The Make Money Online Article
Entire books have been written explaining various ways to make money online. Yet several years ago when I first began my online business journey, I simply couldn’t find one article which explained the entire process. Instead, I spent my time reading a bit on domains, a bit on hosting, a bit on marketing, a bit on link building, a bit on advertisements, and wasted time bouncing from one article to another, often more confused than when I started. Such a hodge-podge, hit and miss approach to learning how to successfully make money online wasted months, while I spent countless hours while committing horrible errors.
One comprehensive how-to article would have changed my life.
This article is to fill in the gap, and provide you with a one-stop tutorial that covers the basics of making money online, specifically without spending more than $300. This is the basic investment, and can end up earning literally tens of thousands of dollars.
Why You Should Read This
This article is pretty lengthy. It would be easy to skip it for a shorter, “more fun” website, that is filled with hype. However, the information provided here is proven to work. Professional “make money online” “gurus” spend entire websites, filled with hundreds of articles explaining how to do what is listed in this one article.
Also, most websites are created to teach you how to simply make money online. We’ll be covering that as well, while also taking it a step further: we don’t want you to just “make some money”, we want you to become independently wealthy. That’s what this article teaches.
We’ll start with the very basics, and look first at how to succeed at anything. Then we’ll move on and cover the possible ways to make money online, and then will narrow those ways down to the one way that has the most earning potential. From there we’ll take a step-by-step approach to success so that anyone who follows each of the steps will be in a position to make money quit their job, work at home and manage their new home business.
This is an incredibly exciting topic, but, unfortunately, the guides found on other sites are often filled with hype and false promises. This is a no-hype zone, and will cover the disadvantages and difficulties of every step to making money online with reason, caution, and a healthy dose of common sense.
First things first, let’s talk about how to succeed at anything. This will be the foundation of the tutorial, and every point after this will be referencing this section of the guide.
A World of Systems
Children are notorious for constantly asking questions. Their reasoning is simple: people, even “little people”, try to organize everything they know so that it makes sense. Children ask “why” because they think there just has to be a reason. Everyone knows that things just work in a certain way. Most people who are looking for business opportunities know this as well.
This is why there are so many scams out there, with “automated” formulas for becoming a millionaire, with “systems” that will make you millions without any work. Of course, these systems are false. But it proves a point: these marketers are trying to take advantage of people who know that there has to be a system to everything, including making money online.
To get a system to work for you, you have to work the system. To work the system, you have to know the system. It’s been said that “the first million is the hardest”, and it’s completely true. There have been millions of millionaires who spent years building that first million, but once they hit the first one, the second and third and fiftieth suddenly were much easier to achieve. This is because to make that first million, these businesspeople had to have some sort of a system for making it. It’s all about having the right system.
Once you figure out the system, you can use the system to generate success over and over again. It’s like having a cookie cutter, only you aren’t making cookies, you’re making hundred-dollar bills.
The only question is “What system is best?” That’s where our next section in this tutorial comes in. There are an incredibly large number of people who earn their livelihood with online businesses, jobs and opportunities that they have taken advantage of.
Before we analyze the possibilities for success, let’s discuss what it means to be successful, and what the perfect opportunity would look like.
Know What You Want
This is one of the most vital sections of this tutorial. Lean back, and imagine a detailed “perfect” lifestyle for you. Think of having everything that you could want? What’s the ideal existence for you?
For some, it might sound kind of obvious. Travel, fast cars, big houses… but, of course, everyone is different. A perfect lifestyle for some would be to have enough money to live in a small cottage, have enough to eat, and spend most of the day with an adoring family and/or friends. For others, it would be weekly trips to Hawaii, monthly hikes in the Alps and shopping sprees in NYC. It’s completely relative to the person.
The amount of money we make is essential to achieving the lifestyle we want. It might not be a lot, or, for some, it might be an incredible amount. It depends on the person. The purpose of a dream is to achieve it. I’m a firm believer that the Internet has opened up the possibilities of incredible wealth to anyone who has the determination to achieve it.
Get a pen and paper out, and sit with a friend or loved one. Write down in detail exactly what you want in life. Once you are finished, post it somewhere you will see all the time. This is the goal of your online journey.
One word of advice: Don’t give up. No matter what happens, no matter what people tell you, no matter what — don’t give up. Having an achievable dream is vital to becoming the person you want to be and achieving the life you want.
If your dream is ambitious, it will be incredibly hard to achieve it. But barring the laws of physics, there is no limit to what you can achieve. It doesn’t take a high IQ, amazing writing skill, an amazing personality or anything else to make money online, as we’ll be talking about in a minute.
