Our fundamental difference

Recently in a political discussion I heard someone refer to another's ideas as "innocent". It made me aware of some ideas that really brought clarity to the differences in our political discourse. Here was my response.

When So and So says "innonence" I think what she he geting at it a fundamental difference between liberals, dems, leftists, and the like vs conservatives, libertarians, and the like. The later sees the reality of the flaws in man, which history would suggest are selfish, brutal, oppressive, and horrible. Slavery, rascism, genocide, looting, etc.etc. Whereas the other view is that man hasn't achieved his potential yet. That side believes man can be more caring and collective and fair, yadda, yadda, yadda.

So we believe any system needs to face these realities and structure around it, whereas the other side believes man can achieve some more perfect state. That is the "innonence" I think she is alluding to. I understand her perspective. It's not really meant as an insult I think anyway, but its a fundamental difference in how we see the world. You believe (I think) man can obtain this more perfect state, through education, and a major culture shift, and we believe that history teaches us that is utterly impossible based on past experiences. For example, when you consider the constitution you might see a bunch of rights, that are given TO you from the government, whereas we see a bunch of rights that stem from beyond government and are in fact protections FROM government. That's because we believe that all men including any system created by man is flawed (the government) and thus we need protection FROM the tyranny any such system might impose on us.

So you see its not really "innocence" but a difference is how much faith we have in the ability of man to improve his virtue (or lack there of). I think this is when it gets a little spiritual/religious for some, but I'm an atheist and still hold these beliefs so I don't think that is required.

Lesser of two evils

So it seems we are all faced with the same decision every election cycle, which is the lesser of two evils. Neither candidate ever represents us well, and both come with a pack of lies and things that scare the hell out of us.

This is especially true for folks like myself who can best be described as Libertarians. Every election cycle I have to choose social issues over economic issues. You see guys like me are about freedom. Freedom in the bed room, freedom in your mind, freedom with your body, freedom with your pocketbook, freedom in business, freedom in education, freedom from tyranny, privacy/choice, yadda, yadda, yadda. I believe in this in every aspect of my life for myself and for everyone else. I don't care what you believe in, I don't care what choices you make, as long as they don't tread on my choices. I believe in the pursuit of happiness and the power of the individual to use his/her talents in how they see fit. I'll always side with the liberty of the individual over any type of collectivism. You reap what you sow, and when you fall you learn.

You see for guys like me who don't care who you marry, what you put into your body, whether you are pro-choice or pro-life, and at the same time believe in property rights, and the chance to reap the rewards of my own endeavors, there is no real party in American politics that represents us. There is some social freedom on one side and some economic freedom on the other. Throw in foreign policy which is mostly junk from both sides, and you are really stuck.

So some describe the GOP as some sort of religious fascist entity that wants to control every aspect of your personal life while completely rigging the economic system against you. The haves sticking it to the have nots. Straight up serfdom. Oh and woman are dying in emergency rooms, because they don't have access to free contraceptives. Then there are those who might describe the liberals as commies wanting to essentially redistribute wealth and centrally plan all outcomes to the point where good looking people have to wear ugly masks as a handicap to make them equal and rich dudes have to hand over 90% of what they make in the spirit of fairness. Probably both extremes are a little much, wouldn't you say?

At the end of the day, I don't trust anyone else to make decisions for me but me. Because I trust my own value system and recognize that it probably different from anyone else's. I also recognize the flaws in all humans. Regardless of how much of bleeding heart your are, push come to shove you are going to put your own self interest first. If you don't you are some type of anomaly or insane. So we are all inherently selfish, or self preserving, or whatever you want to call it.

Based on that reality, there is no way I trust anyone but me to make decisions for me, but me. Which is why I believe in a small government. There is no way any central power is going to understand all the complexities about whatever topic and make that right for everyone, absolutely no way. Its completely impossible. What happens whenever that is attempted is a whole bunch of bad stuff. What sounds really nice in speeches and in policy always ends up costing a lot more and accomplishing a lot less of what is was meant to accomplish.

So I'm not surprised when any politicians lies or deceives or completely fails. Its a mistake that anyone ever trusted them to do anything useful in the first place. That is why I'd rather have my money and pay as little tax as possible. Because I think I can make better decisions for me, my family, my community, than anyone else ever can for me. I recognize there are certain things this doesn't work for, but I think those things are small in number. At the same time when I do have to edge towards collectivism, I'd prefer to do it on the smallest scale as possible. So that goes from family to friends to community to state to federal to global. I only jump from one unit to the next when its absolutely necessary.

