Rasmussen: 75% Say Free Markets Better Than Government Management of Economy, Political Class (*Shockingly*) Disagrees
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 75% of Likely Voters prefer free markets over a government managed economy. Just 14% think a government managed economy is better while 11% are not sure. These figures have changed little since December.
Polling released earlier this week showed that Americans overwhelmingly believe that more competition and less regulation is better for the economy than more regulation and less competition.
Not surprisingly, America’s Political Class is far less enamored with the virtues of a free market. In fact, Political Class voters narrowly prefer a government managed economy over free markets by a 44% to 37% margin. However, among Mainstream voters, 90% prefer the free market.
Outside of the Political Class, free markets are preferred across all demographic and partisan lines. This gap may be one reason that 68% of voters believe the Political Class doesn’t care what most Americans think. Fifty-nine percent (59%) are embarrassed by the behavior of the Political Class.
Is this an indication for people waking up to the alternative of voluntaryism?
Probably not quite yet.
The notion that the free market is better at “managing the economy” is a pretty obvious fact, and one that at this point you would have to have been blindfolded in a darkroom with a feeding tube (or alternatively dragged into public school) for the past 10 years in order not to get it.
It’s also merely an argument from effect. Voluntaryism will only spread once enough people get the argument from morality. And that, as we all know, will be a multi-generational effort.
WikiLeaks on Afghan War – The Government’s Moral Bankruptcy Exposed
The Afghan war efforts led by the US armed forces are, as I have pointed out many times, nothing but your average and predictable war racket. Now over 90,000 (!!) classified reports have leaked.
Of course they will expose a boatload of knowledge that the government kept hidden and lied about, etc. Nothing surprising or newsworthy as far as that part is concerned.
I myself have unfortunately not yet made it through all those 90,000 reports, but apparently someone else has:
The documents are “not particularly new or illuminating,” Morrell said. The most recent “is at least six months old” and doesn’t reflect the current U.S.-Pakistan “partnership that is so vital to our success in Afghanistan.” This relationship “has been trending in the right direction for months, if not a couple of years now,” he said.
(That’s the government’s honesty and curiosity in action right there.)
But what’s really quite amazing to me is the following statement:
Pentagon Probe
The U.S. military has opened “a very robust investigation” with a team working “round the clock” to find “who’s responsible for breaking the law here and leaking this classified information,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said today on the CBS “Early Morning” show.
You see, these people are so enormously concerned about transparency and about their screw ups and errors and the millions upon millions of people murdered in its futile wars, that what they are really passionate and motivated about is to work “round the clock” to find who’s responsible for handing over a some pieces of paper with reports that could potentially – can you believe it – have documented what’s actually going on in this thing called reality.
Note how the focus is on finding who’s responsible for “breaking the law here”. No attempt to an argument from morality, not even one from effect. Just a plain and bland invocation of the code of law. This is how you lose the battle of ideas.
There couldn’t be a better and more recent example for the moral bankruptcy of the concepts of statism, the belief that a government is a good and necessary institution.
As the idea of statism dies out and as voluntaryism captures the hearts and minds of the majority, we will see more and more such plain, boring, and uninspiring “arguments” advanced by the those trying to hold together the foundations of the crumbling structure of aggression, irrationality, and indoctrination, in short – the government.
Is Government Needed to Fight Poverty??
The common and unfortunately rather unimaginative and uninformed objection to the stateless society is that without a government nobody would care about the poor and we’d all go down in a selfish orgy of mass impoverishment, with a few evil rich bastards left at the top, laughing and cheering as they feast upon the plight of the masses.
It is very important to understand that when people say such things they do so because it’s what they’ve been told and what they want to be true. They have obviously not gone out and done their strenuous and deep research in order to test their theory. Nor are you going to find any curiosity in these people. They are not feverishly trying to analyze and question these things out of a natural drive for truth and discovering reality.
But this need hardly impress those who in fact do aspire to understand reality and truth.
One simple reason why I personally know such a notion is completely unfounded and pulled out of nowhere is that 99.99% of the people whom I introduce for the first time to the idea of a stateless society will shout out with an impressively quick and almost pre-trained reflexive reaction something like “But what about the poor?!”.
