To say the truth, I’m kindasorta liking the Tea Party movement — as far as it goes. I don’t think we’re at a turning of the tides — although I can at least hope that we might be before too long. Any sort of discussion of individual rights is a good thing, but it doesn’t do, I don’t think, to expect too much philosophically from these folks just yet.
Consider: The self-anointed “progressives” were committed, knowing Marxists who developed an incremental strategy for razing individualism in the United States and raising collectivism in its place.
By contrast, the Tea Partyites seem to me to be largely unconscious Marxists promoting a grab-bag of unconnected tactics generally aimed at temporarily delaying the “progress” of the “progressives.”
In other words, the true Marxists know what they want and the (sad-to-say) clueless Marxists portend, at least thus far, to be nothing more than a flat tire on the road to mass extermination — the unvarying end-consequence of Marxism.
That could change, but only if the Tea Party folks engage their battle philosophically and not just tactically.
How will we be able to tell when they’ve done this? One quick bellwether would be for them to get their hands out of the public till, to the extent that they can. I do understand that many people have so mismanaged their finances — at the behest of the “progressives” — that they can only remain alive by sucking on the taxpayer’s tit. That’s sad, and I would follow a different course in the same circumstances.
But many of the Tea Partyites accepting government checks could easily do without them. We’ll know they’re serious — are you listening Drs. Ron and Rand Paul? — when they publicly refuse to accept even one penny that has been stolen from innocent taxpayers.
That’s a debate for another day, though. Here’s a little something closer to hand. Today I was spammed by the professional sucktits at the National Association of Realtors entreating me to help them rape the taxpayers — again. Apparently, all human progress will be stopped cold if we do not continue to reward Class-A morons for building homes in flood plains. Plus which, we simply must provide more taxpayer-subsidized nothing-down loans so that rural home-buyers are empowered to squander nothing but other people’s money when they default on their mortgages.
I don’t always love the Tea Party movement, but, man, do I hate the NAR! I cannot imagine anything more disgusting that a vast cadre of rich white people quarrying for ever-newer, ever-more-rapacious ways of despoiling innocent taxpayers.
I would love to see the NAR become a champion of the individual human being — especially of the individual right to buy, sell, use, enjoy and profit from privately-owned real property. But that’s a lot to ask for, given that the NAR has been nothing but a Rotarian Socialist vampire cult — the dead feeding on the living — since its inception.
But taking account that — all credit to the “progressives” — the country is going through a steadily-worsening financial emergency, the NAR could at least do the nation one big patriotic favor.
And that would be what?
GET OFF THE TIT, YOU FATUOUS, FLEA-BITTEN FREE-LOADERS!
I love real estate. I love helping people reap the most and the best they can from the resources they devote to real property. But I hate, HATE, HATE being a party to this craven kleptomania.
The NAR doesn’t give a rat’s ass about people who cannot — and should not — get flood insurance. All it cares about is suckering those people into living where no one should live. It doesn’t care about nothing-down home-loans for country folks with no cash and bad credit. It just wants to saddle those dipwads with mortgages they can’t pay. In both cases, the objective is to milk the taxpayer into subsidizing real estate transactions that should never, ever happen, all so the members of the NAR can get paid for destroying the hard-won wealth of honest, hard-working Americans.
And all that would suck even if we really were nothing but con-men — which is to say honest crooks. But we have real value to deliver to the marketplace — when we focus on delivering real value and not on goading decent people into making grievous financial errors. In that respect, the NAR actually manages to out-vampire Dracula himself: We not only rob the taxpayers of their money, we use those stolen funds to make everything steadily worse for those very same taxpayers.
Why must Marxism always lead to mass extermination? Because its only goal is the wholesale destruction of wealth. And as a first-mover of the “progressive” movement, the National Association of Realtors is more than exceptionally talented at destroying wealth — and human lives. Nice going, dipshits.
And, yes, I know they won’t change. But you can change — your mind, your behavior, your philosophy. I would love to see both the Tea Partyites and the NAR get off the taxpayer’s tit, but I don’t expect to see either outcome in the short run. But instead of ignoring that latest piece of NAR spam, you could throw it back in their faces, instead.
Tell them to get off the tit. If they can’t stand up for the real rights of real human beings, at least they can get out of their pockets. And even though they won’t do this, at the every least they’ll know that there are Realtors in this country who understand that real property means nothing if property rights are not absolutely sacrosanct.
They’ll be filthy forever. They will reek of death long before they, too, hit the pile of dead bodies they themselves erected by betraying individualism. But at least you will be clean…
Robert Worthington says:
Thank you for venting for me Greg!
June 2, 2010 — 9:36 am
Bob Jenkins says:
After I got past your “kinda liking the Teaparty” b.s. and the something something about them being Marxists like the self-annointed Progressive Marxists, none of which made a lick of sense, I really got on board the wild ride of your piece. Most of the insults really zinged, especially “fetid, rotting pusswads” and “professional sucktits.” You pushed too hard on “fatuous, flea-bitten, freeloaders,” going for a certain euphony at the expense of accuracy (flea bitten?). The best, absolutely, was “Rotarian socialist vampire cult” with it’s excruciating (ouch) follow-up “the dead feeeding on the living.” Like yourself, I detest the NAR.
June 2, 2010 — 11:02 am
Taylor White, P.H.D. says:
Couldnt have said it better about NAR. Hate em, cant stand em.
Talk about spamming, cant ever seem to get off of their email lists, mailing lists, and everything else list.
Unbelievable.
June 2, 2010 — 11:18 am
Mark Brian says:
I wish you had not held back and told us how you really felt about the flood insurance! LOL
June 2, 2010 — 11:56 am
Mike Bowler Sr. says:
Shame on Bloodhoundblog.com for publishing this garbage. You are not that hard up for authors.
June 2, 2010 — 12:40 pm
Greg Swann says:
> You are not that hard up for authors.
Priceless.
June 2, 2010 — 1:31 pm
Lisa Heindel says:
As one of those “Class-A morons” with a home in a flood plain, I take offense to the idea that I’m a freeloader. If there was an affordable, private alternative to the NFIP, I would gladly give up worrying about whether or not Congress was going to extend my ability to insure my property. Since there is not, I’ll continue to contact my reps every time they drop the ball and potentially leave people in New Orleans without coverage.
June 2, 2010 — 2:28 pm
Greg Swann says:
> I take offense to the idea that I’m a freeloader.
Damn straight. You’re doing America’s working people a favor by soaking up their excess cash on an “investment” so stupid only taxpayers are willing to make it. Awfully gracious of you.
June 2, 2010 — 2:44 pm
Brian Brady says:
“If there was an affordable, private alternative to the NFIP, I would gladly give up worrying about whether or not Congress was going to extend my ability to insure my property”
Why is private flood insurance costly in New Orleans? I’m going to guess it’s related to why earthquake insurance is costly in Southern California
June 2, 2010 — 4:47 pm
Greg Swann says:
> I’m going to guess it’s related to why earthquake insurance is costly in Southern California
I do not believe that free market flood insurance is available anywhere, certainly not in any known flood plain. It’s an adverse selection problem: 100% of the insured parties would be filing claims at the same time. So instead, moral hazard is imposed by fiat of law: I choose to take a stupid risk, because I know I can socialize my losses to uninvolved third parties. This is a pocket illustration of everything that is wrong with Rotarian Socialism. It’s the exact same issue as I discussed with BP, but writ small.
June 2, 2010 — 4:59 pm
Lisa Heindel says:
Brian, I don’t know of a single insurer in the area who writes private flood policies. NFIP is our only choice, whether we like it or not.
Although I live in NOLA, I don’t live below sea level and I’m not *required* to carry flood insurance but we’ve all seen first hand what happens to people who don’t have it. It’s the same issue facing people along any coastline. Flooding is a risk, just like earthquakes are a risk in CA and tornadoes are a risk in the Midwest.
Calling anyone who requires a flood policy a moron is insulting and childish. There are better ways to make a point about waste by our government without resorting to juvenile name calling.
June 2, 2010 — 4:55 pm
Greg Swann says:
> NFIP is our only choice, whether we like it or not.
False. You can self-insure or move. Those would be self-responsible alternatives, as opposed to shifting the costs of your irresponsible choices to uninvolved third parties. The name for people who do this is: Free-loaders.
> There are better ways to make a point about waste by our government without resorting to juvenile name calling.
Shoe pinch? I have nothing but admiration for people who carry their own weight. In any case, this post is not about government waste. It’s about the sucktit NAR and its members continuing to rape taxpayers even as it becomes more and more obvious that the taxpayers are tapped out. Welfare for the poor is sick and morally destructive. Welfare for the rich is an abomination. But rich or poor, welfare slaves are almost always sanctimoniously self-defensive about their sacred “right” to the sweat of another person’s brow. In this respect, at least, you have not been a disappointment.
June 2, 2010 — 5:03 pm
Lisa Heindel says:
Per FEMA library:
“The NFIP has not been capitalized, but generates surplus during less-than-average-loss years and has borrowing authority with the U.S. Treasury to cover losses in the event that policyholder funds and investment income are inadequate. It does not use taxpayer funds to pay claims, operating expenses, or offset any shortfalls in premium from policies paying a subsidized flood insurance rate….When the NFIP borrows money, it pays the Treasury back with interest.”
Welfare slave? I think not. Find another reason to bitch about NAR.
June 2, 2010 — 6:33 pm
Greg Swann says:
> Welfare slave? I think not.
You have flood insurance because you have enslaved your neighbors, and for no other reason. You said as much yourself: “I don’t know of a single insurer in the area who writes private flood policies.” Having enslaved your neighbors makes you nothing like unique. We are all of us complicit in this kleptocracy in one way or another. Attempting to deny that you are stealing wealth from innocent, uninvolved third parties — and then pissing and moaning when you are called on these crimes — strikes me as being dishonest. That’s maybe the worst tax of the Welfare State, that it robs us of our dignity and turns us into apologists for evil. To be the victim of a vampire civilization is bad enough, but the job of the state is not done until we become celebrants of and participants in the blood-sucking. This is a trend that will not have happy consequences.
June 2, 2010 — 7:12 pm
Brian Brady says:
Lisa, I’m going to illustrate why the NAR is a band of thieves through a well-known (and now proving to be failed) program; the first-time home buyer tax credit.
First, proof that it failed: April pending contracts are up while May purchase mortgage applications are down…again from a down April month. This means that the March loan apps went into contract in April and purchase interest is waning…quickly.
The NAR would argue we need the credit for that very reason while I argue (correctly) that it tried to get in the way of price discovery. The NAR, through it’s proposal and lobby for the tax credit, actually hampered what could be a more speedy real estate recovery.
What the NAR did was use the force of government, through taxation, to bribe people to buy (overpriced) homes….with my money! Keep in mind that if I disagree, and withhold my portion of taxes attributed to the tax credit, they harass me, then arrest me, and ultimately (if I resist arrest), shoot me.
Let me break it down for you. This means, if one in ten home sales was due to the tax credit:
1- All ten residents on my cul-de-sac have to fork over $800 so that one of them can sell at a higher than market price.
2- The other nine aren’t moving. In fact, 3 of the other 9 don’t even want to own a home; they rent. One guy gets to sell at an artificially high price at the expense of the rest of us.
3- The NAR came to my cul-de-sac and collected $800 from 9 of us (3 of whom don’t believe in home ownership) with the very real (but distant) threat of being shot if we disagreed.
How is that not theft?
Your quote from FEMA states it doesn’t cost the taxpayers a dime…but it does. The fact that the NFIP has borrowing authority on the US Treasury (the cheapest source of funds around) proves why the FEMA website is just propoganda. That source of funds is cheap is because it can tax me to bolster its credit rating.
If the NFIP had to seek free market loans to finance its operations, it would cost much more than the Treasury rates it currently pays. That cost would be passed onto the policy holders in the form of higher premiums.
…but, that’s not all.
Adding an extra liability to the already bloated US Treasury ADDS to the borrowing costs of the US Government. When budget deficits are run, it creates a cycle of runaway debt, costing taxpayers much more.
…still, it gets worse.
The very existence of the NFIP, with its subsidized insurance product, crowds out any entrepreneur who would like to offer a competing (and profitable) insurance product.
How’s it all end? One of two ways:
1- Taxpayers in Montana say “Screw it! I ain’t paying for Californians’ earthquake insurance or Louisianans’ flood insurance” and they secede. We all now how that ends up-618,000 dead.
2- The US Treasury goes bankrupt.
Now Lisa, before you get all worked up, ask yourself, where does the US Treasury get all of its money? Once you answer that question, you’ll understand the problem with government subsidies.
June 3, 2010 — 12:06 am
Michael Cook says:
Brian,
Thats a great answer to a tough question. From a economic perspective, you and Greg are certainly right on the money, but from a simple people perspective it may not be as easy. There is no question that NFIP is a large costs to the tax payer. The huge potential libability on the governments heaad is way too much for any smart or reasonable company to take on.
Consider the fact that many of these people cannot afford to live someplace else, so its not as simple as get up and move as Greg mentions. Additionally, if these people dont have insurance, they will certainly lose everything they own, posing a potentially greater problem to their city and the surrounding areas.
Consider New Orleans post Katrina. People with no where to go and with nothing to their name prove to be another problem for the government to deal with. Not that I support building in Flood Zone, especially places like New Orleans, but its quite easy to say, those people are stupid and another matter entirely to propose a workable solution that gets people to a better place.
June 3, 2010 — 2:59 pm
Greg Swann says:
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”
The only possible cure for kleptocracy is morality. Every alternative amounts to digging out way deeper and deeper into our own graves.
June 3, 2010 — 3:46 pm
Brian Brady says:
You’re bringing up good points. I’m going to try this in reverse, MC:
“Consider New Orleans post Katrina. People with no where to go and with nothing to their name prove to be another problem for the government to deal with”
What if the government just…didn’t…deal with it? This happened to Oklahoma in the 1930s and the Bakersfield oil industry was born. Lot’s of “Okies” got rich in Bako and their offspring certainly lead good lives in Malibu today. Had government “dealt with the problem”, they might not have realized that good fortune.
“Consider the fact that many of these people cannot afford to live someplace else, so its not as simple as get up and move as Greg mentions”
Agreed. It’s hard but that strife is the seed from which ingenuity and entrepreneurship is sown.
“There is no question that NFIP is a large costs to the tax payer. The huge potential liability on the governments head is way too much for any smart or reasonable company to take on”
Then they shouldn’t pursue it. Imagine what untold wealth this nation would have if we were forced to adapt?
We should be allowed to fail or suffer because great things come from a curious minds. Hungry men invent things while temporarily inconvenienced ones just…wait. We do those men and all of mankind a disservice when we remove that hunger.
June 3, 2010 — 4:35 pm
Greg Swann says:
I don’t want to get too bogged down in details, because the issue is a matter of principle — and the principle subsumes and supersedes any particular set of details.
Nevertheless, taking on the supposed necessity of bailing out New Orleans, post Katrina: Why wouldn’t the same argument apply to Detroit? Homeowners there have lost 80% or more of their equity. Why are the taxpayers not somehow obliged to bail all of them out, as well?
And: Taxpayer-subsidized flood insurance is actually moral hazard on crack, meth and steroids: Crack: We subsidize the obvious error of building in a flood plain. Meth: Then we rebuild the flood-damaged properties — again and again, every time they are flooded. Steroids: The availability of the subsidized flood insurance incentivizes more and more idiotic building in flood plains. It would be comical to say that the government’s underwriting of stupid behavior induces even more, even bigger stupidities — but the objective is not comedy, more’s the pity.
> Imagine what untold wealth this nation would have if we were forced to adapt?
Let your imagination reach back into antiquity and imagine the costs of these wealth-destructive errors, the attending opportunity costs of refusing to behave rationally and the compound-interest value that could have accrued over the ages from living as honest men and not as congenital criminals. Cancer cured? An end to all disease? Human colonies on other planets? Other stars? The Singularity itself? How many deaths have we caused — and how many lives have we ruined — because most of us insist that the only way we can survive is by sucking the lifeblood out of each other’s necks?
> We should be allowed to fail or suffer because great things come from a curious minds. Hungry men invent things while temporarily inconvenienced ones just…wait. We do those men and all of mankind a disservice when we remove that hunger.
This is true and moving, but ultimately it is not dispositive. I have a moral right to live free of the dictates and predations of other people regardless of the end consequences. Classical Economics and much of Austrian Economics is rooted in collectivism: Humans should be free because, if they are, they will produce more wealth for everyone else. This is true as a matter of factual accounting, but it is a betrayal of the principle of individualism, and it is therefore ultimately a premise that is consistently used to frustrate human liberty.
Why? Because the standard of value of every form of collectivism is the collective, not the individual. The good of the collective is all that matters, and if someone like Karl Marx — who was a Classical Economist, after all — can convince fools that the good of the collective requires the coercion, the expropriation or even the extermination of the individual, there is nothing that the followers of Adam Smith can say as a matter of principle. The philosophical principles involved are exactly the same — the good of the collective — and the argument bogs down — as noted above — on details of implementation.
Human beings are free as a matter of ontology — as a matter of being. They are never not free. Virtually everything we call coercion is in fact a sort of Kabuki theater, a dumb-show performance that is always 100% motivated by the conscious, willful, purposive behavior of the putative victim.
Great benefits will accrue to both the individual human being and to his companions when he chooses always to act in consonance with his true ontological nature — absolutely true. But the best reason to stop trying to push people around is a matter of simple ontology: It can’t be done. We are not individualists as a vanity — as some sort of fungible, interchangeable doctrine. We are individualists, if we are, because we have correctly identified our natural identity as real things, an identity we cannot change no matter what.
I apologize if I seem to be caviling, but the failure to acknowledge that the actual ontological nature of human beings cannot changed, no matter what, is how we get ourselves into this mess over and over again.
Incidentally, you will know when real change is about to happen on earth when you begin to hear this argument from more people than just me and Jim Klein. 😉
June 3, 2010 — 5:33 pm
Brian Brady says:
“I apologize if I seem to be caviling, but the failure to acknowledge that the actual ontological nature of human beings cannot changed, no matter what, is how we get ourselves into this mess over and over again.”
You’re not. I’m getting it.
How does a Christian reconcile ethical egoism with being “his brother’s keeper”? I can’t figure that out.
June 3, 2010 — 7:11 pm
Greg Swann says:
> How does a Christian reconcile ethical egoism with being “his brother’s keeper”?
I am not kind, but the closest I come to kindness is that I normally refrain from eviscerating people’s religious beliefs. If we were to discuss religion as philosophy, I would take it apart. But at the level of an individual person’s faith, I say — you’ve heard me say it — each man to his own saints.
I grew up around Catholics and I really like them, as people and as parents. They look and feel like home to me. But there is nothing of the supernatural (physics and metaphysics) nor of revelation or divination (epistemology) nor of received or sanctioned moral codes (ethics) nor of unchosen obligations (politics) in my thinking.
From my point of view, your question is a conflation of three different questions. The way I think of ethical egoism, there is no dilemma. Helping someone who needs it may be a virtue, but subsidizing vice is destructive of the egos of both the moocher and the moochee. The first is rare, the second ubiquitous — alas.
Any particular moral question can be annotated in that way in a calculus of self-construction or self-destruction. Self-construction is good. Self-destruction is bad. Everything else is a secondary consequence.
Your mileage may vary, and no one can work it out for you, anyway.
June 3, 2010 — 11:50 pm
Michael Cook says:
“We should be allowed to fail or suffer because great things come from a curious minds. Hungry men invent things while temporarily inconvenienced ones just…wait. We do those men and all of mankind a disservice when we remove that hunger.”
This is a statement that I find interesting. While it is certainly true, it is also true that hungry men rob, steal and kill. For your example of the “Okies,” I can raise you the same example of people in Haiti, Africa, and hell even post-Katrina, where with little or no intervention, the people turned to crime rather than industry.
I agree with you that by simply doing nothing you will have either success or abject failure. I think the people here fail to recognize that latter. Americans didnt succeed through pure capitalism. Rather, they succeed by lawlessly taking land from Native Americans, then pure capitalism. Same goes for Europe. Without significant help from the US after WWI and WWII, Europe would not be where it is today.
Despite the theories here, it is not a forgone conclusion that when government exits, people succeed. They can either succeed or fail, and their failure will have implications on those around them, be it through crime or Welfare, which might be the same for the people here.
All I ask is that we dont look to capitalism or free markets as the all healing Panacea that it cannot be. Some times people need a jump start. The issue is figuring out when to take off the jumper cables and let people succeed or fail.
June 4, 2010 — 5:41 am
Michael Cook says:
“Nevertheless, taking on the supposed necessity of bailing out New Orleans, post Katrina: Why wouldn’t the same argument apply to Detroit? Homeowners there have lost 80% or more of their equity. Why are the taxpayers not somehow obliged to bail all of them out, as well?”
Your point is “I have a moral right to live free of the dictates and predations of other people regardless of the end consequences”, while I would say that everyone has a moral right to basic food, clothes and shelter. Before you get started on the government, let me say that they go well beyond that today and many things, including insuring buildings in a flood zone would not qualify as food, clothes and shelter. I think we can all agree, its is a very bad idea.
Conversely, I dont think it is unreasonable to ensure everyone has their basic needs met. When this does not happen, people dont innovate or succeed. Lets take a look at a place like Sub-Saharan Africa. In all respects, there is very little government there and yet, those people have yet to make it to the moon or manage to feed themselves off of land that could easily provide enough for all of them. They would be your prototypical community. Little government, every man makes their own living, and yet, we dont see them conquering the world. What gives???
That can be further extrapolated to Afganistan. People here had the opportunity to turn to a free society and yet, they turned away from great innovations. They are still nice enough to supply us with drugs and terrorist though.
For every illegal immigrant that becomes a citizen and turns their life into a noble cause, you will have the opposite as well. Corruption is not a function of people having a bad nature, but rather a function of a lack of education and a lack of basic needs being met. “Yeah, he doesnt like black people, but he puts a meal on my table, so I support him…” See the rise of Hilter as a great example here. A people without basic needs being met, will sacrifice their “morals” for food, clothes and shelter. We can also see the Sudan and almost any other ruthless dictator for this.
It is a proven fact that as countries become more educated and wealthy, they become more stable. Its also interesting that for that to happen, it traditionally requires some kind of aid or government intervention. I am sure you have to wonder why every established civilization has a government today, yesterday and most likely tomorrow.
The more I come to understand poverty, the more I definitely understand that Greg is most certainly wrong, and that while Capitalism is a great engine, but must be started by some kind of Socialism. This tension is always where and when does the switch need to be made.
June 4, 2010 — 7:25 am
Greg Swann says:
> I would say that everyone has a moral right to basic food, clothes and shelter.
Why not a big-screen TV with free HD cable? Why not court-side seats to the NBA Finals? Why not a guaranteed full-hour shiatsu massage lovingly administered by Michelle Pfeiffer?
First, you have no principled argument against my proposals, just quibbles about details — supported by nothing but emotional appeals and frantic hand-waving. If you draw the line on theft anywhere but at zero, you can draw it anywhere at all, with your specious defense always being the same: Your emotions trump my sovereignty.
Second, a “right” to wealth is necessarily a right to another person’s time and effort — a “right” to enslave.
But third, and dispositively, the word “right” as you are using it does not refer to ideas but to indisputable, unchangeable facts of nature — which you are getting wrong. You have the physical capacity to try to push me around in order to steal my property and give it to someone else. But I never lack the physical and intellectual capacity to resist you.
Your theory — like every theory of dominance — requires you to pretend to yourself that human beings are cattle — yours to be milked or slaughtered, powerless to resist you — rather than sovereign souls, exclusively internally motivated. This is false to fact, as a matter of ontology, and fatally risky behavior as a matter of personal praxis. Still worse, in the days after some rebel rids the world of your pestilential behavior, all of the otherwise normal human beings you have infantilized by telling them they have a “right” to other people’s wealth will perish for never having learned how to live. This is what actually happend in New Orleans — when the make-believe bosses failed — and what is not happening in, e.g., Nashville.
Those good ol’ boys might be obnoxious, but the political theory they are working from is consonant with the actual facts of human identity, where yours is based in a facile — albeit ancient — error. The world is what it is, not what we might want it to be. Rational people govern their behavior accordingly.
June 4, 2010 — 11:24 am
Michael Cook says:
“What if the government just…didn’t…deal with it? ”
I think if you talk to the people of NOLA, they would say that the government didnt deal with it. And if you would have a visit down there, you would find that instead of moving to budding industry and making great things out of their lives, many of them are wallowing in abject poverty. Turning to selling drugs, police taking bribes, etc.
Natural disasters in already impoverished areas, dont lead to great innovations. In a population that is uneducated with very few transferable skills, they will simply turn to what they know best, crime or Welfare. Take away the latter and you simply get more of the former.
I dont mean to imply that no one in NOLA is making the world a better place. Quite the opposite, in some cases. I am sure many great chefs, musicans, etc. will ply their trade in neighboring states adding tremendous value and transfer a wealth of culture and knowledge.
All I ask is that you acknowledge the other side of the coin. Poor uneducated people without the means to meet their basic needs will either innovate or steal. Its not a moral issue, its an issue of meeting basic needs.
June 4, 2010 — 7:35 am
Brian Brady says:
“Self-construction is good. Self-destruction is bad. Everything else is a secondary consequence”
Makes sense. I appreciate the answer.
“While it is certainly true, it is also true that hungry men rob, steal and kill.”
As do well-fed and wealthy people. Crime is not a byproduct of economic circumstance although literature and the performing arts might have you believe that.
“Despite the theories here, it is not a forgone conclusion that when government exits, people succeed.”
Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform was a good start (but didn’t go far enough). Consequently, Bush’s Faith Based Initiatives was a colossal failure because it removed the sermon that comes with the dinner.
More importantly, we know that government screws up everything it touches. Not one gov’t-sponsored economic program has achieved the noble goals it set out the achieve without horrendous consequences.
“Sometimes people need a jump start. The issue is figuring out when to take off the jumper cables and let people succeed or fail.”
Who is best to provide that jump start? Not government, MC.
June 4, 2010 — 8:08 am
Michael Cook says:
“Crime is not a byproduct of economic circumstance although literature and the performing arts might have you believe that.”
I really hope you dont believe this. Compare the crime rates in the US to those of impoverished nations. Check homicides by region, should we say that the people of Southern Africa, Central America and South America, which lead the way by a wide margin lead because they are simply more violent??? While I have done research on this, I will direct you to multiple books by John Sachs that would prove you wrong here. Start with “The End of Poverty.”
It would also be great, if you took some of your theories and address the very real examples I provided.
June 4, 2010 — 8:31 am
Michael Cook says:
Who is best to provide that jump start? Not government, MC.
Here you are wrong. Look at all of the developed countries todays. Lets start with the United States. Demolished the Native American population, enslaved numerous people and built wealth on free labor. I would say slavery certainly jumpstarted the US economy. One for you in the not government category, though you could certainly argue that France’s support during the civil war was helpful.
Next, modern Europe. After WWI and WWII, Europe was absolutely broke. Through debt cancellation and development grants, the US jumpstarted Europe to get it to where it is today. One check for government jumpstart.
Former Soviet Union countries sought to move to capitalism in the 1980/90’s after getting away from from Soviet rule. Through a mix of debt forgiveness and UN aid, they were able to get rid of hyperinflation and move to a free market economy. Check two for government.
Most of the current World Powers were jumpstarted with government intervention. Show me different please.
June 4, 2010 — 8:42 am
Teri Lussier says:
>Its also interesting that for that to happen, it traditionally requires some kind of aid or government intervention. I am sure you have to wonder why every established civilization has a government today, yesterday and most likely tomorrow.
What I want for me is not anything that has ever been done traditionally. It’s completely outside your thinking. You kind of have to forget what you think you know- just forget it for a moment and consider if you had the ability to do anything you wanted. No worries about anyone else. You had the ability to have your needs met without worrying about anyone else. This isn’t about crime. This is about expansion. Not in a power grab, just in your own mind. It’s completely and totally outside everything you’ve been taught, you’ve heard, you’ve considered. It’s you having the sole ability to find solutions to problems without forcing your solutions or problems on another person.
Read this again, Michael:
>Human beings are free as a matter of ontology — as a matter of being. They are never not free.
When you consider all the implications of this- vast and small consequences of understanding this, for thoughtful people, I think, extraordinary things happen and you see your own life- you own self- as something uniquely precious and valuable. It’s guaranteed that others may not, evil people exist, but government intervention has never ever changed that situation, regardless of government.
Anyway.
Mostly I just want to interject thanks for such an amazing conversation.
June 4, 2010 — 9:35 am
Jim Klein says:
“Poor uneducated people without the means to meet their basic needs will either innovate or steal.”
I think this is right, Michael…and more than a few educated ones as well!
So why is the answer, “Come up with ever-increasing prohibitions against innovation, while explicitly declaring that the proper mode for society is for one man to steal from another.”
If we strip away the fluff, that’s what we’re saying isn’t it? With every call for orders, preventions, regulations…those are calls for /some/ taking from somebody and giving to someone else, right? Every drop of redistribution is this, is it not? You may not like the word “steal,” but I can’t see what else it might be, if X doesn’t want to pay for something and Y takes it anyway. Sounds like stealing to me, but at the very, very least it’s a blockade against innovation and production.
Indeed, in an environment like this, it’s a prohibition against nearly /all/ innovation! Who the heck has money to do start any sort of innovation? Who’s crazy enough to want to go through endless forms and taxes and permits? We know the answer to that—“bigger, better.” Who else can afford to keep up with the Global Requirements and the Global Fees? Forget who can ever pay for this health care—who can even afford the lawyers to understand it? And then we wonder why “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer”? I mean, really now…don’t let the poor do their thing, and then wonder why they never get rich. Eventually, get them so cozy to a check on the third that they just sit back and die. Some help.
So anyway, the part I can’t figure out is this. If the choice is between innovation and theft, how can folks seriously believe that the better option is theft? What sort of madness ingrains that sort of thinking?
And for that matter, who cares anyway? Isn’t it about time we stop it?
[If I find any other right things you wrote, I’ll post those up too!]
June 4, 2010 — 10:31 am
Brian Brady says:
“I really hope you dont believe this. Compare the crime rates in the US to those of impoverished nations.”
Not only do I believe it, I know it to be fact.
“Check homicides by region, should we say that the people of Southern Africa, Central America and South America, which lead the way by a wide margin lead because they are simply more violent???”
Your using the byproduct (poverty) of the real problem (totalitarian regimes), as the explanation for crime. When a culture of theft is fostered, it begets theft.
“While I have done research on this, I will direct you to multiple books by John Sachs that would prove you wrong here. Start with “The End of Poverty.” ”
Haven’t read it. Read reviews that outlined his Keynesian theories, to “shock infrastructure development”, directed by the hand of a global government. That moral failure was reason enough to ignore the book.
“It would also be great, if you took some of your theories and address the very real examples I provided.”
Sure-
Europe and The Marshall Plan: Failed EU.
Former Soviet Republics: Estonia v. Hungary.
This is too easy, Michael. Estonia implements austerity programs, takes a huge hit to GDP, and recovers in one year. Hungary applies for its 4th or 5th aid package and is broke.
It’s pull vs. push in government. Establish a rule of law, maintain a balanced budget, and give foreign capital a chance to make money and you thrive. Try to “direct” an economy, and submit it to global governance, and foreign capital “leaves the problem for someone else” (namely, the World Bank)
June 4, 2010 — 10:48 am
Brian Brady says:
“All I ask is that you acknowledge the other side of the coin. Poor uneducated people without the means to meet their basic needs will either innovate or steal.”
Acknowledged.
“Its not a moral issue, its an issue of meeting basic needs.”
This is where you contradict your earlier statement. You just acknowledged that all people have two choices: innovation or theft. Giving people food. clothing, or shelter won’t help them make the right decision. Stigmatizing theft and rewarding innovation will.
June 4, 2010 — 11:04 am
Michael Cook says:
“When you consider all the implications of this- vast and small consequences of understanding this, for thoughtful people, I think, extraordinary things happen and you see your own life- you own self- as something uniquely precious and valuable. It’s guaranteed that others may not, evil people exist, but government intervention has never ever changed that situation, regardless of government.”
This is a luxury of people with food, clothing and shelter. Dont get me wrong, I completely understand your perspective. I honestly think very few truly evil people exist, but I would also not pretend that I enjoy these luxury based on the free pursuit of the capitalism. I know I benefit from this great land because my forefathers worked for no pay, against their will.
I would challenge you on several fronts that government intervention has in fact worked. Just by the sheer fact that I am not plowing a cotton field right now in my mind suggest that the government has righted at least one capitalist wrong.
In my mind, I cannot be free knowing that freedom came/comes at the expense of so many other people’s freedom. Perhaps in another world, like Greg’s fictitious world that can never exist..
June 4, 2010 — 1:26 pm
Michael Cook says:
“While I have done research on this, I will direct you to multiple books by John Sachs that would prove you wrong here. Start with “The End of Poverty.”
You know, I thought that too until I read the book and actually visited a place of poverty. Its one think to sit in my comfortable office chair and spout theories, but quite another to look a hungry man in the face, knowing I spent more on my trip than he might make in a five years. At the very least, give him a read because he has actually battled poverty and has real experience addressing the issues we discuss.
“Your using the byproduct (poverty) of the real problem (totalitarian regimes), as the explanation for crime. When a culture of theft is fostered, it begets theft.”
Chicken and egg hear Brian. If I am educated with money I am less suspectible to being taken over by a dictator. My brother is also less likely to want to take my stuff, etc. I could offer you the same critique, but I think history shows that when people cannot eat, they move to places with food. If someone else happens to be there, a taking happens. Please will meet their base needs regardless.
“It’s pull vs. push in government. Establish a rule of law, maintain a balanced budget, and give foreign capital a chance to make money and you thrive. Try to “direct” an economy, and submit it to global governance, and foreign capital “leaves the problem for someone else” (namely, the World Bank)”
Here I disagree again on multiple levels. I dont support the World Bank’s one size fits all model, but I do think you cant simply say “Free Markets” and magic happens. Foreign capital will not go everywhere for numerous reasons: political stability, poor infrastructure, corruption, etc. Its much too long to get into here, but I need you to give me some examples of how the governments in Sub-Saharan Africa and many other areas hold their people down??? Many of these places are very loosely governed to begin with and would welcome foreign investment.
June 4, 2010 — 1:37 pm
Michael Cook says:
Greg,
I think we differ on a few points. First, you are dealing with theory, where as I would much prefer to deal with realties here. In reality, you are where you are because of many takings before you.
The very capitalist machine everyone here loves was bolstered by the use of slaves. History is wrought with takings back to the Egyptians, Roman and Greeks. While I would love to live in your Utopia, I cannot because it does not and most likely will not exist. Not that this is of any importance to your argument, but it should be an honest critque, no?
Honestly, I am not sure whether your theory would work or not, but I am quite sure that it will not meet the needs of the 2 Billion plus people concerned about simply finding enough food today in this world.
I am quite ok with a “taking” from me to meet basic needs of individuals. You can argue with me on how to define that and even how much taking will push me to not being ok with it, but at the end of the day, short of opting out of being a US citizen, you are participating in a taking with every illegitimate debt payment we receive from a country we colonized or extorted. That money goes to build the roads you drive on and subsidize the food you eat, and so on.
Everyone is ok with some amount of taking to help their brother, otherwise, we would have already had your revolution. And besides, we dont need everyone to be ok with it, just enough people to surpress any kind of revolution, right?
I think we are having different discussions. What you characterize as emotional, I would simply characterize as real. The Free Market is not the answer to every problem. Counting on people’s altruism has proved to be problematic time and time again. I know its foolish of me to use the mountains of evidence I have of this fact in the past, but hey, I didnt major in philsophy.
June 4, 2010 — 2:05 pm
Greg Swann says:
This is not an argument, it’s a speech — really an incantation, a prayer. You have conflated the Marxism of Das Kapital with identity politics with a post-modern leftist conception of the doctrine of original sin. In any case you are not making any sort of argument, just listing sentiments erroneously thought to be worthy.
This is reality: You cannot control my life. You cannot control anyone’s life but your own. Your endorsement of thug tactics — “And besides, we don’t need everyone to be ok with it, just enough people to surpress any kind of revolution, right?” — doesn’t mean anything, either.
This is me, last night:
This is the ontology of attempted coercion. This is reality. Not only can you not compel other people to do as you would have them do, you need their active if perverse cooperation even to buttress your insane pretense — which you never once doubt is a pretense — that you can, somehow.
What you are seeing in the Tea Party movement are the seeds of a slave rebellion. We’ll have to wait to see if those seeds take root. But, in due course if not now, more and more people will come to understand the argument that I am making here. When that happens, it will be forevermore impossible for anyone to dominate them.
Inlookers: If you’ve paid attention to the meta-drama of BloodhoundBlog, you’ve seen wannabe thugs try to dominate me again and again. I don’t bother to keep track of this stuff, but I can recall attempted pile-ons led by Joseph Ferrara and Dustin Luther, among others. Obviously, being brow-beaten by on-line mobs is not as threatening as being beaten in real life, but my response would be the same in either case: Derision, scorn, contempt, pity — but never fear, timidity or submission; I live the philosophy I document here. Just that one simple factual observation — that no other person can control your behavior, no matter how outrageously your would-be slave-owner might act — is all you need to know to resist any tyrant.
I’m not as sanguine as I think Teri is, but I am pleased to note that this is very interesting time to be alive.
June 4, 2010 — 6:34 pm
Teri Lussier says:
>In my mind, I cannot be free knowing that freedom came/comes at the expense of so many other people’s freedom.
Then we aren’t talking about freedom, Michael. You are referring to coercion. Every example you’ve brought up is some form of coercion.
>Perhaps in another world, like Greg’s fictitious world that can never exist..
As Greg likes to say, Hide and watch.
June 4, 2010 — 2:29 pm
Brian Brady says:
“Its one think to sit in my comfortable office chair and spout theories, but quite another to look a hungry man in the face, knowing I spent more on my trip than he might make in a five years.”
Been there, doing that, still wearing the T-shirt.
“If I am educated with money I am less susceptible to being taken over by a dictator. ”
Six million German Jews and 40-50 million educated Russians might disagree with you.
“First, you are dealing with theory, where as I would much prefer to deal with realties here. In reality, you are where you are because of many takings before you.”
It honestly might be the age difference, Michael. The reality I remember is one from when you were in primary school. That truly might account for the difference in perspective.
June 4, 2010 — 2:50 pm
Teri Lussier says:
>I’m not as sanguine as I think Teri is
Been meaning to write about this, but as is typical for me, I’m feeling the change long before I have the ability to coherently express it, and it will be even longer before there is any concrete evidence of real change, but I’ve got my ear to the tracks, here, down the road from Detroit that you mentioned.
I listen to you, Greg, and Sean, and Brian. You all are experiencing something different than the Industrial Midwest. Your cities appear to be looking for how to recover, while we are looking at how to move on. We can’t go back, we can only go forward, and there is something liberating in that. Necessity is a mother, as we all know.
Y’all won’t be bailing our asses out the bed we get to lie in. It’s been made painfully clear that we have been left to figure things out for ourselves, but that’s okay with me. I recently told Thomas Johnson that instant gratification is not an export of the Midwest anyway, that’d be an export of California. Here we move slowly, deliberately. Our history is one of steady purposefulness. We have weather here and we understand and appreciate seasons. But more than all that poetic waxing, fact is we are small enough now to have the means to change drastically if we choose. I’m looking at a new dawn here and I see small signs that we are finally waking up to the realization that gov’t, unions, corporations cannot help us more than the individual can help herself. If we take advantage of all we’ve learned, we might could work our way out of this with the same strength and tenacity that settled Ohio in the first place, but with renewed sense of liberty.
You can wait and see, but I prefer you hide and watch. 😉
June 4, 2010 — 10:49 pm
Jim Klein says:
“I recently told Thomas Johnson that instant gratification is not an export of the Midwest anyway, that’d be an export of California. Here we move slowly, deliberately. Our history is one of steady purposefulness.”
You tell ’em, Teri! One thing interesting about Michigan is that historically nobody came here unless they intended to…it’s not on the way to anywhere else. Even the Chippewa had to slide down from Northern Ontario to avail themselves of the resources. Smart Chippewa, those.
“But more than all that poetic waxing, fact is we are small enough now to have the means to change drastically if we choose. I’m looking at a new dawn here and I see small signs that we are finally waking up to the realization that gov’t, unions, corporations cannot help us more than the individual can help herself.”
Wow…that’s nice. I wish I could say it’s the same here. Speaking from Ground Zero of all this mess, in mid-Michigan, I can only tell you that nearly nobody’s waking up here. They’re waking up to hunger, some of ’em, but about the only innovation is figuring out how to get that check on the
third. “Mother’s Day” it’s called in the city, and the singular goal seems to be having as few people work as little as possible.
Achieving goals being the hallmark of volition, they’ve achieved that much!
June 5, 2010 — 4:49 pm
Teri Lussier says:
>Wow…that’s nice.
Or not. The next few years- decades maybe?- are going to be brutal here as the government begins the slow painful process of shrinking to fit the population.
We are in a different place than Ground Zero MI because GM did what could turn out to be a huge favor by pulling out of Dayton, although it was horrifying when it first happened. But now it’s just us folks here with a kinda sorta clean slate, and that’s oddly exciting. We are breathing calmly again so the conversations about the future are beginning to happen and as I would expect, the only positive change I see is coming from the bottom up, so that’s where I’m staying focused.
I think being small and Midwestern has been a liability in the recent past- nasty weather, unglamorous flyover country that occasionally smells like pig shit. What’s to love? But…Well. One of my husband’s favorite quotes is from WWII Navy Admiral Ernest King “When the going gets tough, they call for the sons of bitches.” Welcome to the new Midwest.
June 5, 2010 — 7:14 pm