One of tenants of left is that "people are stupid". Which of course is why you pay the plumber, or electrician, or gardener, or mechanic, or carpenter, or whoever you think is stupid, money. Because those idiots don't know anything. In reality those people actually know more about something than you do, in a certain realm of knowledge. That is why you pay them. They offer a service that for the dollar amount you pay them is worth more to you than the time to learn such knowledge and the labor to carry it out.
We've created this whole hierarchy of knowledge. You learned it in school. Social science is above blue collar work, biology above that, chemistry above biology, physics above chemistry math above all. And then once we got to the top, or whatever part of that food chain we reached, we proclaimed we are smarter and more knowledgeable then anything below us. Until we needed our toilet fixed...
The fact is people with different knowledge, however mundane you might think that knowledge is, actually know something you don't, and that creates value for their knowledge/labor which you are willing to pay for.
The reality isn't that people are stupid, but more the sum total of their upbringing, education opportunities, family, personal experiences has led them to a certain place. Who are you to be the judge of what their actual IQ is? In many cases I bet its much higher than yours. IQ is not actually what matters in this world. Sure IQ brings value, but in the end knowledge and experience is what brings the real buckos.
People aren't really stupid, they just know different things. They know lots of things you don't know, and think you are stupid about those things. That is what makes the economy work. It's that everyone, has something to give. Yeah, its not fair, but there is a value, in dollars, placed on everything. This value factors in the time spent to gain such knowledge, how many people have such knowledge, how readily available this knowledge is, and the skill factor involved to apply such knowledge to real work.
You may think no one should earn over a X dollar/year, and its the right of the gov't to take from that person to give to the less fortunate. But by doing so you are devaluing the ability, upbringing, labor, risk, knowledge, and experience that brought that person into the value they are worth in the first place. In end you are giving the power to someone else (the gov't) to make decisions on what something is worth. If you are pissed about how someone values your knowledge, skill, ability, experience in this world, do you really want some omnipresent power, who is guaranteed to mess it up, making that decision. Sure screw that rich, able, privileged guy, but how much are you really screwing yourself?
The free market is an attempt to rate value through the summation of individual decisions (via personal economic transactions). Because the aggregation of those transactions, with all the personal knowledge of those that engage in those transactions, creates more knowledge, and a better assessment of true value, then any top down approach, which would be based on the limited knowledge of those who make those decisions.
The conservative viewpoint is this. The world is unfair, and always will be. We by our nature our always on the path toward barbarianism. In other words, the bigger stronger dude will always take the rabbit I just killed for myself. That is injustice, and barbarianism. The best we can do is create a society that protects ourselves from that, but there are always trade offs. Nothing the gov't does is a win/win. Someone loses, someone wins. Its a delicate balance of what do you get for those you decide to screw. But in the end if I killed the rabbit, I should get to reap the rewards.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Voting against your own self-interest
This whole argument from the left about how the tea partiers, or working class Republicans, are "Voting against your own self-interest" is starting to piss me off.
It goes something like this. Are you rich?
Then why do you care if rich people get taxed more, when that money will go to help you.
Or, why would you vote for someone that isn't going to do anything to help you? Don't you want free health care, or lower cost health care? Don't you want housing assistance? Don't you want to help cure poverty? Don't you want to a better country to live in? That other side isn't going to help you at all. We will help you, and you are voting against your own self-interest.
Of course, the whole basis of this argument is that more government, more "rights", more taxes, more nanny programs, are actually going to help the situation. There is this belief on the left that these problems can actually be solved by government. From the economy to poverty, the Left thinks every single ailment of society is a problem to be solved, and that more government is the answer. But have any of these government "solutions" actually worked. Where is the proof that the War on Poverty actually did anything? Last I checked the poverty rate seems to be in a holding pattern between 11 and 15% since the Great Society program started. What about the war on drugs? That's been going really well. No, I don't want free health care, cause everything has a cost, and I don't believe a government take over will actually lower costs. When has that ever happened? The government can actually do something more efficiently than the free market, really? Please give me an example of that. Or what about "No child left behind", the list goes on and on.
If you really want to challenge yourself on some of the ideas that are just accepted as fact these days, pick up a copy of Economic Facts and Fallacies by Thomas Sowell. Ideas like, everything from a high minimum wage helps the poor, so does rent control, strict controls by government are needed to protect people from capitalist predators, black slavery in the US is the worst the world has ever known. You may be surprised to find that often these ideas not only don't help, they actually have the exact opposite effect on the groups of people they are aiming to help.