The Right System
The perfect way of making money is not to work for your money, but to have your money work for you. This is the secret of professional investors. They take what they have and double it, then double that, then double… you get the point.
The crucial key to the ultimate system of making money is this:
Build a money-making system, not a time-based job.
Billions of people around the world have their entire lively-hood on the line, every day. If they miss a day of work, their entire source of income is demolished. If an emergency comes up, they are completely wiped out. If they are fired, they are completely wiped out. They make money completely hands-on, meaning they have to show up to work. This leaves them incredibly vulnerable. They work for their money, their money doesn’t work for them.
Having an income that isn’t directly tied to the hours you work is vital to creating an income that has no limit. Few millionaires are paid by the hour.
Those who have spent their lives, not slaving for an hourly job, but instead to build a system that was designed to grow, with or without any more work — they’re the ones who are the millionaires.
Next up, let’s talk about a way you can establish your own system that doesn’t require you to constantly micromanage once you are established. This is what I have done, and am actually already doing with this website and every other website I own. I’ve spent almost no money, but generate my entire online income in this manner. It’s simple, but it’s not easy. But one thing is for sure: it’s completely changed my life.
Making Money With a Website
Every day, millions of people around the world head to Google or other search engines. They might have a question they want answered, or they might just be surfing. Thousands of people every day search for “make money online” and “work from home”. They are looking for ways to get some cash while at their computers. This is just the start. There are million of searches about real estate, base-ball cards, celebrities, movies, video games, gardening, travel — you name it, they’re searching for it.
So what does this have to do with making money online?
Next time you’re driving down the highway, notice the bill-boards on the sides. Someone owns the little strip of land next to the highway, and has rented a little spot of their property to someone else to put up advertisements. If it weren’t for the highway, and consequently the traffic on the high-way, the bill-board would have never been put up, and the property owner wouldn’t have that extra source of revenue. But the highway existed, and he recognized that that was a great income opportunity.
The same thing is true for the Internet. The Internet is the information super-highway. Billions of people use the Internet every day. Websites are kind of like the property that’s next to the highway — the highway traffic sees what’s on the property in the same way that Internet users see what’s on websites. All you have to do is recognize the opportunity the Internet holds for you, and act accordingly.
The Internet allows you to create a resource for people searching for a particular topic, regardless of anything. Internet users who are searching for that information will stumble across your website. You’ll have “bill-boards” and banner-ads, meaning that the traffic suddenly equals money, at least for you. You don’t have to actually sell anything — you just market information. This is how I make money online, and it’s incredibly simple. It just requires four steps.
First, find a topic to write about on your website, called a “niche”. Example niches would include “personal finance”, “recipes”, “movie reviews” or anything else. Some people even have made a full-income writing about birthday parties.
After picking your niche, you get your actual website. After this, you start writing and putting tother some quality articles and generate traffic. Then ad advertisements. It’s simple — no techy knowledge is necessary, if you use SiteBuildIt, a program we’ll be talking about later in this tutorial.
Let’s go through each of the steps in the process.
1. Find a “Niche”
Imagine spending all day, every day writing about the economic cycles of Brazilian currency. Can’t imagine doing that? Me either. Your interests will play an amazingly huge role in what will work for you when creating content for your website and/or blog. If you want to meet success, your blog has to be about something you know and care about.
Just ask yourself, “what are the top 10 most important things to me?” Whether it’s pets, politics vacations, algebra, books, philosophy or child-raising, the Internet probably has a slot open for you. You can be successful writing about almost anything. You just have to care enough about the topic to completely exhaust it — because that’s what you’re going to do.
Once you have figured out what the topic is going to be, you can move on to the next step — making a website.
2. Make Website
For some reason, many of my friends believe that I know lots of computer coding, and could rewrite the scripts for Facebook or Google. I can’t. I have a collection of websites, and I can’t even remember how to do HTML like links — I have to look it up every time. What’s my point in saying this? If I can make a website, you can. Don’t be intimidated by what popular culture might say about the Internet and websites — you don’t have to be a geek to unleash the Internet to your financial favor.
Getting a website is simple. You have basically two choices. You can get a traditional full-blown website, or you can get a blog. A regular website is one which focuses on having set, concrete pages, meaning that the website generally looks the same most of the time. A blog is a specific kind of website that is constantly updated, and is based upon information that’s importance is based upon time. A blog is a great way to write about news and current events, whereas a website is a great way to write about things that are not affected by time. Either way, I’ll give you the information you’ll need to get either.
A Blog
Blogs are incredibly fun, yet time-consuming. Most blogs are written for personal use, though the professional blog is on the rise, as evidenced by this blog along with dozens of others.
