Dakota Beacon

When Pope Benedict XVI wanted to lead the church into the third millennium of its existence, he turned to something termed "Ressourcement," which involves a “return to the authoritative sources” of Christian faith, for the purpose of rediscovering their truth and meaning in order to meet the critical challenges of our time.

Ressourcement is about revitalization, renewal, and in the context in which I’m using it today, memory. Just like the Pope who himself was a brilliant thinker so do we need the iconic company of thinkers who have imagined the Western world we have found ourselves in.

To chart the course for the future, we need to go back. It seems the Argentine President Javier Milei understands this principle. His speech this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos is a case in point. You owe it to yourself to listen to it. Javier Milei (President Argentina) Link Speech Davos

In it he speaks of the dangerous position we as beneficiaries of these ancient tenets of freedom now face because of a vision of the world that has shifted; as F.A. Hayek terms it, “The Road to Serfdom” or more simply “The Path to Poverty.”

Somehow in the quest for something new and better we have abandoned the model of freedom for different versions of what is designed for the “common good” or to use a sexier word, for the collective.

The Argentines might be the first to testify to the error of this movement in the direction of experiments in collectivism. They have gone from the status of a world power akin to the U.S. to one that is in poverty.

In fact, Milei sounds like Ronald Reagan and his famous speech at the 1964 nominating speech for Barry Goldwater. Reagan spoke of free enterprise and capitalism like they were the best thing since sliced bread and that individual rights are the foundation of a free society. Certainly, the pursuit of property rights and the expression of my God-given right to life and liberty are the best guarantee I can offer my neighbor to the protection of his own. To take the moral high ground and sacrifice it on the altar of altruism is a collectivist lie and the statist’s deception.

Doing things for the good of the order rather than for the benefit of the citizen is movement towards an authoritarian model of government and the end of personal and political freedom. This leads right back to economics and the lies of the left to tell you that the state can manage and control the markets better than individuals in privately-owned businesses.

A great economist from the Chicago school of economics once said, “Economic freedom is the basis for all political and personal freedom.”

That is especially important when one comes up against the Neo-Marxist ideas about freedom and equality in the universities which have come to be regarded as “truth” or “fact” and need to be refuted in the face of discourse and debate and not just blindly accepted.

The great thinker Augustine of Hippo was challenged by a voice that called to him one day, “Take and Read.” It is good advice, and you would benefit from it as well.

Open Range BEK - Gary Emineth Comments on Javier Milei

Emineth is a North Dakota native businessman and political activist. He is a former executive director and chairman of the North Dakota Republican Party. Emineth has served on the Republican National Committee and chaired numerous presidential campaigns in North Dakota. He is the host of “The Legislature Today” and “Open Range” daily TV shows on BEK. He is a serial entrepreneur and has 40-plus years of business experience with multi-national companies. He has traveled the world extensively and has served as CEO and president of mid-tier companies.