If thinking that using my money to solve my problems by using my value system is "voting against my own self-interest" than maybe you are right. But first, I would say how do you know what my self-interest is? That's very presumptuous for you to assume that you know what is good for me. Apparently, the left has reached some level of "omniscience" to have that sort of knowledge. Or maybe they just think all those really smart people in government have the all knowing ability to make that determination for everyone. I'd say take a look around you, look at what works in the world really well, and what doesn't. How many of those things working really well are the products of government? I'm going to wager not many. So what possibly leads you to believe more government is the solution to any problem. On the basis that has worked so well in the past? I mean really. This lie that the Left has drilled into us is starting to crumble. It just doesn't make sense anymore.
My self interest is in making sure there in opportunity for my children in the future. I do not see how a over reaching, over spending government that is squandering my money on useless and unsuccessful programs racking up an unsustainable amount of debt and continues to believe that additional government intervention in the economy is going to lead to growth supports my self interest. I don't believe this lie anymore. Its not a bill of goods I'm willing to accept.
So stop telling me or anymore else what their self-interests are you elitist, presumptuous meddling twerps. Why don't you let people figure out what their own self interests are with their votes and how they spend their dollars. Keep your Utopian ideas and failed social experiments to yourself, and let the rest of us carve out our own paths. We really don't need your type of "help", which is just a ploy to gain more power and control over others.
It goes something like this. Are you rich?
Then why do you care if rich people get taxed more, when that money will go to help you.
Or, why would you vote for someone that isn't going to do anything to help you? Don't you want free health care, or lower cost health care? Don't you want housing assistance? Don't you want to help cure poverty? Don't you want to a better country to live in? That other side isn't going to help you at all. We will help you, and you are voting against your own self-interest.
Of course, the whole basis of this argument is that more government, more "rights", more taxes, more nanny programs, are actually going to help the situation. There is this belief on the left that these problems can actually be solved by government. From the economy to poverty, the Left thinks every single ailment of society is a problem to be solved, and that more government is the answer. But have any of these government "solutions" actually worked. Where is the proof that the War on Poverty actually did anything? Last I checked the poverty rate seems to be in a holding pattern between 11 and 15% since the Great Society program started. What about the war on drugs? That's been going really well. No, I don't want free health care, cause everything has a cost, and I don't believe a government take over will actually lower costs. When has that ever happened? The government can actually do something more efficiently than the free market, really? Please give me an example of that. Or what about "No child left behind", the list goes on and on.
If you really want to challenge yourself on some of the ideas that are just accepted as fact these days, pick up a copy of Economic Facts and Fallacies by Thomas Sowell. Ideas like, everything from a high minimum wage helps the poor, so does rent control, strict controls by government are needed to protect people from capitalist predators, black slavery in the US is the worst the world has ever known. You may be surprised to find that often these ideas not only don't help, they actually have the exact opposite effect on the groups of people they are aiming to help.
If thinking that using my money to solve my problems by using my value system is "voting against my own self-interest" than maybe you are right. But first, I would say how do you know what my self-interest is? That's very presumptuous for you to assume that you know what is good for me. Apparently, the left has reached some level of "omniscience" to have that sort of knowledge. Or maybe they just think all those really smart people in government have the all knowing ability to make that determination for everyone. I'd say take a look around you, look at what works in the world really well, and what doesn't. How many of those things working really well are the products of government? I'm going to wager not many. So what possibly leads you to believe more government is the solution to any problem. On the basis that has worked so well in the past? I mean really. This lie that the Left has drilled into us is starting to crumble. It just doesn't make sense anymore.
My self interest is in making sure there in opportunity for my children in the future. I do not see how a over reaching, over spending government that is squandering my money on useless and unsuccessful programs racking up an unsustainable amount of debt and continues to believe that additional government intervention in the economy is going to lead to growth supports my self interest. I don't believe this lie anymore. Its not a bill of goods I'm willing to accept.
So stop telling me or anymore else what their self-interests are you elitist, presumptuous meddling twerps. Why don't you let people figure out what their own self interests are with their votes and how they spend their dollars. Keep your Utopian ideas and failed social experiments to yourself, and let the rest of us carve out our own paths. We really don't need your type of "help", which is just a ploy to gain more power and control over others.
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