Doesn’t it seem more than a little messed up when Pravda is urging us to never give up our guns, telling us we are wrong to go down the Marxist path while the New York Times is urging us to give up the constitution?
Category Archives: Economics
Quote of the day—Louis Michael Seidman
As the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.
Louis Michael Seidman
December 30, 2012
Let’s Give Up on the Constitution
[H/T to Roberta.
It’s good to have clarity.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Daniel Greenfield
The defining American code is freedom. The defining liberal code is compassion. Conservatives have attempted to counter that by defining freedom as compassionate, as George W. Bush did. Liberals counter by attempting to define compassion as liberating, the way that FDR did by classing freedoms with entitlements in his Four Freedoms.
On one side stands the individual with his rights and responsibilities. On the other side is the remorseless state machinery of supreme compassion. And there is no bridging this gap.
Daniel Greenfield
December 17, 2012
Gun Control, Thought Control and People Control
[H/T to JPFO.
Nearly every paragraph in Greenfield’s post would qualify for a QOTD here. It is filled with awesome insights.
I decided to focus on these two paragraphs because of the last sentence of the second paragraph quoted above.
I’ve read that no two businesses or even species in nature share the same exact marketplace or ecologically niche at the same time. One will dominate and push the others out or cause them to differentiate themselves.
The freedom and anti-freedom, the left being the dominate flavor of anti-freedom, people are in a political struggle for the geographical niche known as the United States of America. There is no compromising with the other side anymore than there is compromising with someone that wishes to rob you or loot your business. There is only winning versus losing and protecting your property versus having your property redistributed for the common good.
The language of the left betrays this mindset.
In their “compassion” they will sometimes “concede” a “buy-back” of firearms they want confiscated. You can’t “buy back” something that was not yours to begin with. And you can’t “buy” something with money that you confiscated (in the form of taxes) from the victims you want to take the property from. But in the mind of the left all property, including money, is “community property” and there is no inconsistency. They don’t, and probably can’t, “get” the problem we have with their plans.
The anti-gun people claim removing restrictions against people carrying firearms on college campuses is “forcing guns on campuses”. Did you catch that? In other words we are using the power of government to force liberty upon them. One of daughter Kim’s economic class reading materials literally referred to the U.S. government “forcing free markets.” In their language and their world/philosophical view that makes perfect sense rather than being a self-contradicting statement.
They can barely understand that we don’t trust the government. They can understand not trusting the “right government” which in broad terms is a government which is not “compassionate.” But they cannot understand not trusting a government because of its size. The classic joke about the anti-freedom people fear Libertarians because they would take over the government and leave everyone alone is funny because it is true. It is beyond their philosophical framework to not trust the government based on its size. It simply doesn’t make sense. It is a nonsensical thought and in order to make sense of it they have to redefine the fear of large government in other terms such as “greed”, “selfishness”, or a as a close relative recently told me, “heartless bastards”. Gun owners cannot possibly be serious about defense against a tyrannical government and rational gun ownership must be redefined in terms of a hobby, penis substitution, or some sort of paranoia in order for it to make sense to them.
Any “compromise” they offer is defined in terms they understand. They are “compromising” by “allowing” us to continue our “hobby” by registering our firearms/magazines and submitting to a licensing process. In their minds this is a HUGE concession. In our minds this essentially defeats the entire usefulness of the right to keep and bear arms.
It goes deeper. They do not comprehend that the act of submitting to the government over a basic right is unacceptable. Submission to government/authority on every level is so fundamental to their nature it is like a fish in water. Any glimpse of “not water” is very brief and incomprehensibly hostile. It is extremely scary to them. More government is less scary and more “compassionate” to them.
They oppose us so vigorously and with so much violence because they see it as does a fish having their water removed. In their minds we have to be insane, incredibly stupid, or have evil intent. There is no other way to explain our actions and desires. Hence they are completely justified in killing us because if we had our way we would destroy their existence.
As Greenfield says, “There is no bridging this gap.”
I only see two possible outcomes and two ways to get there.
The possible outcomes are:
- One side will dominate and force the other side into virtual extinction.
- The sides will find different geographical niches. This option would mean the collapse of the union of the individual states.
The two ways to get there are:
- “Education.” The left has been working, successfully, on education for a century.
- Force. The left is close to reaching a critical mass and they now contemplate a victory through force.
