To enact a socialist program, a state necessarily needs to replace the profit motive. As it is human to follow self interest, a government must either rely from the onset purely on force or it must undertake regulation of every corner of society. Since most socialists are well meaning idealists, they balk at the use of force, and thus the latter - soceital regulation - almost always precedes the former by some time. A government that attempts to replace the profit motive or self interest must attempt to fundamentally alter human nature (an action which seems out of human hands). The thoughts of individuals about their own person and society and the conscious or instinctual evolutionary reactions to a society or environment by an individual must be changed fundamentally.

To change human nature, the government must be present and influential in every phase of life, for one learns in every phase of life. It must tailor the information an individual has access to, form and reform an individual’s reactions to that information, and mold or fabricate a social and legal environment that promotes in every way the desires and preferred behaviors of the government. A state must regulate the actions between individuals, ensuring that they do not exchange thought dangerous to the progressive aims of the state. A state thus cannot limit its purview to a single generation nor can it consider a particular generation to be of a separate sphere in regards to posterity. The government must, to prevent ideological regression, influence and exert control over the relations between the generations, assuming the role of the parent to ensure that the old human nature remains a relic.

A state of socialist tendencies must change human nature to survive and to propagate its preferred means to stated desired ends; to change that nature, a state must be omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, absolute and unrestrained, involved in any and ever aspect of society - it must be a totalitarian state. Well meaning idealist liberals need remember this truth.

If one were posed the question, “Where does the United States get the most oil from?”, I’m sure the responses would tend to gravitate to “the Middle East” and “Saudi Arabia”. It is true that we get a lot of oil from Saudi Arabia; Saudi oil accounts for 7.2% of daily consumption in the United States (based on 2004 data *Excel file*). We imported 1,495,000 barrels from Saudi Arabia per day in 2004 and consumed 20,731,000 barrels daily, so you do the math …

Now I am pretty sure this comes as quite the shock to many of you who for so long believed we were “dependent” on Middle East oil, but that fact is far from the truth. One and a half million barrels is quite a lot of oil, but 7.2% of total consumption is not nearly as dramatic. Just to make this a little more representative, the Middle East accounts for one-fifth of the top fifteen exporters of oil to the United States: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Kuwait. Out of these fifteen nations, the amount of oil exported from the three Middle Eastern nations amounts to just over one-quarter, or 26%, and 11.5% of total consumption.

The biggest surprise will assuredly lie in the next piece of information. The Middle East does not represent the largest exporter of oil to the United States, and it does not represent the next to largest exporter as well. Saudi Arabia is the third largest, Iraq is the seventh largest, and Kuwait is the ninth largest exporter of oil to the US. That, I’m sure, was unexpected news!

Actually, the United States imports the most oil from none other than our North American neighbors to the north and south — Canada (1.616 million barrels/day in 2004) and Mexico (1.598 million barrels/day). Another stunner is the fact that we have more to worry about from mixed relations with Hugo Chavez and the dicey situation in Nigeria, because Venezuela and Nigeria are fourth and fifth on the list of oil exporters to the US and account for another quarter of total exports from the top fifteen nations.

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Today, abortion has been championed as “a woman’s right” and described as a “liberty” by the United States Supreme Court. On January 22, 1973, in the Roe vs. Wade decision, the Supreme Court struck down individual state abortion laws and made abortion legal up until the time of birth in all fifty states. The Supreme Court says that “Roe is an integral part of a correct understanding of both the concept of liberty and the basic equality of men and women.”[i] Yet, our country is slowly realizing that this may not be true. Abortion hurts women’s equality and degrades all women. Women, as a result of on-demand abortion, are seen as inferior to men. In actuality, it is the pro-abortion attitude that impairs women both born and unborn. This impairment does not only affect women who have abortions, but all women, those in the past, present and future.

First, let us examine women from our past. In the last hundred years, women have seen enormous progress in gaining equal rights with men, only to have abortion destroy many of those rights and liberties. Women suffragists led the campaign for women’s rights, and the vast majority of these women were very strongly anti-abortion. Susan B. Anthony, one of the most widely recognized feminists, said, “I deplore the horrible crime of child murder… No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed… but oh! Thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime.”[ii] Susan B. Anthony’s newspaper, The Revolution, stated that, “When a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is a sign that, by education or circumstances, she has been greatly wronged.”[iii] Elizabeth Cady Stanton said that “When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we wish.” [iv] Mary Wollstonecraft condemned those who would “either destroy the embryo in the womb, or cast it off when born.”[v] Victoria Woodhull, the first female presidential candidate, said “The rights of children as individuals begin while yet they remain the foetus.” and “Every woman knows that if she were free, she would never bear an unwished-for child, nor think of murdering one before its birth.”[vi] Thus, early feminists in the past understood that abortion is a symptom of inequality and exploitation, and certainly not a solution for women.

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The debate in California over whether to raise the minimum wage has really heated up over the past few days.

First the California Republican Assembly unveiled radio ads targeting Republican State Senator Abel Maldanado (who’s also running for controller) for carrying Governor Schwarzenegger’s bill to raise the wage by a dollar an hour. The ads are running in Maldanado’s home district so that constituents can call him and set him straight.

Then yesterday and today, respectively, Senator Bob Dutton and Former Assemblyman Tony Strikland (who’s running against Maldanado) authored pieces opposing any increase in the minimum wage. It has created a rift in the GOP between the liberal Republicans and the Conservative Republicans.

I will have more on the minimum wage issue in an upcoming full length column because I find the issue interesting, but I will say right now that this is really common sense to me: If you force a business to raise the wage it pays it’s employees, one of four things will happen:

A. The business will just suck up the cost.
B. The business will pass the cost on to it’s consumers.
C. The business will lay off some workers in order to pay the rest the prescribed wage.
D. The business will just close up shop because of high operating expenses.

Of course, there are a ton of legally questionable things that the business could do (like hire illegal immigrants) but let’s assume that this company is ethical and wants to strictly obey the law.

Read more at the California High School Conservative Blog

The American Conservative Youth Union features political commentary from high school and young college students. This is one of the only places that you will see exclusive commentary from the future conservative leaders of America. So please go to www.acyu.org to support up and coming conservatives and read commentary on issues of the day, including the Dubai Ports deal and the new South Dakota Abortion Law.

Linked to Cao’s Blog, Stop the ACLU, Jo’s Cafe, Blue Star Chronicles, TMH’s Bacon Bits, Stuck on Stupid, The Median Sib, third world county, and The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns.