Food, water, shelter, and basic medical care are all basic human requirements that should never be withheld in a civilized society.
smileycreek
July 2, 2014
Comment to Income Inequality: A Desperate Situation With Real Solutions
[In smileycreek’s universe a “civilized society” is one where the government takes from each according to his ability, and gives to each according to his need.
I’m reading about just such a place in The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (Volume One) and The Gulag Archipelago, Volume 2: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, 1918-1956. Tens of millions of people were murdered in an attempt to create such a society and it failed. And that is just one of many attempts that all ended in deaths of hundreds of thousands and in the case of the USSR tens of millions.
Even just this one sentence in smileycreek’s comment reveals the distortion required to believe lie of communism. The lie of communism is that people with no incentive to produce all they are able to will do so anyway. Who would willingly become a provider of “food, water, shelter, or basic medical care” if they could be forced to give it up without compensation by anyone?
The big distortion here is that is if I refuse to give my food, shelter, or (if I were a medical provider) my services to another unless I am compensated is considered “withholding”. That’s a warped definition. Yet that is also the basis of the current uproar about the SCOTUS ruling in the Hobby Lobby case. Nothing has been withheld. But the sound bite is better if it is phrased that way.
Communists like smileycreek can only win by lying. And they have lots of practice at it. It’s how government murder millions of innocent people.
Today people that openly support the beliefs of the Nazis are rightly hounded into silence and oblivion. Yet support for the beliefs of Communists is considered by nearly half of our country’s population to be the mark of decency, righteous, and “civilized society”. But the Communists of the 20th Century proved the Nazis were pikers in the game of governments murdering innocent people.
Perhaps that is the key to understanding those who advocate Communism and yet hate Nazism. To them the Nazis weren’t ruthless enough.–Joe]
Smileycreek’s is a pro-slavery stance. That’s all that needs to be said.
M
“… should never be withheld.”
withheld by whom?
If you say “government,” you presuppose government ownership of everything, and that turns out bad every single time.
If you say “private individuals,” then can I come raid your fridge? No? Why not? I’m hungry, and you said food is a basic that should never be withheld. But there you are, withholding. Because #GreedyHoarder #Uncivilized
Hypocrite, and/or ignorant moron, and/or useful idiot.
Exactly. Peole who make such silly assertions never seem to be asked what they mean. How would smileycreek define “withheld”?
Anyway; I love to point out that, now that a “right” means that someone else should be forced to pay for it, my guns and ammo, range fees, etc., must now be paid for (under force of law) by someone (anyone) other than me. Says so right there in the Bill of Rights, apparently.
Note that one of the only “positive rights” protected by a SCOTUS decision is the right to an attorney for the indigent in a criminal case.
But that’s because the attorney is necessary to protect one’s due process rights from all the power of the State that is being brought to bear against you.
Note that you have no similar entitlement to a free attorney in a civil suit or a minor criminal case (like a simple speeding ticket) where long term imprisonment is not on the table.
“positive rights” are at their most basic, tyranny. There’s nothing else to say about it. Providing all these freebies for people requires putting the gov’t boot on the neck of everyone…
“Perhaps that is the key to understanding those who advocate Communism and yet hate Nazism. To them the Nazis weren’t ruthless enough.”
Do it again, only HARDER, amiright?
In an odd sort of way, I consider myself a Communist.
Consider: “From each, according to his abilities, to each, according to his needs.” As an individual, I have unique abilities and needs. It is my duty to identify those abilities that I have and enjoy pursuing, and identify those which will help others; once I have done that, I need to negotiate with those around me, who have different abilities than I do, and see how they could meet my needs. When this is done, both myself and those around me are richer all around. This, ironically, is the essence of free-market capitalism.
Furthermore: I don’t have to ask anything in particular in return. If I find someone with a particular need, and I have the means to fulfill it, I can choose to do so through my own free will and good nature, without any expectation of return. This is called “charity”.
Between the free market and charity, we have seen a force of good never before seen in this world, all because individuals choose to follow this basic premise. Capitalists have proven to be far better Communists than anyone else in the world!
Where True-Blooded Communists (and other Collectivist ilk) fail, is the belief that this can only happen through some sort of dictatorship: that it isn’t for individuals to decide who needs what, but bureaucrats, who apparently have some magical ability to determine each individual’s needs and wants–usually by assuming that each individual is the same. Because those individuals disagree, it’s clearly them that are wrong, and so they must be forced! And, as a result, we have death tolls the like of which the world has never seen.
While I agree that each of us needs food, water, shelter, and maybe health care, it is the mark of civilization that avoids forcibly taking these things from individuals to try to end poverty, because in the end, poverty only increases, and the poor continue to clamor for more! (Indeed, in a country where there’s an obesity epidemic among the poor, it’s hard to see how income inequality is really all that much a problem….)
So if this is true, what then does the recipient individual owe civilized society in return? This is the issue payment with no return effort for value received undermines the foundations of this civilized society until it collapses, you will witness it in person in the very near future. The question that now begs answer is who will bail YOUR ass out then, smiley ?
The USSR had a “no food without work” policy. And there were impossibly high “norms” for production output imposed. In the camps it was vigorously enforced and millions starved to death.
I could see a similar situation occurring in this country. If that happens it will be in part because of the likes of smileycreek.