That is, in my opinion, a pretty decent ratio of people who do seem to care about the poor. But then, maybe there’s just something awesome about me personally that naturally draws in all the good, virtuous, and caring people in society, who knows?
Fortunately we have other more objective means to put to rest such glaring and unfounded nonsense.
How much are individuals currently willing to give to charity on a completely voluntary basis?
On Charity Navigator we can find charity statistics for 2008:
Few people realize how large charities have become, how many vital services they provide, and how much funding flows through them each year. Without charities and non-profits, America would simply not be able to operate. Their operations are so big that during 2008, in the midst of a recession, total giving was still more than $300 billion.
How big is the sector?
Total giving to charitable organizations was $307.65 billion in 2008 (about 2% of GDP). This is a decrease of 2% from 2007.
OK, so we know that private individuals and corporations were willing to give $307.65 billion to charitable organizations on a completely voluntary basis.
How much of this money actually ends up in the hands of the needy? According to reputable charitable auditing and rating websites, such as Razoo this number seems to be around 15-20% on average.
So around $246 billion ended up in the hands of poor people as a result of completely voluntary charity donations in the US.
What about our dear, benevolent,and ferociously poverty fighting heroes from the government?
According to official government budgets, approximately $486 billion tax dollars were budgeted in that same year.
Based on multiple sources about 70% of all government programs and grants goes toward administrative expenses, meaning bureaucrats’ salaries, to anybody who has ever worked in, with, or for the government, certainly a realistic estimate:
Mary Ruwart writes:
Of course, public welfare gives over 2/3 of every tax dollar we give them to overhead (e.g., salaries of the bureaucrats who administer the program). Private charities, however, give 2/3 of every dollar to those who need help. By switching to private distribution, we’d cut overhead in half. In other words, we’d double the dollars available to the needy once again. By switching from public to private charity, we’d quadruple our help to the disadvantaged–virtually overnight!
Cato writes:
Today, 70 cents of every dollar goes, not to poor people, but to government bureaucrats and others who serve the poor. Few private charities have the bureaucratic overhead and inefficiency of government programs.
So US federal, state, and local governments together in 2008 contributed about 146 billion dollars that ended up in the hands of the poor.
In total, this means that in 2008 US citizens voluntarily or involuntarily gave about $392 billion to the poor out of which 62% (!!) was contributed by the rugged, selfish, and evil private sector while around 38% was coughed up by the virtuous, heroic and selfless government bureaucrats.
So you tell me, is the government really needed to “fight poverty” … ?
Please keep in mind that I am focusing in the above solely on existing numbers. I am not even delving into the fact that the government is the very cause of poverty, simply due to things like wars, drug policies, import quotas, the granting of monopolies to corporations and unions, the funding of foreign dictatorships, unemployment due to minimum wages and taxes, inflation through money printing, credit expansions and business cycles, the direction of capital from useful to useless needs, deliberately limiting the supply of health care products and services, etc. etc.
Former CBO Head on Healthcare Reform – “government is bigger, entitlement programs have expanded, spending has increased and taxes are higher”
The former CBO head at Yahoo Tech Ticker:
Walker states the simple fact that …
… “government is bigger, entitlement programs have expanded, spending has increased and taxes are higher” as a result of the law.
… those points should be listed in the default template header for any bill brought forth in Congress.
In addition to that, multiply any expense number presented by 10 and you’ll usually have a rough approximation of where a government program is headed.
Government always grows, it’s inevitable so long as people cling on to this mad fantasy.