So am I for education, and I for a safety net? Sure I am, but I'd like to make those choices first, and only then pass it on to someone else when I have to. So that means it takes a really long time before anything in my mind ever gets to the federal level. Our founding fathers were really smart, they understood corruption, they understood tyranny. The more you let power get away from you, the more chance there is for things to things to come back decidedly different from how you would want them. So do I think there is a roll of government to play in things like education or a safety net? Sure, but I'm not convinced there is much of a role for that at the federal level at all.

So that is my problem with the left and the current state of the democratic party in this country. From my perspective there is far more tyranny and danger being argued from the left than the right, and its all about the power grab. When you give power over to a central force, while you may like it when your guy is in power, you might find it pretty horrible when your guy it not in power. In the end, you are much better off if that power was not aggregated at the top as you end up controlling more of it yourself. So I'm very wary of anyone telling me they are going to fix everything, and I should just trust in them and give them more of my money, or support, or anything.

What is the worst you can imagine from this so called religious fanatical right wing? Few less science books, the word GOD in a few more places, couple of dudes can't marry, a poor woman has to give up a pack of cigarettes to buy some condoms? The depth of the intrusion into our lives is much more significant with the left. They don't stop with the pocketbook which is bad enough. They apply the do-gooding know it all attitudes to what you eat, wear you live, what type of car you drive, where your kids go to school and what that experience is like, what you read, and even try to control what you think.

We've seen this from Obama. Let's take cash for clunkers. Let's get rid of all the gas guzzling old cars. You know what happened, the price of used cars has soared. That's really helped poor people hasn't it? And what of all the people who just loved old cars. What is the carbon footprint of making a new car opposed to fixing an old car even with the gas guzzling? The unintended consequences is my worry. I used to be able to get my kids apples instead of fries in their happy meals. But Michael Obama caused such a stir, now you get little bit of fries, little bit of apples. No choice. Gee thanks, so you were attempting to help my kids eating habits, but now I have no choice, and they are getting fries all the time now. So I'll take having to pay for some condoms over having not having a job. I'll deal with some people praying in school over someone controlling how much soda or french fries I eat. I have no idea where this type of thing will stop. That's the thing with the intrusion of the left into your life, it has no boundary. That is what is so offensive to those of us that are concerned about Freedom above all else.

So usually people will start firing off about corporations and how they dominate, and the only way to fix this is with a strong government influence through regulation and enforcement. But I reject that idea. The reason corporations have such influence is because of how we've aggregated power. This IMHO was a direct result of the 17th amendment, which also by the way brought forth the progressive movement. So while all the awesome "people centric" reforms we all supposedly love came to be, the by product was an easily corruptible Senate, with no regard for states rights. That is how we got the corn lobby, and just about every other lobby that greases our current government. A progressive power grab by and for "the people" made it really easy for things like corporations to control the federal government.

So when a lot of people talk about a do nothing congress, most of the time I think good, a do nothing congress means they can't mess up any more stuff. Its not just the selfish assholes who mess stuff up, but the do-gooders are equally as responsible for messed up stuff. From entitlements, and on down the line. I respect the passion and the intent of these guys, but really all the do-gooding, it leads to bad stuff. From price controls, to affirmative action, to all sorts of things. Go read some Thomas Sowell he can explain it all to you much better than I ever will.

So that is why I fear the moral agenda of the left. Johnson launched a war on poverty, we spent a bunch of money. Poverty rates are just about the same as before this policy. You can look at all of these programs and see the same sorts of results. So time after time, we give up a little power in tax dollars and choice, believing in some program that is going to fix something, but never really does. Then we are all just left holding the bill.

There is a tippy point coming really soon, it doesn't matter who caused it, there is tons of blame to go around. There is a structural debt problem. When debt becomes overwhelming nations have three options. Major cuts, growth, or tax increases. The forth option is inflation, which is really just a hidden way of increasing the tax. This is the course I suspect we are on which no one will tell you. But since the US has a reserve currency, its very hard for us to inflate out of it. For some knowledge on how various countries have dealt with debt see:

http://www.globalfinancialdata.com/news/articles/government_debt.pdf

So as the parent of three young children, and now sterile (non scalpel vasectomy, lots of fun), I'm far less concerned about things like contraception and abortion then about the opportunities my children might have for success in the future. Just as personal debt can be stifling there is a point where nation debt has the same affect on growth. I can not ignore that Obama promised to cut the debt in half. I don't care why he failed, there are no excuses, you are the god damn president figure it out. He will add 6 trillion by the end of the term. I don't care that some of it was Bush's, I don't care that the congress didn't help, he's the boss, buck stops there. He sucked at solving this problem, which is the most important thing on my radar.