To have a blog, you first need a domain name and a host. By far, the best host and domain serving company I have run into is IX Web Hosting — that’s who hosts this website.
The process here is incredibly simple. Sign up — in a few hours, you’ll have access to your website. Plus, IX Web Hosting is so cool they give you the domain name for free. Yep, for free. Don’t get cheaper than that. All in all, they’ll charge you six bucks a month for some great hosting and a free domain. By far the best deal I’ve run into.
Once you’ve got access to the website, check out Wordpress.org. There you will find a great blogging platform called, well, “Wordpress.” It’s shnazzy. Once again, that’s what Shaun Connell dot Com uses. It’s a great blogging platform that is almost completely customizable, looks professional, plus has a nifty “page” feature, allowing you to have lots of regular webpages, much like this one.
Setting up the Wordpress on your website used to be hard. Note the past tense. Some awesome guys here have offered to hook it up for you. For free. That’s what I call service.
This is if you are interested in establishing a blog. I actually don’t suggest blogging for money at first. Blogs are a great way to market products and build links for your websites once you have more than one. Blogging requires that you constantly are writing and working and adding more and more content. If you miss a week or so you can lose a huge number of subscribers. If you’ve never made a website before, I’d suggest starting with a traditional site. If you are seriously considering a blog right now, and you haven’t made a website before, feel free to leave this page to read this.
Traditional Website
If you aren’t interested in blogging, but want a full-fledged website, there’s only one way to do it — the best way. After creating several successful websites, one thing I learned was that putting a full-fledged site up can be time consuming and a general all-around pain. Then I discovered a company that is, well, perfect. No, I’m completely serious. I read reviews of the program from website experts well over a year ago. I thought they were stretching the truth. Finally, I bought the product and tried it myself. They weren’t kidding.
The company sells a product called “SiteBuildIt!” SBI gives you a domain, host, a design program so that you can design the website without buying another product, it also gives you a special search program that allows you to look at the best ways to maintain your website, along with special “collaborative” options that allow your site’s visitors to /add/ free content (the more successful you become, the less your write), free “search engine optimization” software that brings you tons of free traffic from places like Google, along with thousands of dollars worth of other free software. SBI is essential to anyone who is just starting out on the Internet, and can pay off the original 300 bucks thousands of times over.
But why do you need the programs that are built in for free? Here’s the proof it works. Over 60% of all the websites created through SBI are in the top 3% of the Internet. SiteBuildIt makes money only because they market themselves to people who want to make money. Other hosts are often just for people who want personal blogs or websites with pictures. SiteBuildIt is specifically for people who have the goal of making money with their website. That’s why the success rate is so high.
SiteBuildIt isn’t just a way to get a website, it’s a way to get a website that makes money.
3. Get Traffic
The next step is to generate visitors to your new site, or “traffic” as the visitors are called. After all, with no traffic there’s no income. Traffic is the driving force for internet-marketers — that’s the whole reason we do what we do.
Remember, the number one source for free traffic is through search engines. This means that you’ll need to make search engines happy if you want any traffic at all. There are basically two general ways of making search engines happy — lots of good content, and lots of others linking to you. We’ll talk about content first.
Content
By far, the number one top priority that you can possibly have regarding traffic, is to have lots of relevant content. If your website is about philosophy, write about philosophy until it hurts — if your website is about politics, write about politics until you see politicians in your sleep. The same goes with every other topic that you could possibly choose — write, write and write. That’s how to increase traffic.
Obviously, though, you don’t want just random rants and raves on your site, you’ll need content that’s good enough to get you noticed. Writer and webmaster Steve Pavlina gives plenty of tips for generating great traffic through content.
Write Valuable Content
If your content is about something that no one wants to know or would be willing to read (for example, nothing but personal information), chances are — no one will read it. Or link to it. This means that your traffic will either die, or just never start.
Valuable content can really just depend on the topic. For example, if you’re writing about how to make money online, you don’t want to just say what all of the other “make money online” blogs are staying — no one would go to your site, they’d go to another one. Be valuable, and search engines recognize your value.
Write Original Content
One of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever seen regarding websites is their lack of creativity. Don’t rehash old news, and don’t just write about what the other websites in your niche write about — be yourself, stand out and the search engines will take notice. Why? Because the more original your content, the more likely other webmasters are going to be to refer your site to their friends, meaning that you get links pointing to your site, meaning that search engines love you more. Creative content gives you search engine love.
Be Honest
People can see through an insincere writing style. You need to actually care about both what you’re writing about and the people who will read it. Otherwise, you’ll just come off as an arrogant jerk. Search engines hate, and I mean hate jerks. Well. Other webmasters do at least, meaning you won’t get as many links as if you were sincere.
Links
Search engines like to list popular websites at the top of their results. If lots of people link to a website, chances are, it’s going to be a good website. Considering this, getting people to link to your website or blog is essential to getting free traffic on Google and other search engines. The only question is … how?
Content
As explained before, content is everything. Write good stuff, get good links. Write really good stuff, get lots of good links. It’s literally that simple.
Link Exchanges
Link exchanges are sneaky little clubs that people join to link to each other. This way everyone who joins gets lots of links pointing back to their website or blog. This sounds great, but search engines generally don’t care when they see that a website has lots of artificial links. But, if you want to try it, shoot for it.
The only link-exchange program that I’ve found that works quite well is BlogRush. It works by putting a little widget on the side of your blog. It’s professional and doesn’t look cheesy, but generates lots of relevant traffic. Most definitely a must-use for blog owners.
Link to similar websites
A link is “worth more” to search engines if it is from a website that is similar to yours. This way the search engine robots will think that it’s probably a legitimate link, rather than one that has been spammed all over the Internet. To find a website to trade links with, just do a quick Google search for your keywords either on Google or Google Blog Search.
Also, remember that by linking to my website, you’ll be getting an automatic link back to yours. I believe in sharing the link wealth. =)
Comment on similar blogs
It shocks me to no end how so many bloggers and webmasters expect to have millions of people read their website out of the blue. If people don’t know you exist, they can’t link to you. If you don’t link to you, then you don’t get a high ranking on search engines. If you don’t get the high search engine ranking, then people won’t know you exist.
Breaking this seemingly endless cycle is relatively easy. Go to the Google Blog Search type in some of your website’s keywords, and comment on the blogs with a link pointing back to your website. Doing this helps both other webmasters, and puts you on the map. Don’t expect everyone to link to you right off the bat — you’ve got to earn their trust first. How do you do that? It’s all about content.
4. Make Money
Here’s where we get to the good part — making the money. This is, interestingly enough, one of the easiest issues regarding the website. If you have a nice website with nice content and some traffic, monetization is going to make it all worth-while.
There are several ways to earn an income with your website, all without charging your visitors anything. How does this work? Remember the analogy at the beginning of the page, the one about the bill-boards? That’s just it. Traffic never has to pay to see billboards — the advertisers pay for the traffic to see the ads. The same works for websites.
There are literally millions of people who are willing to advertise on the Internet. These people will be your cash cow. But, the way the programs are set up, you’ll never have to deal directly with them. Instead, you just sign up for a program that automatically places the ads in the section of your website you decide.
In my experience, the best programs are AdSense, Bannerconnect and Kontera. The three programs work perfectly together, and split up the advertising styles. AdSense pays for every time someone clicks on the ad. Banner connect pays for every time someone sees the ad. Kontera pays for every click, but is special — changes random words into ad-links, meaning that it doesn’t look like an ad.
All in all, these are the best ad programs to use, by far. To learn more, just click the links/buttons below.
Aside from these traditional advertisements, a killing is to be made through a system of advertising called referral marketing. Referral marketing allows you to earn money every time someone buys another product as a result of your marketing. For example, let’s say that I made a blog post advertising for a book that cost $49.00. I would only make money if I actually ended up selling the book — not just because people clicked the ad.
This is a great way to earn revenue if you can find products worth selling. There are literally hundreds of thousands to choose from. Check them out at Clickbank and Commission Junction.
Conclusions
The Internet is exploding. People are starting to turn to the Internet to answer their questions, learn new things, and discover valuable content. Because of this, millionaires are being made.
The number one way of tapping into this huge market is to establish a website. If it’s your first time to build a website, start with SiteBuildIt. It’s the cheapest way to have an entire organization guide you through the process. Their entire business goal is for you to make enough money online to work at home.
With an initial investment of hundred a hundred bucks, you can launch yourself into the online world of information marketing. The opportunities are, to put it simply, amazing and abundant. You don’t have to work your 9-5 — work for yourself online.
>>Click here to start making money online!< <
NOTE: Using SiteBuildIt is risk-free. If you decide you don’t want to do it after already owning it for months you can just contact them for your money back. So try it for a few months, and if you decide it’s not for you, just contact them.
Remember: those who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try nothing and succeed.
Why I’m a Capitalist
A couple of months ago, I was with a group of radical anti-capitalists. They thought that government was the answer to life, the universe and everything. They thought that businessmen secretly cheat on their wives and beat their children, whereas the poor starving individual was heroically beaten down by the brutal financial leaders. Maybe I’m stretching it a bit. But when I announced to them that I was a capitalist, they just gave me a blank stare.
“Why on earth?“, was the simple question.
Here’s a paraphrase of what my answer was. First I defined capitalism as being a simple idea. It’s where the government leaves the corporate world alone, and doesn’t try to do business work in a senate committee with people who have never done business. Capitalism is economic freedom.
There are six reasons I like capitalism. They are as follows:
6. I like big business
Restrictive economic policies target big business. No, this doesn’t mean it’s good for the workers. Think about it. Hurting big business hurts the whole business — workers are part of the business.
Every restriction for big business ends up trickling down and hurting their workers, either through fewer pay upgrades or through laying people off to increase efficiency. Restricting big business is restricting the little guy.
Oh. And big business is actually good. Why? Because they became “big”. How did they become big? The market — or, for the socialists — society liked them. Big business only gets that way by offering the people nice stuff. If the people like it, then they aren’t evil.
It’s really not complicated. But we’ve been told by the restrictive forces of the world that big is bad, that little is good. I propose an alternative: both are good. Speaking of which, that brings us to reason number five.
5. I like small business
I work at a small business. My family runs a small business. This business is based on our family working hard. We’re not evil. We’re good. We help other business by helping them market their products and advertise to increase their profits.
By working hard, we only succeed through helping others succeed. Capitalism allows us to do that unhampered. But restrictive policies severely restrict our ability to do business.* Restrictions that might not seem like much to us on paper can be devastating in real life. Real people go under every time we pass another law. Every restriction destroys lives.
4. I like rich people
Rich people aren’t evil. I don’t care what Hollywood wishes me to think about “The Capitalists”. I won’t buy the commie propaganda. I like rich people. I don’t like snobs. There’s a difference. Poor people can be snobs. Rich people can be snobs. Rich people can be jerks. Poor people can be jerks.
The rich that I’ve met in my life are the hardest working individuals I’ve ever known. There’s a reason they are rich. And I appreciate their work, and recognize that their hard labor paid off both for them and the countless people who gained from the micro-economic impacts of their labor.
3. I like poor people
Liberals paint themselves as loving poor people. So they increase government programs, welfare, restrictions on the rich, etc. But their restrictions on business cause unemployment — liberalism causes poverty. Their welfare encourages dependence on federal aid, psychologically keeping the poor in their poverty. I am a capitalist because I hate poverty.
I am a capitalist because I hate poverty. I am not a liberal because I care about the poor enough not to buy into emotional arguments that realistically destroy the working class. Freedom brings prosperity.
2. I like justice
Capitalism is where everyone is allowed to unleash their minds in order to produce and achieve. You don’t get rich being a moron. You have to use your mind or muscle. Or, for most, a mixture of the two.
Capitalism rewards the hard-working and punishes the lazy. It’s the only economic system on earth that does this. This is why it works.
As Ayn Rand said:
“The moral justification for capitalism lies in the fact that it is the only system consonant with man’s rational nature, that it protects man’s survival qua man, and that its ruling principle is: justice.”
1. I like money
I know. I’m supposed to pretend like the only thing on earth important is people and puppy dogs. But guess what? I like nice stuff too. And so does the liberal. And Obama. And Edwards. Especially them. See, they like being commies in theory. But in reality, they like “capital”. They like money. They like private jets, private islands, nice food, nice clothes and $500 haircuts.
And you know what? That would have been fine, if only they didn’t pretend that it was evil. In their hearts, they know there’s nothing wrong with working hard and establishing a fantastic house, expensive car and great lifestyle for your kids. They know there’s no reason to think that we should restrict business owners, or try to go against wealth.
But in policy, they stop. They pretend that greed is wrong, because other people want your money (read that a few times, and see what’s amiss). But when it comes down to it, they know that capital is good. They live like rich cats.
Ironically, it’s for the same reason as me. There’s nothing wrong with material wealth. The whole goal of economics is understanding how to get our wealth to be maximized. Well, I have news for the news people and the politicians of the world:
Try Capitalism. Capitalism sets mankind free to work and achieve his values. It lets people barter in peace and choice rather than being manipulated by Washington elites. Capitalism works because it’s based on that age old principle that the human mind works best when it’s set free. Capitalism works because freedom works.
So that’s why I’m a capitalist.
*Our family business is an oldies radio station. The FCC’s policies are often random, restrictive and expensive. They hurt our customers and communities by forcing us to keep prices artificially higher than they would be if we didn’t have the nearly random restrictions.
Total Makeover?
As many of you know, I love blogging about Making Money Online — it’s a great hobby and part-time job for me. I’ve bought a lap-top and some other cool stuff with my income generated through my blogs. I’m the main author and operator of Reason and Capitalism, Rebirth of Freedom, Money Talks, Rational Christianity and several other blogs.
However, I’m thinking about merging several of them. My “Money Talks” blog is located at ShaunConnell.com/make-money-online. The URL is, well, obviously hard to remember. So I’m thinking about doing the following:
1. Turning “ShaunConnell.com/make-money-online” into a static tutorial on making money online. The blog part will be zapped out.
2. Turning ShaunConnell.com into a blogging-blog — a blog about business, money, making money online and the like.
3. Having 1-2 off-topic posts per week on ShaunConnell.com, both to spicen the site up, and simply as an outlet for my random ideas that I think the readers might appreciate.
4. All political writings will go to the RoFF.
5. All philosophical/religious writings will go to Rational Christianity.
6. All personal writings go to my facebook account.
Thoughts? I’ll obviously have to rename the blog to something else, like “Money Talks” or something similar. Any suggestions? 
The American Dream
Wow. I rarely read a news story that makes me sit up, take notice and feel good about myself, but this one about income mobility did just that.
A kid took 25 bucks, a gym bag, went to the homeless section of a town in South Carolina, camped out, and set a goal. With no outside help or contact, he was going to start over and prove to the world that in America anyone can be well off. In 10 months, he went from having just a bag and barely enough money to buy supper to living in an apartment, driving a pickup truck and having nearly five grand in the bank.
To all the nay-sayers who think it’s impossible for the poor to leave their poverty:
PWNT!
Philosophy of Liberty
This is a short explanation of the idea of liberty. I’m currently writing a much longer and more comprehensive version — it should be posted in the next few weeks.
Look down at your body. Who
It’s Not Complicated
It’s the rallying thought, the theme behind every oppressed people in the history of man. It’s incredibly simple, yet political theorists have seemingly glossed this basic human desire for other agendas. The desire to be left alone. Moses, the deliverer of the Israelite people in the Old Testament, in the most famous of all deliverance stories, said over and over — “Let my people go.” Let us be — the rallying cry of the oppressed.
This basic human desire for exclusive control over their lives has been called many things. Nietzsche called it a “will to power”. It’s pretty simple. We want our person to be left alone. We own us, and no one else has a right to use or misuse us without our permission.
All of the political theories in the world have to factor this in. This is simple a law of human nature. It’s a law of nature. It’s a natural law. It’s pretty simple too. The legal philosopher John Locke said, “Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself.”
If someone wrongs you, the natural law will become evident to you. It’s so obvious, it doesn’t even have to be reasoned out — it’s an empirical truth. Man wants to be free and let alone. Call it “self-ownership”, “liberty”, “will to power” or what have you — it’s all the same. Thomas Jefferson said this was “self evident” when he wrote the declaration of independence.
Even the philosophers who preach the restriction of men, and the redistribution of their wealth, believe this. If a poor man forced his way into their wallet on the street, they would be upset, whether the money would be used or abused — it doesn’t matter. That was their money, dangit. Lock also talked about this, saying, “I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.” Bingo.
This is natural law. It’s simple. There are complicated theories regarding axioms and philosophies of the individual verses the collective. But at it’s root, beyond the complicated theories and philosophy — it’s simple. Don’t hurt other people. Let them be.
Immigration Liberty — Open Immigration
This is a teaser of a forthcoming article that I’m about to have published in both The Articulate and The Rebirth of Freedom Foundation. This post is a more personal version of an article that I’m writing. I’ve been asked by many individuals why I support open immigration or “open borders” as some try to call it. We run this case in a high-school debate league in Texas — not the most immigrant friendly place on earth. This is my answer.
I cannot overstate how strongly I feel about the topic of turning America into a land that accepts all people into her arms of freedom. I believe it to be of the most fundamental purpose of Government to protect the rights of all people that it comes across — government is a moral institution established for moral protection. Its purpose, its goal knows no borders, for morality has no borders.
The idea of blocking people from another country, on the basis of geographical location, is naive both economically and on national security reasons. The state of America’s borders are such that any well-financed organization could penetrate its borders, with or without open immigration, with or without a wall, with or without defenses.
We have left the stone age. We left the ages of knights and castles. Walls will not do justice — they will not work.
But in a broader sense, to answer the question specifically. You ask for a moral justification for freedom. I believe it to be fundamentally wrong for a family to be forced by a state to live in economic destitution for all their lives. I believe it to be wrong. For a state to force an individual to accept poverty when that individual could achieve prosperity.
I believe it to be obvious that our policy towards the people of the world should be a policy of openness, of freedom — liberty, and justice. I believe that a moral immigration policy is a policy that opens, that welcomes the immigrant home.
We have a moral obligation to open our arms to the world, to the poor, to the tired, to the huddled masses, yearning to be free. It is our greatest moral responsibility, to answer the pleas of the world by supplying them with “home.”
May nature deal justly with us if we forget the lessons that our forefathers learned. Let us learn from economic and philosophical history, and return once again to the philosophy of the Statue of Liberty, that monument that was often the first impression people had of America as they traveled here from foreign lands.
Let us return to the philosophy of that monument of liberty, and be a beacon of freedom shining throughout the world. Let us do what is inscribed on the Liberty Bell: “Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof.”
In the end, our options are clear. We can take the moral and economic high ground, and grant individuals across the land the ability to be free, to live in the United States, to partake in its revered economic system of capitalism — to work, to produce, to achieve.
Or we can base our views on immigrants being “the others”, and reject their moral right to be free, and in the end, ironically, robbing ourselves of the privilege of a stronger and more diverse economy.
The choice should be clear — freedom needs no wall. Let us open our arms to the peoples of the world and tell them, “If you wish to be free, if you wish to be able to work, live and achieve your dreams — just look this way. We are America, and we welcome you gladly.”
A Short Case for Big Business
I’m an active member on a high-school debate forum[1], and the topic of big government was brought up. A fellow user, Caleb Winn, posted a quick summary of why big business isn’t wicked and evil, and in fact is essential and incredibly helpful for everyone, including the middle and poor class. I think he’s dead on.
He based the following on the article “The Problem With Populists” by George Will:
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“I have an idea, though. Let’s get rid of “Big Business” and see how we all like a world where food is much scarcer and more expensive, and where the kinds of life-saving medications and medical equipment that have saved the lives of millions of children were never developed.”
“Big business may at times distribute wealth inequitably, but at least there is wealth to distribute, and ultimately everybody benefits even if hard-working entrepreneurs and wise investors benefit more.”
“Frankly, if Edwards really believes everything that he says, he is insane. He screams and cries about the “disappearing middle class” without realizing that the middle class is shrinking because people are getting richer, not poorer. The share of people earning $30,000-$100,000/year has indeed gone down, but the share of the population earning less than $30,000 has not increased. Most of the loss in that “middle class” bracket came because of upwards mobility, not economic stagnation. Edwards is right: there are “two Americas.” There is the America that really exist, and the America that he imagines in his delusional crusade against “evil corporations.”‘
“The liberal dream of a centrally-engineered economy is bogglingly counter-productive. The Great Society was a failure, while deregulation and the limitation of the federal footprint has caused overall wealth, per capita income, and economic mobility to rise even as crime, poverty, and welfare dependency have fallen. Increased government intervention (and the exorbitant taxes needed to pay for it) only weakens productivity and investment, decreases work incentive, limits the competition that spurs efficiency and innovation, and all-in-all strangles real economic growth. The liberal dream of imposing equality through Statist economic coercion and control is successful only by making everybody equally poor. (Though in reality, the liberal ruling elite always manage to live high on the hog even in the worst economic conditions, whether they be Stalin’s Dachas by the sea, or John Edwards’ 26,000-foot home in North Carolina.)”
“If the government really wants to do something about the conditions of the working poor, then it should get out of the way and stop hindering the economic growth that helps everybody who is willing to work.”
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Can I get an “amen”?
[1] I’m Irish Man on there. The forum not only for high-schoolers. In fact, some of the best discussions are between college students who are into philosophy and political science/theory. Feel free to join! If you do, drop me a line.
Blogroll Link Exchange
If you are the webmaster of a blog, I’d love to swap blogroll links with you. Just add me to your blogroll, and I’ll return the favor. We’ll both get dozens of relevant links to our sites, increasing our Google ranking and search-engine results. There are six ways you can link to me for me to link to you:
1. Link to www.RebirthOfFreedom.org, with the anchor text of “Rebirth of Freedom”
2. Link to a specific article at Rebirth of Freedom, and anchor the text as the article’s name
3. Link to www.ShaunConnell.com, with the anchor text of “Reason and Capitalism”
4. Link to a specific article at Reason and Capitalism, and anchor the text as the article’s name
5. Link to www.ShaunConnell.com/make-money-online/, with the anchor text of “Make Money With a Website” (or any other combination of the two words of “website” and “money”. Feel free to replace “website” with “blog”)
6. Link to a specific article at Internet Capitalism, and anchor the text as the article’s name
In return for the link love, I’ll add you to my blogroll with any anchor-text you choose. Just comment here when you want to link, with all of the needed details.
Image of the Creator
If I had to describe myself in two words, both would begin with “C”. I’m a Christian-Capitalist. These two words describe everything about what I believe and who I am as a person — my philosophy about reality, life, God, violence, people — everything.
Unfortunately, many, if not most, people are starting to view Christianity as being at odds with capitalism. After all, how could a philosophy of self-interest and profit mesh with a religion of selflessness? The answer is simple: Christianity isn’t a religion of selflessness and pointless-sacrifice — at least not to any literal extent.
I’ll focus on just one aspect of the Christian religion, and make several stipulations based upon one of the most over read stories in the Bible: The Creation story. It’s more than about the chronological order that God put the Universe into existence — like most of the Scripture, it’s much deeper than that.
Usually my arguments for my philosophy are written in a manner that is equally acceptable to both the Christian and the non-Christian. I firmly believe that faith and reason do not contradict each other, but absolutely compliment one another. However, I’ll be deviating from my normal course of argumentation style by looking into a purely Biblical explanation for my beliefs, focusing on a specific passage that is often not read in a philosophical light.
The foundation of the Christian revelation is that God gives us the truth in two forms. The literal and the figurative — sometimes in both ways at the same time. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ told us exactly what he meant in a literal manner. In his parables, he told stories to describe the ideas and principles he wanted to communicate.
Sometimes God tells us two things at the same time. The Genesis account is one of those times. It’s both a true story and a figuration of the role of man, and of man’s basic calling and duty — to achieve and accomplish.
I’m not going to be arguing only for the economic system of capitalism. Instead, I’ll be arguing what I consider to be the life-philosophy of capitalism — productivity, reason, purpose and achievement. This is the foundation of capitalism, and encompasses much more than just economics. It’s about life itself.
In the Bible, the story of the beginning of man is recounted in Genesis 1:26-31. Notice the word usage, and the purpose of man inscribed throughout the passage:
26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
31And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
What is the purpose of the story? It gives us the most basic purpose of man. God saw that the world was wild, natural and that it should be conquered. So God created man in his image. Man, created in the image of God, suddenly has a basic comand and duty regarding his time on earth. He is to be a creator.
God is a creator — an achiever. His existence is based upon his desire and accomplishment of creation, but the creation of the physical and of his glory. God created a goal, and then created a method for achieving that goal. God achieves, God accomplishes, God creates.
Seeing that reality was wild and empty, God created man in the image of a creator, and gave him a simple command — command nature, have dominion over it. Not to exist for creation, but to unleash creation to exist for us. Not to exist for others or to treat other men as slaves, but recognize that they are created in the image of God, and are deserving of to be treated as creators — co-rulers of the earth. This is a simple-yet-biblical explanation of natural law.
We have been given a universe with a simple command — take dominion over it. Achieve.
This seemingly simple command has far-reaching and beautiful implications, explaining the basic plight of all of mankind. This is not a suggestion — it’s a rule regarding the nature of mankind, and is about our fundamental purpose in existence. Failure to obey this law of humanity will bring dire consequences, as found in societies that reject the principles of achievement and dominion.
How is man to exercise dominion? He is not as strong as the bear, does not have claws like the lion, and does not have fangs like the snake. Man is physically at a disadvantage. Compare him to other animals. He is often awkward, and can’t roll his body up in a ball. He is, relatively speaking, fragile. He doesn’t have a fur coat for winter.
Man has one tool above all others. His productive mind. Animals have their force, man has his reason. Man does not need fur — he can think and unleash nature to create clothes. Man does not need claws — he can unleash nature and create weapons for eating. Man does not have brute force — he can use reason to call others into corporation to unleash nature for their mutual benefit.
The foundational difference between men and animals is in two obvious yet stunning areas — the mind and violence. Man needs his mind to exist and to unleash nature. He does not have to rely upon force and violence — he can reason things out.
Unfortunately, a breed of people has always existed that believes that force is just as good as reason. The foolish group believes that violence is not a bad answer to most problems and that coercion should be used. These people betray that basic idea that makes us human beings — our minds.
The mind is mans greatest weapon and achievement. Without it, he would perish. With it, we can communicate with God and acknowledge the beauty of nature and all of existence.
In the beginning, God created the world, and he created man to fill the world. He created man in the image of the creator, and told him to create, to achieve, to build civilization by the sweat of his brow. The only means man was given to do this was his mind. It is our moral duty to use our mind to help us to achieve our values, and take dominion over creation.
“Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.”