The Government’s Healthcare Takeover in Numbers
A friend just posted a neat list of new government offices and programs created by the new health care bill. Of course it opens up a beautiful playground of uncontrollable corruption for federal bureaucrats and lobbyists to make out like bandits, kindly funded by YOU, The People:
1. Grant program for consumer assistance offices (Section 1002, p. 37)
2. Grant program for states to monitor premium increases (Section 1003, p. 42)
3. Committee to review administrative simplification standards (Section 1104, p. 71)
4. Demonstration program for state wellness programs (Section 1201, p. 93)
5. Grant program to establish state Exchanges (Section 1311(a), p. 130)
6. State American Health Benefit Exchanges (Section 1311(b), p. 131)
7. Exchange grants to establish consumer navigator programs (Section 1311(i), p. 150)
8. Grant program for state cooperatives (Section 1322, p. 169)
9. Advisory board for state cooperatives (Section 1322(b)(3), p. 173)
10. Private purchasing council for state cooperatives (Section 1322(d), p. 177)
11. State basic health plan programs (Section 1331, p. 201)
12. State-based reinsurance program (Section 1341, p. 226)
13. Program of risk corridors for individual and small group markets (Section 1342, p. 233)
14. Program to determine eligibility for Exchange participation (Section 1411, p. 267)
15. Program for advance determination of tax credit eligibility (Section 1412, p. 288)
16. Grant program to implement health IT enrollment standards (Section 1561, p. 370)
17. Federal Coordinated Health Care Office for dual eligible beneficiaries (Section 2602, p. 512)
18. Medicaid quality measurement program (Section 2701, p. 518)
19. Medicaid health home program for people with chronic conditions, and grants for planning same (Section 2703, p. 524)
20. Medicaid demonstration project to evaluate bundled payments (Section 2704, p. 532)
21. Medicaid demonstration project for global payment system (Section 2705, p. 536)
22. Medicaid demonstration project for accountable care organizations (Section 2706, p. 538)
23. Medicaid demonstration project for emergency psychiatric care (Section 2707, p. 540)
24. Grant program for delivery of services to individuals with postpartum depression (Section 2952(b), p. 591)
25. State allotments for grants to promote personal responsibility education programs (Section 2953, p. 596)
26. Medicare value-based purchasing program (Section 3001(a), p. 613)
27. Medicare value-based purchasing demonstration program for critical access hospitals (Section 3001(b), p. 637)
28. Medicare value-based purchasing program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 3006(a), p. 666)
29. Medicare value-based purchasing program for home health agencies (Section 3006(b), p. 668)
30. Interagency Working Group on Health Care Quality (Section 3012, p. 688)
31. Grant program to develop health care quality measures (Section 3013, p. 693)
32. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (Section 3021, p. 712)
33. Medicare shared savings program (Section 3022, p. 728)
34. Medicare pilot program on payment bundling (Section 3023, p. 739)
35. Independence at home medical practice demonstration program (Section 3024, p. 752)
36. Program for use of patient safety organizations to reduce hospital readmission rates (Section 3025(b), p. 775)
37. Community-based care transitions program (Section 3026, p. 776)
38. Demonstration project for payment of complex diagnostic laboratory tests (Section 3113, p. 800)
39. Medicare hospice concurrent care demonstration project (Section 3140, p. 850)
40. Independent Payment Advisory Board (Section 3403, p. 982)
41. Consumer Advisory Council for Independent Payment Advisory Board (Section 3403, p. 1027)
42. Grant program for technical assistance to providers implementing health quality practices (Section 3501, p. 1043)
43. Grant program to establish interdisciplinary health teams (Section 3502, p. 1048)
44. Grant program to implement medication therapy management (Section 3503, p. 1055)
45. Grant program to support emergency care pilot programs (Section 3504, p. 1061)
46. Grant program to promote universal access to trauma services (Section 3505(b), p. 1081)
47. Grant program to develop and promote shared decision-making aids (Section 3506, p. 1088)
48. Grant program to support implementation of shared decision-making (Section 3506, p. 1091)
49. Grant program to integrate quality improvement in clinical education (Section 3508, p. 1095)
50. Health and Human Services Coordinating Committee on Women’s Health (Section 3509(a), p. 1098)
51. Centers for Disease Control Office of Women’s Health (Section 3509(b), p. 1102)
52. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Office of Women’s Health (Section 3509(e), p. 1105)
53. Health Resources and Services Administration Office of Women’s Health (Section 3509(f), p. 1106)
54. Food and Drug Administration Office of Women’s Health (Section 3509(g), p. 1109)
55. National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council (Section 4001, p. 1114)
56. Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health (Section 4001(f), p. 1117)
57. Prevention and Public Health Fund (Section 4002, p. 1121)
58. Community Preventive Services Task Force (Section 4003(b), p. 1126)
59. Grant program to support school-based health centers (Section 4101, p. 1135)
60. Grant program to promote research-based dental caries disease management (Section 4102, p. 1147)
61. Grant program for States to prevent chronic disease in Medicaid beneficiaries (Section 4108, p. 1174)
62. Community transformation grants (Section 4201, p. 1182)
63. Grant program to provide public health interventions (Section 4202, p. 1188)
64. Demonstration program of grants to improve child immunization rates (Section 4204(b), p. 1200)
65. Pilot program for risk-factor assessments provided through community health centers (Section 4206, p. 1215)
66. Grant program to increase epidemiology and laboratory capacity (Section 4304, p. 1233)
67. Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee (Section 4305, p. 1238)
68. National Health Care Workforce Commission (Section 5101, p. 1256)
69. Grant program to plan health care workforce development activities (Section 5102(c), p. 1275)
70. Grant program to implement health care workforce development activities (Section 5102(d), p. 1279)
71. Pediatric specialty loan repayment program (Section 5203, p. 1295)
72. Public Health Workforce Loan Repayment Program (Section 5204, p. 1300)
73. Allied Health Loan Forgiveness Program (Section 5205, p. 1305)
74. Grant program to provide mid-career training for health professionals (Section 5206, p. 1307)
75. Grant program to fund nurse-managed health clinics (Section 5208, p. 1310)
76. Grant program to support primary care training programs (Section 5301, p. 1315)
77. Grant program to fund training for direct care workers (Section 5302, p. 1322)
78. Grant program to develop dental training programs (Section 5303, p. 1325)
79. Demonstration program to increase access to dental health care in underserved communities (Section 5304, p. 1331)
80. Grant program to promote geriatric education centers (Section 5305, p. 1334)
81. Grant program to promote health professionals entering geriatrics (Section 5305, p. 1339)
82. Grant program to promote training in mental and behavioral health (Section 5306, p. 1344)
83. Grant program to promote nurse retention programs (Section 5309, p. 1354)
84. Student loan forgiveness for nursing school faculty (Section 5311(b), p. 1360)
85. Grant program to promote positive health behaviors and outcomes (Section 5313, p. 1364)
86. Public Health Sciences Track for medical students (Section 5315, p. 1372)
87. Primary Care Extension Program to educate providers (Section 5405, p. 1404)
88. Grant program for demonstration projects to address health workforce shortage needs (Section 5507, p. 1442)
89. Grant program for demonstration projects to develop training programs for home health aides (Section 5507, p. 1447)
90. Grant program to establish new primary care residency programs (Section 5508(a), p. 1458)
91. Program of payments to teaching health centers that sponsor medical residency training (Section 5508(c), p. 1462)
92. Graduate nurse education demonstration program (Section 5509, p. 1472)
93. Grant program to establish demonstration projects for community-based mental health settings (Section 5604, p. 1486)
94. Commission on Key National Indicators (Section 5605, p. 1489)
95. Quality assurance and performance improvement program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 6102, p. 1554)
96. Special focus facility program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 6103(a)(3), p. 1561)
97. Special focus facility program for nursing facilities (Section 6103(b)(3), p. 1568)
98. National independent monitor pilot program for skilled nursing facilities and nursing facilities (Section 6112, p. 1589)
99. Demonstration projects for nursing facilities involved in the culture change movement (Section 6114, p. 1597)
100. Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (Section 6301, p. 1619)
101. Standing methodology committee for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (Section 6301, p. 1629)
102. Board of Governors for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (Section 6301, p. 1638)
103. Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund (Section 6301(e), p. 1656)
104. Elder Justice Coordinating Council (Section 6703, p. 1773)
105. Advisory Board on Elder Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation (Section 6703, p. 1776)
106. Grant program to create elder abuse forensic centers (Section 6703, p. 1783)
107. Grant program to promote continuing education for long-term care staffers (Section 6703, p. 1787)
108. Grant program to improve management practices and training (Section 6703, p. 1788)
109. Grant program to subsidize costs of electronic health records (Section 6703, p. 1791)
110. Grant program to promote adult protective services (Section 6703, p. 1796)
111. Grant program to conduct elder abuse detection and prevention (Section 6703, p. 1798)
112. Grant program to support long-term care ombudsmen (Section 6703, p. 1800)
113. National Training Institute for long-term care surveyors (Section 6703, p. 1806)
114. Grant program to fund State surveys of long-term care residences (Section 6703, p. 1809)
115. CLASS Independence Fund (Section 8002, p. 1926)
116. CLASS Independence Fund Board of Trustees (Section 8002, p. 1927)
117. CLASS Independence Advisory Council (Section 8002, p. 1931)
118. Personal Care Attendants Workforce Advisory Panel (Section 8002(c), p. 1938)
119. Multi-state health plans offered by Office of Personnel Management (Section 10104(p), p. 2086)
120. Advisory board for multi-state health plans (Section 10104(p), p. 2094)
121. Pregnancy Assistance Fund (Section 10212, p. 2164)
122. Value-based purchasing program for ambulatory surgical centers (Section 10301, p. 2176)
123. Demonstration project for payment adjustments to home health services (Section 10315, p. 2200)
124. Pilot program for care of individuals in environmental emergency declaration areas (Section 10323, p. 2223)
125. Grant program to screen at-risk individuals for environmental health conditions (Section 10323(b), p. 2231)
126. Pilot programs to implement value-based purchasing (Section 10326, p. 2242)
127. Grant program to support community-based collaborative care networks (Section 10333, p. 2265)
128. Centers for Disease Control Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
129. Health Resources and Services Administration Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
130. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
131. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
132. Food and Drug Administration Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
133. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
134. Grant program to promote small business wellness programs (Section 10408, p. 2285)
135. Cures Acceleration Network (Section 10409, p. 2289)
136. Cures Acceleration Network Review Board (Section 10409, p. 2291)
137. Grant program for Cures Acceleration Network (Section 10409, p. 2297)
138. Grant program to promote centers of excellence for depression (Section 10410, p. 2304)
139. Advisory committee for young women’s breast health awareness education campaign (Section 10413, p. 2322)
140. Grant program to provide assistance to provide information to young women with breast cancer (Section 10413, p. 2326)
141. Interagency Access to Health Care in Alaska Task Force (Section 10501, p. 2329)
142. Grant program to train nurse practitioners as primary care providers (Section 10501(e), p. 2332)
143. Grant program for community-based diabetes prevention (Section 10501(g), p. 2337)
144. Grant program for providers who treat a high percentage of medically underserved populations (Section 10501(k), p. 2343)
145. Grant program to recruit students to practice in underserved communities (Section 10501(l), p. 2344)
146. Community Health Center Fund (Section 10503, p. 2355)
147. Demonstration project to provide access to health care for the uninsured at reduced fees (Section 10504, p. 2357)
148. Demonstration program to explore alternatives to tort litigation (Section 10607, p. 2369)
149. Indian Health demonstration program for chronic shortages of health professionals (S. 1790, Section 112, p. 24)*
150. Office of Indian Men’s Health (S. 1790, Section 136, p. 71)*
151. Indian Country modular component facilities demonstration program (S. 1790, Section 146, p. 108)*
152. Indian mobile health stations demonstration program (S. 1790, Section 147, p. 111)*
153. Office of Direct Service Tribes (S. 1790, Section 172, p. 151)*
154. Indian Health Service mental health technician training program (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 173)*
155. Indian Health Service program for treatment of child sexual abuse victims (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 192)*
156. Indian Health Service program for treatment of domestic violence and sexual abuse (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 194)*
157. Indian youth telemental health demonstration project (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 204)*
158. Indian youth life skills demonstration project (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 220)*
159. Indian Health Service Director of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Treatment (S. 1790, Section 199B, p. 258)*
And of course the IRS will be given more powers of enforcement, because, you know, when you tack on government programs you kinda wanna get the guys with the guns involved, it’s completely inevitable:
A report on the New York Post website yesterday reports the IRS may hire as many as 16,000 new agents.This is estimated to add another $1 billion dollars to the federal budget. This is alleged by Republicans on The House Ways and Means committee. Under the Obama plan the IRS would be given new powers of enforcement. The IRS will be given the charge to see every American has “acceptable” health insurance. If your plan is not acceptable the IRS may be able to withhold your income tax return and or levy fines due to your non compliance. Everyone under the Obama plan will be required to purchase insurance. If you can’t pay for the insurance the subsidy to purchase will come through the IRS in the form of a tax credit. Under one version of the plan the money will come from a Health Choices Administration. Do we really want the IRS involved in assessing our health care and possibly releasing our tax information to other agencies?
He also aptly points us to this passage from this old and forgotten piece of paper:
“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.” – Declaration of Independence
This, me friends, is the shape of things to come …
States and Religions – Scar Tissues From Our Childhood
People’s perception of government and religion is quite an interesting phenomenon.
Not so much with the younger generation (and by young I mean the young at heart, meaning those who are curious, open-minded, self-searching, truth-seeking, and still capable of rational thinking), but definitely with those whose minds have stopped accepting new or alien ideas and whose only aim it is to jam every concept and observation into their immutable and eternal mental box.
The scar tissue of an abusive childhood remains so long as one does not confront it openly and honestly. All of us have been subject to moral corruption at one point or another in our childhood. Bullying parents, teachers, and priests are those who lay the groundwork and fertilize the soil for obedient and irrational adults in the future.
To most of us, the fact that those who preached to us when we were young were morally corrupt individuals of the first order, is probably one of the scariest and most challenging things to admit. The more emotionally offended and upset one gets when confronted with such ideas, the more likely it is that he is suffering from this scar tissue. But from this unfortunately follows that those who have been most brutally corrupted, are actually least likely to confront their past!
This is why, when people exalt the imaginary concepts of the state and of God, all they really seek is justification for the irrationality and mental or even physical abuses experienced in their childhoods.
For if the state’s brutal depredations of mass murder and mass-theft are justified, then surely the moments when your mommy snapped and hit her completely powerless little one, or when daddy took your favorite toys away from you, were all comparatively minor and necessary means to getting you back in line … right?
If the faith in an all-knowing yet all-powerful, non-material yet conscious, living yet never born or ceasing, murderous yet virtuous, and thus completely contradictory and unproven entity is rational, moral and beyond questioning, then surely the moments when your parents told you to “Shut up!”, “You do what I say, not what you think is right!”, “Don’t ask!”, “Don’t think!”, and the like, were just consistent applications of the superiority of faith over logic and empirical evidence … right?
There is no better way to break the development of a curious and reasoning spirit!
Thus, when you outline to such scarred people the rather simple truths as to what it is that people who call themselves “The State” actually do day in day out, that they obtain their resources from people by shooting them if they resist the collection thereof, you will always confront immediate denial and aggressive rejection and complete ridicule of the idea. This is as sure as night follows day.
When you press people who suffer from religiousness on very simple logical and empirical inconsistencies and shortcomings about their belief in God and other superstitions, you can expect very similar reactions.
(To be sure: I am not saying this to offend people. Quite the opposite! I fully appreciate and understand that it is asking a lot of somebody to give up concepts that have served as the foundation of one’s entire world view. In fact, I am not sure there is a harder thing one could ask of somebody!!)
But it is impossible to evade simple truths. People will bombard you with everything conceivable to try and bend reality and justify the unjustifiable, reason through the unreasonable. They will come up with ten different tangents, all with the objective to get off the topic at hand as quickly as possible.
Why is that? Because they are in their subconscious not talking about “The State”, or “God”. They are talking about their childhood, their family and other authority figures who have molded and whipped their minds into obedience and conformity.
To them, it is not about discovering the truth. Their entire quest for supposed understanding, philosophical thoughts, and political positions is centered around the justification of the injustice and the reasoning for the un-reason that they suffered in their upbringing and their education.
Keep this in mind when talking to pretty much the majority of people around you. They will never be open to dealing with serious questions in a logical and consistent manner until they have dealt with and found closure about the injustice and irrationality that have dominated their own upbringings.
No Government??
OK, all you freedom worshiping nutjobs, all you anarchists, anarcho-capitalists, anti-staters, you who run around with mohawks and ripped pants, I really need to tell you: I agree that something is wrong with this government, but to pose as a solution to GET RID OF IT?? Are you completely out of your minds?? Obviously you never read anything about economics or ethics. Without government can you imagine the madness that would unravel immediately? The nation would plunge into a state of mass mutual warfare, the rule of law would disappear, trade would get crippled and we would all be yearning for an apparatus that keeps together the fabric of society … the government.
OK, I will stop that rant right here. This is pretty much the nonsense most of us here are familiar with. It is what we get every time we confront someone with the idea of a stateless society.
The problem is of course as we all know that when we propose the idea of a stateless society, THEY think we want to get rid of the functions that the state fulfills in their minds, while WE think of nothing but abolishing an apparatus that subsists solely by the means of aggression.
This of course really means that both sides have a very different definition of the term state. They have the fantasy high level conceptual definition, we have the one that simply looks at reality.
With those two opposing definitions it is obviously impossible to gain common ground.
I recently talked about it with a friend who is, I would say, a classic liberal, and a soon to be convert-anarchist (*evil laugh*). The following was conceptually the gist of the dialog:
He said: “I agree that something is wrong with the current way the government produces justice.”
I told him: “Well, I just think that the service of justice should not be provided by an institution that obtains its resources by the means of aggression, it should be voluntarily provided by DROs who compete for consumers.” (of course I explained him a bit more about DROs)
He said: “Well, then THAT’S your government, whether you want to call it DRO or whatever, it is a government. See, we NEED a government.”
Obviously he is wrong when we apply our commonly understood definition of government. But if we apply a statist’s definition of government, such as “That institution that produces justice.” he is actually very much correct.
Thus I would like to suggest that our Anarcho-Capitalistic position is actually not all that different from moderate statists’ positions. By saying we want to get rid of the state we will always and everywhere meet resistance and ridicule. As crazy as it sounds in our definition, we do indeed just want a DIFFERENT government from their point of view if we work with their shallow definition of government.
Thus I think we shouldn’t put the “abolish government” banner at the front lines of our march, but rather try to keep in mind what definitions most people are working with …
Example: I have had more people agreeing with me when I told them things like “yes we need roads and police, but how about we let the people in charge raise the funds for these efforts voluntarily from those they are serving, and allow other people to try and provide these services in a better way to bring more customers on their side”.
What I said above is 100% anarcho-capitalistic, however it will be a lot more agreeable to deluded and misguided statists. I’m not saying it will be absolutely agreeable right away, but certainly a lot more than to open with the idea that you want to get rid of the state …
Why Are We At War?
Great statement from an Iraq veteran:
Why are we at war?
War is profitable, that’s way.
It matters not how many die, as long as the warmongers make a profit on it.
Sorry but I beg to differ: We are NOT at war because it’s profitable. In fact, war is NOT profitable at all. It is the exact opposite. It is a terribly unprofitable venture. It is only profitable for the contractors who are at the cost side of the venture. But you don’t look to the vendors and contractors to determine whether a particular venture is profitable! They are not the “investors” funding the war. The investors are you and me and our children whose tax dollars have been squandered and pledged for the rests of our lives …
We are at war because people still believe in this mad fantasy called government, a false concept through and through. So long as people don’t get this crucial point, they can talk, complain, wag their finger as much as they want … they might as well go along with it. Because their blind contradictory faith in the prime cause of all their misery will only perpetuate that misery.
Call the cops …
A friend called the cops today because he thought they would help him for some reason. I then asked him and two other friends: “Tell me, when did cops ever help you and NOT bully, harass, or fine you for not hurting anyone?” – Two remained silent, one said: “This one time, a cop helped me because he was going to fine me for driving fast, but then let me off.”
If I put on a blue costume and a hat, does that allow me to stop anyone whose speed I don’t appreciate on some road? What if I stop my neighbor and tell him that it is only through my own goodwill that he will be able to move on. Does that mean I helped him? Didn’t I much rather waste his precious time??
This is how mentally brainwashed and deranged we are today. We justify the most violent and intrusive of acts, so long as they are performed by the almighty armed people in blue costumes.
Schiff @ Freedomain Radio
While Fox, CNN, and MSNBC discuss why independents’ favorability toward Obama during his State of the Union address went up by 3% during the 10th and 11th minues of his speech, and why Republicans disliked the 15th minute, it’s time for a well deserved dose of truth:
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