So I can push aside almost everything else when I consider Romney. He picked Ryan. The guy is a budget hawk, and has some ideas with real math. He lied, I don't care, VP's always are the bullies, they lie about stuff; whatever I can get past that. Romney understands business, he understands the global economy. According to some guy who writes for Rolling Stone and sucks Bill Maher's dick, he cash infused a bunch of failing companies to give them one last shot at success which turned into debt and failure, and then managed to still pull out some cash for himself. Whatever, dude knows numbers, tried to help some failing businesses, it worked some places not others, figured out a way to always make it work for himself, awesome, now apply those skills to fixing the whole financial situation in the US. Find a way to do the same thing to China, accept apply it to our bottom line.

When folks talk about cayman island accounts and all that, I think to myself what better a guy to help deal with the financial situation then someone who knows how to bypass all the rules, and knows why it sucks bringing money back into this country. Money is like water it flows to the path of least resistance. Sure its not fair, but that's the world we live in. Its better to understand the realities and adjust the incentives than attempt to fix the unfixable.

There is zero probability Obama has any chance of a growth solution out of this debt problem. I haven't seen any demonstration of a real understanding of the economy, nor a desire to put American back on top. I think he comes from a place where he's more worried about the situations of people in third world countries than he is of the plight of Americans. Too much 2016 maybe, but it seems to stick. I think there is a non zero chance of Romney either making some cuts or setting forth a growth solution out of the debt, or maybe a little of both. I couldn't say if that chance is 1% or 20%, but its better than zero.

So there you have it, the lesser of two evils. One guy has some chance of setting a better trajectory out of debt, and another guy has added 5.something trillion to the debt. It's really not a hard decision. So call me a asshole for making woman die in emergency rooms, not letting gay people adopt kids, killing poor people, keeping the kids stupid, and being a racist bigoted immigrant hater. I don't care. It's all smoke and mirrors in the way of what I think really matters.

If this guy ends up being another neo-con than I'm just going to move somewhere else. Has that Mars rover started building something yet ?

Economics 101

Something that completely gets lost from the healthcare debate and is applicable to most issues is basic economics. In case you didn't know economics if basically about how to deal with unlimited wants with limited resources. In other words there will always be "rationing". The real debate out to be about where that "rationing" should happen. It can be in a few places.

The government (big brother) can do it.

Your employer can do it.

Insurance companies can do it.

Or you can do it.

However you slice and dice it. Take all the rich people's money, borrow and finance debt, suck your employer dry, mortgage your house and take on debt, you can't have everything you want. So who can make the best decisions for you? There answer always seems brutally honest for me. You can always make better decisions for yourself and your family than anyone else.

Back in the day before insurance, or before insurance paid for everything people used to do this themselves, just like they do for everything else in your lives. Because when you pay with your own dollars, you are always very good at scrutinizing the cost/benefit. Think about when you go to the doctor vs when you take you pet. The vet will say you can run this test, or do that and it will cost X, and that might tell you Y, and then we could do Z, or it might tell you nothing and just cost you money. And then you make a decision about how much you want to spend vs the value of the test/procedure. When you do that you are "rationing". But doesn't it make so much sense. You get to decide how much that pet means to you and your family, what you have to spend, and the value of the service being offered.

One of the reasons healthcare is so expensive is because there is a total lack of price control. No one knows what the costs are until months later when the bills trickle in. And up and down the food chain the providers know how to offer more services that don't do anything to help you, but get them paid. My favorite example of that, is the hospital near my house that has a policy that every person in the ER get an IV. Add up the the costs of the glucose, the needle, the nurse to intert it, the waste costs... Its sorta staggering how much that costs per hour x 24 x 365. They wouldn't do it, if they weren't getting paid all the while. What's worse is when you try to stop them its like a whole big thing. I ask myself, I'm actually saving you money aren't I ? Not really cause thats a whole bunch of money they won't get from the gov't or your insurance company. Waste.

Michael Moore and company would point to france or places like that where they attempt to incentivize the provider for fixing your problem vs offering a bunch of services that don't ever help. While that sounds good in theory its still largely ineffective because it make more sense to just put the power in the hands of the person receiving the benefit, as they can always make better decisions for themselves based on their economic situation and the benefit of the service.

So if everyone took a little more responsibility with their pockets books yes, price controls would come in and fix things. Especially if there was some damn transparency about what the costs of things are up front vs two months later. But its all a big scam. Everyone wants to blame the insurance companies but its really the providers who are winning this game. Just like education. No one blame the crappy institutions that cost too much and sell you a shitty product and leave you with a worthless diploma that doesn't get you a job.

