding faith, and he will console you in your afflictions, and he will plead your cause, and send down justice upon those who seek your destruction. O all ye that are pure in heart, lift up your heads and receive the pleasing word of God, and feast upon his love; for ye may, if your minds are firm, forever. However, wo, wo, unto you that are filthy this day before God; for expect ye repent the land is cursed for your sakes; and the laminates, which are not filthy like unto you, nevertheless they are cursed with a score cursing, shall scourge you even unto destruction. And the time speedily cometh, that except ye repent they shall possess the land of your inheritance, and the Lord God will lead away the righteous out from among you. Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate because of their filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skins, are more righteous than you; for they have not forgotten the commandments of the Lord, which was given unto our father—that they should have save it were one wife, and concubines they should have none, and there should not be whoredoms committed among them. And now, this commandment they observe to keep; wherefore, because of this observance, in keeping this commandment, the Lord God will not destroy them, but will be merciful unto them; and one day they shall become a blessed people. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

“Behold, their husbands love their wives, and their wives love their husbands; and their wives love their children; and their unbelief and their hatred towards you is because of the iniquity of their fathers; wherefore, how much better are you than they, in sight of your great Creator? O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God. Wherefore, a commandment I give unto you, which is the word of God, that ye revile no ore against them because of the darkness of their skins; neither shall ye revile against them because of their filthiness; but ye shall remember that their filthiness, and remember that their filthiness came because of their fathers. Wherefore, ye shall remember your children, how that ye have grieved their hearts because of the example that ye have set before them; and also, remember that ye may, because of your filthiness, bring your children unto destruction, and their sins be heaped upon your heads at the last day. O my brethren, hearken unto my words; arouse the faculties of your souls; shake yourselves that ye may awake from the slumber of death; and loose yourselves from the pains of hell that ye may not become Angels to the devil, to be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone which is the second death. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

“And now I, Jacob, spake many more things unto the people of Nephi, warning them against fornication and lasciviousness, and every kind of sin, telling them the awful consequences of them. And a hundredth part of the proceedings of this people, which now began to be numerus, cannot be written upon these plates; but many of their proceedings are written upon the larger plates, and their wars, and their contentions, and the reigns of their kings. These plates are called the plates of Jacob, and they were made by the hand of Nephi. And I make an end of speaking these words,” report Jacob 3.1-14. O True Father, behold Thy Son, the Sacrifice well-pleasing to Thee. Through Him Who died for me, be propitious to me. Look on the Blood which was shed on Golgotha by the wicked, and which pleadeth for me; accept my entreaty for its sake. My offenses are not greater than Thy compassions; Thy clemency outweighs the hills which Thou weighest in a balance. Behold my sins, but behold also the Sacrifice presented for them; for that Sacrifice is much greater than my guilt. On account of the sins which I have committed, Thy Beloved One endured the nails and spears; His sufferings are enough to propitiate Thee, and to be the means of life to me. Glory be to the Father Who gave up His Son for our salvation; and to the Son Who died upon the Cross, and bestowed life upon us all; and to the Spirit Who began and finished the mystery of our salvation. O most high Trinity, spare us all! Heavenly Father, if I should suffer need, and go unclothed, and be in poverty, make my heart prize Thy love, know it, be constrained by it, though I be denied all blessings. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

It is Thy mercy to afflict and try me with wants, for by these trials I see my sins, and desire severance from them. Let me willingly accept misery, sorrows, temptations, if I can thereby feel sin as the greatest evil, and be delivered from it with gratitude to thee, acknowledging this as the highest testimony of Thy love. When Thy Son, Jesus, came into my soul instead of sin, he became more dear to me than sin had formerly been; his kindly rule replaced sin’s tyranny. Please teach me to believe that if ever I would have any sin subdued I must not only labour to overcome it, but must invite Christ to abide in the place of it, and he must become to me more than vile lust has been; that his sweetness, power, life may be there. Thus I must seek a grace from him contrary to sin, but must not claim it apart from himself. When I am afraid of evils to come, comfort me by showing me that in myself I am dying, condemned wretch, but in Christ I am reconciled and live; that in my self I am a dying, condemned wretch, but in Christ I am reconciled and live; that in myself I find insufficiency and no rest, but in Christ there is satisfaction and peace; that in myself I am feeble and unable to do good, but in Christ I have ability to do all things. Though now I have his graces in part, I shall shortly have them perfectly in that state where thou wilt show thyself fully reconciled, and alone sufficient, efficient, loving me completely, with sin abolished. O Lord, please hasten that day. #RadolphHarris 21 of 21