The force option will result in massive numbers of people being forcibly imprisoned and/or murdered.
The big wild card in this deck is that the intended victims are arming up and training. The outcome is difficult to see. It depends both upon the order in which the cards show up and how the cards are played. For example had a “Newtown massacre” occurred before the Heller decision the course of history could have been drastically different. And so it is with our future.
I hate to go all Godwin here but I’m seeing the final option being played by the anti-freedom people as being the Final Solution to the “freedom problem”. Let’s play our cards well.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Gerry
You’d think they would know their American history. Taxes started the debate, going to take the colonials firearms started the war.
Gerry
December 27, 2012
Comment to Quote of the day—Alan.
[This may become the quote of the year or the decade. It might even be quote of the century. The next few months or maybe year or two will tell.
Rivrdog has thoughts on the comment as well.
At the highest levels of the gun control movement the people are generally not stupid or ignorant (there are some exceptions). A case could be made that these people know that in the present political climate of oppressive and unjust taxes the confiscation of firearms will be a spark in the tinder box that ignites a rebellion. Furthermore a case could be made that such a rebellion is exactly what they want so they can rid the country of “those troublemakers” that hinder the implementation of their utopia.
If such a disaster occurs I hope the case is proven at their eventual trials.—Joe]
Quote of the day—World of NewsNinja2012
At the end of 2010, there was an estimated 17.5 trillion dollars in United States retirement assets, including 3.1 trillion in 401k’s and 4.7 trillion in IRA’s. The idea that those who thrive on money and power would permit such an alluring trove to go untapped is laughable.
World of NewsNinja2012
December 25, 2012
Full Steam Ahead On Obama’s Theft Of IRA’s And 401k’s
[H/T to a Tweet from Adam Baldwin.
I think the “Full steam ahead…” title is an exaggeration but I do think long term there is a significant threat that politicians will claim IRA’s and 401k’s will “have” to be confiscated “for the good of the country”, “social justice”, or some other buzz phrase. “Complications” will ensue when they find very few buyers for the confiscated stocks, bonds, and precious metals. In the following political seasons similar justification probably will be given to private ownership of homes, land, and other private property. If the “complications” don’t reach “interesting” levels after the confiscations of the retirement funds they will when they start confiscating homes.
The “fiscal cliff” of next week is little more than a road turtle compared to the Grand Canyon at the end of the unfinished bridge our financial train is headed for at full speed and full power.
“Interesting” times are ahead.—Joe]
Sustainability
Sound good. The left are always going on and on about “sustainable
agriculture,” and “sustainable lifestyles,” and “sustainable energy,” and
so-forth, and they make some reasonable arguments. The viability of their
solutions is another matter, but the problems are, at their core, real enough.
Yet they absolutely refuse to address the things that are obviously and destructively
NOT sustainable, and will make the above problems even worse, such as all aspects
of the welfare state.
The Welfare State is totally a creature of government creation,
subject to any rule change they want to make. People respond to their perceived incentives. Every trend line you can draw
show that all forms of public assistance, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security
(normal and disability) etc., are utterly NOT sustainable, and are in the
process of destroying the vary system that supports it (the rule of law, free enterprise,
property rights, etc), and it does so because it is NOT aligning incentives with
goals; indeed, it is filled with perverse incentives. Until people can see
that, the leviathan will continue to grow. We need a balanced budget amendment,
NOW. If people saw the real cost of
government because they were seeing it in real-time, not just putting it on the
credit card for someone else to worry about later, they would understand, and demand
less. Debt is too abstract, and not scary enough, as the colossal level of
private debt clearly illustrates. Balance the budget, via taxes or cuts or both,
and the cuts will follow as the real and immediate pain sets in.
Evidence of inflation
I recently purchased some Potassium Chlorate for Boomershoot 2013. The delivered price per pound increased 47% from March of this year. Both the price for the chemical and the cost of shipping increased by nearly the same percentage.
It won’t really affect the next Boomershoot but if the inflation rate were to continue at 47% every nine months (approximately 65%/year) it would cause me considerable concern and change the planning for Boomershoot 2014.
Quote of the day—David Hardy
Not all the media is in the tank for Obama. It’s a heck of a situation, though, when Pravda is the one hold out.
David Hardy
November 26, 2012
Not all the media is in the tank for Obama
[Even excluding Pravda it’s a slight exaggeration to say that all the media is in the tank for Obama. But it’s close enough to be funny.
The most interesting part of the article is that Pravda is touting the free market and criticizes Obama and the U.S. for repeating the USSR mistake of going down the Marxist path.—Joe]
Putting setbacks into perspective
Whenever I think things are going badly, and I’m bummed about
the prospects on the political scene, I think the barbarians are
winning, and it’s all going to hell in a hand-basket, I take solace in history.
Rome was the most powerful empire the world had ever seen, had built amazing feats
of engineering, and been sustained by astonishing feats of logistics, and had
many stories of unimaginable bravery and personal strength. It has existed
nearly forever, it seemed. Rome Was Eternal.
Until it was sacked. And repeatedly taken over by a
succession of military despots, kings, generals, armies, Senators, and foreigners,
and was sunken into the darkness of barbarism and illiteracy, even as each new replacement
empire claimed the mantel of “Rome’s successor.” Some people fled the invaders,
and hid in the nastiest and most inaccessible of the local swamps and fens,
amidst the islands and channels where cavalry and armies couldn’t go after them.
They fled the easy (but crime- and corruption- and invader-infested) life of the
hills and fertile soil of northern Italy. It was a hard life, with no powerful
protector, difficult farming, lots of places to wreck your boat, fetid water and disease, and no time
for anything as non-essential as high culture or art. They clung to life, remembered the best of Rome, and
did the best they could.
Nearly a thousand years later, the city-state of Venice was
one of the most powerful in the world, and its fleet (with help from Spain and
the Papal States) crushed and halted the fleet of the powerful Imperial Ottoman Turks at Lepanto. Ideas are powerful things, and humans are resilient. We may
not fight our way out of the darkness before we die, nor may our children, but
we pass on the good ideas and knowledge to them, and instill in them a sense of
history, and, one day, it WILL happen. Property rights, individual freedom, limited
government, and free markets work.
They will, eventually, take over, because they are more powerful than the
forces trying to limit them… but it may be a long, long slog, and will most assuredly
NOT be a straight line.
(History geeks, take note: this is the simplified version of
things, where the essence is correct, in the interest of telling a good story
with a powerful idea to put current events in perspective.)
Quote of the day—Simon Black
Increasing taxes won’t increase their total tax revenue. Politicians have tried this for decades. It doesn’t work. The only way to increase tax revenue is for the economy to grow… and higher tax rates do not pave this path to prosperity.
Ron Paul was spot on. Economic ignorance abounds. And all the Talking Heads in the mainstream media blathering away about the Fiscal Cliff are only reinforcing his premise.
Bottom line– the Fiscal Cliff doesn’t matter. The US passed the point of no return a long time ago.
Simon Black
Guess what they’re NOT cutting in the Fiscal Cliff…
November 15, 2012
[H/T Tyler Durden.
I’m headed for a cabin in the woods this weekend. What are you doing?—Joe]
Interesting times
Observe Greece to see what our future looks like… Greek Brothel To Sponsor Broke Elementary School:
This is what complete social collapse looks like. First, the local Neo Nazi party has soared in the polls and is now the third most popular Greek party. Then, in lieu of other sources of capital, a local brothel became the head sponsor of a minor-league soccer club from Larissa. Now, the same brothel which appears to have seen a substantial return on its advertising spend, has decided to branch out… straight into a local elementary school. That’s right: a whorehouse is advertising its “services” to children in an elementary school. In exchange for what? Money to purchase a Xerox machine and a library.
A Redistributed Pie Shrinks, A Selfish One Grows
Assumption: People change their behavior when the perceived incentives (cost and/or benefits) change.
Assumption: The world is not a zero-sum game.
Any arguments or dispute? No? Ok, then, a thought experiment.
A typical grading curve in school is 90% A, 80% B, 70% C, 60% D, less than 60% fails, where there are many standard point-earning opportunities, and occasional “extra-point” opportunities, where each person earns their own scores. Maybe everyone aces an easy class with all 90%+, maybe a herd of sluggards all fail. Any number of points might be earned in total.
Tell a classroom full of kids that the grading curve is to be changed. In order to help out the GPA of struggling students, points will be redistributed. After each test, project, or paper, any points above a grade cut-off will be shaved off as “extra” and re-distributed to the lowest scoring student. When the lowest scoring student has been brought to the level of the next-lowest student, then the points are shared between them, because they are both the neediest at the bottom. No “extra” points can be “banked” against future mistakes. If not everyone is brought up to passing by this method when just extracting “extra A” points, then more points will be extracted from the scores at the top, and the 80%-90% scores will get cut to 80%, and all the extra points re-distributed to those in need of points to pass. If some are still failing, then all the now-B students will get knocked down to C’s, and those points re-distributed. Etc.
Question: with the changes in incentives, how will students change their behaviors?
Some will keep doing what they are doing, because that is just who they are, and they want to learn regardless of grade. Likely it will not be many. Many near the top will see all their extra points being sucked away, and they will stop trying to earn more than 90%; indeed, I’d expect a competition to see who can come closest to 90% most often without going under. Those at the bottom will work even less, knowing they will be given some extra help, so they will need more points than ever. Those in the middle will get frustrated, because they are not doing well, but they are not getting any help, because it’s all going to those at the bottom, who are not helped in the end because there are not enough points to bring a dozen zeros up to 60% and passing. The total number of student points, reflecting the growing knowledge of the students in the class (at least in theory), will shrink. The number of people passing will shrink. The attitude toward the subject and teacher will deteriorate. In the end, a few will still be trying because they know it’s the right thing to do, but it will not be anywhere near enough to help out the grade situation, so learning halts, because no new teaching can start until a passing grade on existing material in achieved.Classroom average GPA will head to zero.
Compare that to progressive taxation, welfare, the economy, and government.
For those on the left that don’t get it, allow me to spell it out. The formerly high-scoring students grow too actively resent the low-scoring ones because they are dragging the high scores down. The failing students actively dislike the strong students because they COULD be working harder to earn more points to pass around, but aren’t. Those in the middle can’t help those at the top OR bottom, but get caught in the middle and accused of being “other” by both sides. It’s a toxic brew that sows discord, hatred, envy, and sloth. It destroys the incentives to succeed, shrinks the point-and-learning pie, and hurts everyone, regardless of the stated intention to help those in most need of a GPA boost, because it fails to recognize that GPA isn’t the GOAL, it’s a BYPRODUCT of the goal, learning. The goal of the government should not be to get everyone to a particular level of income & benefits, it is to provide place, laws, and opportunities for a person to be able to do that on their own.
On the other hand, change the grading system so that failure to earn a passing grade means you cannot get a free lunch, and continuing failure jeopardizes your families’ voting rights or welfare checks or eligibility for other government assistance or jobs. Failing has real, painful, consequences. Helping a struggling student to pass earns you extra opportunities, or classes, or money. Getting high grades in difficult or high-demand classes can earn college / trade-school tuition money or even a cash graduation bonus. Doing well for yourself has solid, immediate benefits. People can take as many classes as they want, and earn unlimited points or cash, and it’s not being taken from the low-performing students.
Which would return better long-term results?
Yes, I know this isn’t a new concept. It seemed like a good way to give a concrete example of how my basic assumptions and principles about people and how the world works, and perhaps shed light on the folly of current programs, and suggest a more sensible approach.
Winning the culture wars
A few days ago one of the women I met online in my nine dates with six women in nine days adventure sent me an email asking information about a local gun range and instructor for a female friend of hers.
Yesterday I had my semi-annual eye exam (yes, my eyesight is quite good). I wore an Insights Training sweatshirt. As I walked in the door a female patient looked at me and said, “Insights! Are you an instructor?” “No”, I told her, “I’m just a student of theirs.”
It turns out she had worked at Weapons Safety Inc. (a gun shop and range) when Insights did a lot of their classes there and hence was quite familiar with Insights. The female optometrist asked the other patient a little about what it was like to work there and then it was back to business.
As I was waiting the female receptionist was talking to still another female patient about LASIK and told her that her ex had bad eyes and wore very thick glasses. He then had LASIK and the next year was able to win a rifle competition he had no chance of winning with his previous eyes. The woman she was talking to didn’t seem the least bit fazed.
This was all in the Seattle area. Historically Seattle is very anti-gun.
We have essentially won the culture war on guns. We need to keep taking new people to the range (I had another one scheduled for 2:00 PM today but she became ill and we are rescheduling) but short of a major screw up the worst case in the next decade or so is that progress toward our end goal is halted.
But there is another culture war that looks every bit as bad as things did for gun rights advocates 15 years ago.
We have long known something was very wrong with our country. The gun issue was/is just one symptom. TSA is a big deal. The war on drugs is a big deal. The government involvement in health care is a big deal. The welfare state is a big deal. The government involvement in education is a big deal. The national debt is a huge deal.
Looking at the bigger picture there are just so many things wrong that it is easy to want to just run away, create Galt’s Gulch, or encourage secession. 15 years ago the gun rights situation looked hopeless too. As Tam said if you arrived as a time traveler at a gun store in 1995 and told them the future of gun ownership in 2012 they would have found the time travel part the most believable part of your story.
I’m not saying “everything is going to be okay”. In fact in at least one way we have essentially a mathematical proof that it’s game over and we are just watching the clock run out. But the question is, what do we do about it?
Some people are buying gold and silver. Lots of people are buying guns and ammo. But you can’t eat gold or silver. You can eat a bullet, but one is your lifetime limit and few people consider the Smith and Wesson retirement plan the best they can do. Stockpiling food and water in the city, at best, will only get you by as long as your supplies last. And even if you join up with a like minded tribe deep in the woods it’s going to be at best a couple of generations until the latest fashion debate is about how to arrange which type of bird feather on your fur coat and there is talk of an “assault weapon ban” on crossbows with the real agenda of getting rid of all bows and arrows and maybe spears too.
I think there may be a better way. I have the big vision but I haven’t yet been able to figure out how to implement it. It’s sort of like I know I need a bridge across this dangerous ravine. I know a fair amount about different types of bridges but none of them seem to be feasible. I suppose it’s possible the “ravine” is actually the “Grand Canyon” and we simply don’t have the “technology”, money, and/or time to build such a bridge in the time we have left. But if you consider 1995 the darkest days in the gun wars and a win being clearly visible by 2003 (most people predicted the AWB probably wasn’t going to be renewed) then that only took eight years.
One way to look at that is those eight years is that they were essentially a politically delaying action until we got our culture war game on. I claim a similar situation exists today. I’m sure freedom has not yet reached it’s nadir but there is a fair amount of political action that will slow the descent. If we can get our culture game going for freedom then we might be able pull out a win before the clock runs out.
The problem is I don’t see how to win the culture war. I don’t see that we have effective weapons in this culture war. I don’t even see how to fight the culture war. People are certainly trying but we are rapidly losing.
With guns we could take people to the range and the anti-gun people didn’t have anti-gun ranges to compete with us. The anti-freedom people have “free stuff” and “security” to offer. It’s all a lie in the long, or even intermediate, term but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is here and now. The media shows the sick getting treatment, the hungry being fed, and the TSA proclaiming the world is a safer place when they find eight ounces of toothpaste in grandmas carryon luggage. The hidden costs and the cancerous belief that more government is the solution to every problem are difficult to see and in the “distant” future of a few years from now.
What are the freedom games that would be the equivalent of USPSA, IDPA, Steel Challenge, and Boomershoot? Something that quickly engages people and gives almost immediate feedback would be ideal. It is a video game? But maybe the definition of “immediate” can be stretched a bit. Perhaps it is an experimental city with no taxes on income, capital gains, or sales. Or maybe it is teaching philosophy in our schools.
The way I see it we can win the culture war in the next few years or we can say George Orwell was off by two generations.
Reflections on assumptions, principles, and world-view after a painful loss
It is easy to argue with others and say that they must be
stupid or insane or whatever to vote a certain way. But, when you lose, you
have to confront the fact that you were out-voted, and therefore, in a
minority. Introspection to see whether you
made a mistake, or if they were
mistaken, or if there are other forces at work, must be done or you will keep
losing. We all have our assumptions and principles, and these form our basic
world-view, and it may be time to check out or investigate theirs, as well as
my own. Assumptions and principles are different, and should be evaluated for
clarity and reasonableness.
All of Euclidian Geometry follows from a very small handful
of postulates, common notions, and definitions. People are more complex, but
that doesn’t mean that our assumptions HAVE to be far more complicated or
vastly more numerous.
Some people have a very simplistic “if it feels good do it”
sort of worldview, because that sums up their principles, and their sole
assumption / value is “feeling good right now is what matters most.” If you don’t
agree with that basic assertion, then you see them as shallow, hedonistic, short-sighted,
etc. But you can’t get them to change their view, or see YOUR view, until you get them to formally recognize
and question those underlying ideas, and acknowledge yours. Similarly,
you can’t understand why they do what
they do until you recognize and understand what their fundamental principles and values are. Same facts, utterly divergent
views.
Simplistic example: Men generally value freedom more than
security, and women vice-versa. Men generally earn more than women. A
politician offering much freedom and low taxes, at the cost of limited
safety-net and therefore personal uncertainty, will attract more men than
women. Another politician offering an image of dependability and security (such
as free healthcare) at a cost of high taxes and regulation, will attract a lot more
women than men. Men see the cost in taxes and on their freedom, women see
benefits of not having to worry about it. Same fact, different values, different
votes. Looked at short-term, before the cost of the free health-care bankrupts the
nation, the female vote is perfectly
rational, and if she votes against it she’ll be accused of voting against her
own self-interests. OTOH, a man voting against it will be accused of being
selfish or uncaring. Looked at long-term, as the burden of it destroys many
other things and increases uncertainty, it’s
very self-destructive to vote for
the health-care pol. But one just calling the other stupid or callous doesn’t
help find common ground or resolve the dispute and decide the best course for
both short AND long term concerns.
My basic assumptions about the people of the world are:
A) People tend to change their behavior when their perceived incentives change (see “O” below).
B) People will work much harder for themselves (to make more money or improve
their situation) than for anyone else, i.e., they will work in their own best
interests (as they see them).
C) Most people are basically good, and want to do good, BUT
D) people tend to be lazy, and can be envious, spiteful, cowardly, have other
anti-virtues, AND
E) some folks just are not wired right (psychopaths, narcissists, psychotics, sociopaths,
OCD, idiots, etc)
F) People are people – any assumptions you make about the “common man” or
business leaders, you must ALSO make about people with a badge, or in elected
office, or any other government employee. (Corollary: If you don’t trust folks
to take care of themselves or run business, you can’t expect them give them a
monopoly on government force and expect them to act like angels.)
G) Risk can never be eliminated, and trying to do so creates other, much more
subtle and dangerous, risks (Corollary: you CAN’T save everyone. NON-corollary:
it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to save anyone).
My assumptions about economics are:
H) The world is not a zero-sum game.
I) TANSTAAFL- ALL choices are trade-offs, and better choices can be made if
consequences are clear, direct, and known to the chooser at the time of the
choice being made. (Related: Costs should align with benefits, preferably in an
obvious-to-the-beneficiary way at the
time of benefit)
J) People tend to change their behavior
when the incentives change (yup, same as above – it’s important)
K) Things not earned are not valued properly or understood well. (Corollary:
giving people stuff, either “free stuff” or power, corrupts the spirit and
distorts values and other incentives).
L) Because people have different values, aiming for equality of outcomes is unwise.
M) There will always be relative winners and losers in ANY system, and changing
the rules simply changes who wins or loses most. (Related: the more rules there
are, the more people will attempt to game the system to personal advantage, and
the worse the side-effects)
N) When incentives of self-interest are
aligned with desirable outcomes, there is little resistance to “good” action (corollary:
when they conflict, coercion will be required).
O) Failure is not a bug, it’s a necessary
feature, a feed-back mechanism. It’s not only an option, it MUST be a VISIBLE and
PAINFUL option, if people are to evaluate risk and reward to choose wisely.
P) What works best is usually what aligns self-interest with desired outcomes.
Q) Marginal costs can tell you a LOT about how well thought-out a plan is.
R) That which cannot be sustained, won’t be.
My principles and values are: more freedom is better than
less; private property is private, and that includes your body, your time, and
the product of your labor; I really don’t care that much about what you say about
the intended result of your actions –
I care much more about the actual
real-world results, effects, and side-effects; dependency is bad; coercion is
bad; coercion and charity are incompatible; clarity and accuracy are more important
than hurt feelings; things of value are best earned or given freely; a person
should do all that they promise to do; a person should not harm another, or
their property, without just cause (such as self defense); all people should be
treated equally under the law, BUT not all people are of equal worth; honesty
is good, even if it is uncomfortable.
Questions, challenges, any missing / contradictory /
redundant items? If I can get it concise – simple, clear, short, and complete
enough – whenever I get in an argument that I think can be broken down to
fundamentals, I can ask which ones they disagree with. If they DON’T disagree
with any of them, and don’t have any others, I could build up, like a Euclidian
proof, why my position makes more sense than theirs (or at least, why their
position doesn’t make sense to me), and if they DO disagree or have other
additional items, I can get a much better handle on why/how/if I can approach
the disagreement to find common ground.
Random thought of the day
I was inspired by comments on a Facebook page (Annette Wachter’s) about considering moving to another state such as Idaho, Wyoming, or South Dakota and I added my random thought:
I’m thinking I would like to move a little further away. The moon sounds nice. Or maybe Mars. I wouldn’t need any wind doping skills on the moon but I think I want a little more gravity so my bones don’t weaken to the point I couldn’t return to earth if I really wanted to sort through the wreckage in a decade or so.
I had a rough day today. Not nearly enough sleep last night then some lawyer/divorce stuff to deal with on top of the election results. It’s time to go to bed and pull the covers over my head for a few hours. I’ll feel better in the morning.
Time for a serious conversation
I received a text message this morning:
Are you free sometime this weekend? I feel the need for a long, serious conversation.
My first thought was, “OH NO! What did I do this time?”
Then I realized there was the potential for another reason. I responded with:
Topic? Politics? Personal?
I guessed right. It was the election:
Politics/survival
We will have our conversation. We’ll increase our odds and probably do okay. The rest of the world? I’m skeptical. As Thomas Sowell has said via Twitter recently:
Or as Say Uncle said:
And as I have said many times, the looters are soon going to run out of places to loot. And I don’t plan on hanging around when that happens. I just hope I can get most of my possessions and all of those I care about out of harms way.
Quote of the day—Margaret Thatcher
And what a policy!
Yes! He would rather have the poor be poorer provided the rich were less rich. That is the liberal policy!
Yes it came out! He didn’t intend it to but it did.
Margaret Thatcher
November 22, 1990
From 1:15 in this video:
[H/T to Phssthpok from this comment.
As pointed out at the end of the video as soon as someone talks about “the gap” between the rich and the poor they have revealed themselves and their true nature.
It was over 20 years a friend of mine, Susan K., told me essentially the same thing as part of a pitch about her love of Ayn Rand’s work. I read Atlas Shrugged years earlier when I was in my late teens. I really liked it but I hadn’t really followed up with her other works. Susan got me started again. Susan’s explanation of the preference of the left for poorer people as long as the gap was less was effective on me but it wasn’t as simple and as forceful as the way Ms. Thatcher expressed it.
For a different and more rigorous approach read Thomas Sowell’s book Black Rednecks and White Liberals or one of his many of his other works. The gist is that a critical item overlooked by those that complain about “the gap” is that different people are in the category of “poor” and “rich” over time. Of course someone in their first job is going to be earning far less than someone who has been working and learning about their area of expertise for 40 years. And over larger time spans it is pointed out there used to be complaints about the “railroad barons” and the super rich oil tycoons and others in steel and automobile industries. Those have been replaced by people in new industries and many of those older industries are essentially dead in this country. And even within an industry those with a seemingly invincible grip in one decade can be struggling or gone the next.
Economics is about the optimal allocation of scarce recourses. Optimal allocation obviously increases the total wealth of society. But what the statists don’t realize, or perhaps don’t want you to know so they can obtain personal power or wealth, is that something much closer to optimal allocation occurs when markets and minds are free rather than when dictated by the central committee with their decisions backed up by guns.
Don’t ever be at a loss for words when someone whines about the rich getting richer. Don’t try to explain that it doesn’t or shouldn’t matter if some people get rich or that it means there is opportunity for others to get rich. Handle it as Ms. Thatcher did. Follow it up by forcefully making the case that if the gap between the rich and the poor is a valid cause for government and/or social action then they will never be satisfied until full equality is achieved. And there are those that admit what they demand is full equality in just those words. But what they cannot seem to comprehend is that full equality can only be approximated by everyone being in extreme poverty. Full equality comes with death. And it should come as no surprise the political left is well acquainted with death on a very large scale.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Rivrdog
What happened since the 1960s is that capitalism morphed towards socialism by accepting all those rules on enterprise which the gov’t wrote, and socialist governments got used to the capitalist bribes, and learned to relax the rules at the right times to promote “welfare capitalism”.
A third political force, libertarianism, sprang up to replace pure capitalism with it’s property rights-driven theory, and a fourth force, Marxism, arose to inject pure collectivism back into what used to be socialism.
The entire process is like watching clouds form and dissipate over the mountains.
Rivrdog
November 2, 2012
Comment to Capitalism v. Socialism
[I really like the metaphor.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Mark Alger
I wish we In the Right could/would stop using the term “capitalism”. It’s a Marxian canard, founded in the notion that what we’re about is a system of belief, rather than free markets, and free commerce, which are the natural, self-organizing systems that arise spontaneously when individuals are left in liberty, each to pursue his own enlightened self interest.
Nor is “socialism” the only evil of the Left. Together, the lot of them all bear a single earmark: they are collectivist in nature and deny the sovereignty of the individual. The rest is just persiflage, allowing leftists to pettifog minor distinctions of no matter or moment, rather than getting to the basic point.
Mark Alger
November 2, 2012
Comment to Capitalism v. Socialism
[A very good point. The problem is, of course, that “free markets and free commerce” is not as succinct. And “Liberty” and “Freedom” are too vague. On the other side I think “collectivist”, “collectivism”, and probably even “statist” and “statism” work adequately.
See also his blog post on this same topic here where he says, “Joe is brilliant”. He forgot to mention that I admire myself for my modesty as well.—Joe]
Capitalism v. Socialism
There are at least two ways to interpret Americans Aged 18-29 Have A More Favorable Response To Socialism Than To Capitalism. One is that the young are inclined toward socialism and as they age they will become more capitalist. The other is that capitalism is on it’s way out and as the current capitalist age out socialism is inevitable.
I’m inclined to believe the first hypothesis is more likely to be true than the latter. One of the reasons is that young socialists have been predicting the imminent collapse of capitalism for decades if not longer. Here is one example:
In the last week of May 1968, a rallying call to the working class to take political power into their hands would have tolled the death knell of capitalism on a world scale.
In rural Idaho at the time, and a bit too young, I was too far removed from ground zero of the socialist movements of the 1960s. But I know people who were near the center of those times and places. They too believed within a few decades capitalism would be dead and buried.
I won’t deny that capitalism is weaker and is more likely to be crushed now than at any other time in the last 50 years, but it is far stronger than its detractors of the 1960s thought it would be at this time. Many of those sympathetic to socialism at that time became more capitalist as they grew older.
Perhaps socialism will temporarily bury capitalism in the next few years or perhaps decades. But I believe the young will continue to mature and become more capitalist as they age. Socialism will succeed only because we grant them power based on their stated intention rather than based on the fruit they bring. And results versus stated intentions are becoming more and more clear with each victory the socialists make.
It is those stated intentions that are so seductive we can almost taste the sweetness of the candy. The candy that is laced, by it’s very socialist nature, with carcinogens. What the socialists don’t really understand, and why I say any burial of capitalism is temporary, is that as the cancer takes hold and destroys a society it destroys the great mass of the socialist advocates at a faster rate than it does the capitalists. The capitalists will move to protect their “capital” whether it is their tangible wealth or the intellectual and physical skills that made them more productive than the socialists to begin with. As the socialists rot from the cancer of their own making the capitalists will be the ones to recover and rise from the ashes of the civilization the socialists destroyed.
I don’t know the time scale. There are just too many variables. The elections next week, as important as they are, are probably a minor player in the big picture. The economic collapse of Western Europe and perhaps Japan and China will play a major role. Add in the price and availability of oil and the possibility of glass pockmarks replacing the cities of Iran and/or Israel and you have such huge variables that making such predictions is impossible.
But I believe that even if it has to be resurrected from the ashes capitalism, particularly the right to property and all that derives from that, will rise because it is a natural law recognized and defended by nearly all animals and even our very young. I’ve talked to avowed Marxists and others who looked me directly in the eyes and said, “What’s wrong with socialism?” Their logic is non-existent, their data is cherry-picked, and their arguments are both fragile and brittle.
They can only succeed through deception and force. And at some level they know that too. This is why they have such violent tendencies. This is why they are genocidal. They can only succeed if they can kill off their intellectual competition. But as they run out of places to loot there is a “little problem” waiting for them. Their final, intended, victims are armed.
It is only as we humans go through the process of maturing in the teenage years that our brains turn to mush and advocate for socialism. Most recover but some do not. It is my belief that socialism is now making it’s final push to kill capitalism and although those with mush for brains might actually succeed in the end mush for brains will always lose to superior firepower.