Basically it all comes down to removing the decisions from the consumer and putting someone, the gov't, an insurance company, some 3rd party in the way. We'd all be a lot better off if we just took back control, even if you think it would cost more. Because I can guarantee you in the end it will cost much less if we operated this way.

So I think things like health savings accounts make a hell of a lot more sense then any of the ridiculous ideas put forth by congress or the current POTUS. I think we'd see fairly quickly that the cost problem comes into check and people receive better service. In the end if we did that well there would plenty of money to help the poor and old.

The Economic Vision for America

I have a feeling we are going to start hearing a lot of things like this, I'm quoting from a recent campaign event. by the current POTUS.

You've got one theory that says if we slash our education, our research and our infrastructure budgets, and weaken our social safety net, and make sure that unions aren’t out there operating, and we essentially eliminate EPA -- and I'm not exaggerating -- there are candidates and members of Congress who've called for that -- that somehow we're going to be able to win this competition in the 21st century. And that's one vision, and it is being starkly stated.

And I have a different vision. Most of the people in this room have a fundamentally different vision about how this country was formed. Our vision is based on the notion that everybody deserves a fair shot, everybody has to do their fair share, and everybody has got to play by the same set of rules and America succeeds best when we're all in it together, we're all rising together. And that big, inclusive, generous, bold, ambitious vision of America is what's at stake, is what we're fighting for.

So I agree he's got one thing right here, it is a about a bold ambitious vision for America. Let's put aside the first paragraph, let's just assume he's got that all correct. Now remember this comes from a speech about jobs the economy, how to make America competitive, yadda, yadda, yadda. What I don't understand is how the whole "fair shot" - we are all in it together thing, leads to jobs, economic recovery, and being competitive. And how does that lead to "rising together". I would like someone to explain that to me. Because in my little pee brain, that sort of thing amounts to two things. It's either get the people who have too much and give to those who don't, or punish the people that have too much if they don't somehow help to make things more fair. But fairness has nothing to do with being competitive, in fact in a competition things are not fair at all. There are winners; there are losers. Sure there's fairness (or at least should be) in terms of the rules, but not in outcomes.

There just seems to be a complete lack of focus on the problem, or a basic understanding of the economy. Economics is about managing a finite set of resources with an infinite set of wants. What often gets overlooked is that this doesn't equate to a single pot of money. Because when you fuse raw materials, with labor, and innovation you can create wealth. Someone can always find a way to make something better, faster, cheaper, than was done before, or they can solve a brand new problem, and that process creates wealth. So its a complete fallacy that there is this single pot of wealth that needs to be distributed. Likewise, anyone involved in building things better, faster, cheaper, or inventing will probably have a disproportionate amount of wealth because of their involvement in producing it than those who lost the game. Hence the unfairness of it all.

Now in America we've done some winning, and we want to do some more winning. How has that always worked? Let's see you need problems, folks to fix them, and capital to pay the folks to fix them. There's no shortage of problems, there seems to be lots of people needing work, no shortage there, hmm, what's missing... oh right money. So how to you get money, well you can just start printing, but eventually that leads to inflation. Even if you print it, if you don't have anyone to loan it to, that's not really going to help, been there done that. You could encourage those that have it to start spending it. Now there's an idea. Hmm, who has money. Well, rich people have money. People overseas have money too, and wait if folks from elsewhere bring money here, doesn't that mean we have more money here, yep I think it does mean that. Who else has money? Well normal folks would have a lot more money if they weren't paying so much in taxes. Why are they paying so much in taxes? Well to pay for all the fairness programs and the size of government.

So you see all that cut government, entitlements, unions, EPA talk is really about reducing the burden on America innovation and capital so that it can be put back to work. And hopefully attracting foreign capital at the same time. That to me sounds much more like a solution for creating jobs than preaching about being fair. I sorta have a feeling that "fair" is the new "hope and change".

Government can't do that much when it comes to this stuff, mostly it just needs to get out of the way. Attempting to throw resources here or there hoping something hits is just a big waste of time and money. What you want is lots of really driven folks trying out all sorts of great ideas with motivation. How do you do that? By leaving the motivation and incentive structures in place. That will bring capital into this country, inspire and motivate people. Out of that wealth is created. There's a reason that the last couple of hundred of years dwarf any other period of history before this in terms of innovation and development. It's because the power of man to carve out his own future was unleashed. Before the Enlightenment, man's history was largely that of oppression, slavery, or barbarianism. Property ownership and the pursuit of happiness are the cornerstones of our advancement. Someone else telling you how to be happy or taking your property from you (even in with the best of intentions) is a step in the wrong direction.

So I agree with Obama the vision for America is at stake.