Getting F***ed By Statists (Literally)

A wise man taught me that there can be no rape in a system that preaches, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”. 

Under this doctrine if someone requires sexual gratification and another can provide it, they must.  There is no ethical barrier to prevent the needy one from helping himself to that which placates his cravings.  Need justifies taking.

Lest you think that this is hyperbole, check out this recent story from Japan about sex slavery during World War II.   As many as 200,000 women were forced to provide sexual favors to Japanese soldiers. Similarly, over 34,000 European women were forced into prostitution by Nazi Germany. 

In our own day, there is compelling evidence that the young girls kidnapped by the aspiring Boko Haram caliphate will be sold into sex slavery.

The story is a little different in China.  Because of their one child policy, women are forcibly violated by the abortionist.  The Chinese government reports that over 335 million children have been aborted between 1980 when the policy was instituted and March 2013 when they released the count.  If you are pro-life, this is genocide of unimaginable proportions.  If you are pro-choice, where is the choice?

Like many an ill conceived collectivist scheme, the One Child Policy has engendered unforeseen consequences.  Among them is the shortage of young people to provide for aging parents and grandparents.  This is called the 4-2-1 problem (4 grandparents, 2 parents, 1 child to care for them).

The other Chinese problem is “Gendercide”.  Couples who can have only one child often desire a male.  This leads to the abandonment, abortion and even murder of girls.   According to humantrafficking.org,  “the shortage of marriageable women has fueled the demand for the trafficking of women for forced marriages.”  As it does so often, collectivism leads to female abuse.

Collectivism is any governmentally coercive system that places the claims of society above the rights of the individual.  It goes by many names including socialism, communism, fascism, nationalism and tribalism.  Of course the needs and “claims of society” are determined by a small cadre of ruling elites.  Collectivism is always about the rule of man as opposed to the rule of principle or law.

Self ownership is a foundational principle of American ordered liberty.  Self ownership is anathema to statists who consider individuals to be nothing more than cogs in the machine, grist in the mill.

Although collectivism in the U.S. has not yet reached the brutal excesses of the aforementioned dictatorships, it is slowly creeping up on us.  We have drifted far from our founding principles.

Tax Freedom Day is that day when the average American ceases to work to pay taxes and begins to work for the benefit of himself and his household. At the beginning of the last century that day fell on January 22 or about 6% into the year.  In 2014, that date has moved back to April 13 or 29% of the year.  That tells us that Americans are compelled, enslaved if you will, to work 3.5 months per year to provide their government with money to transfer to favored clientele.  Still, the State is growing ever bolder as it tries using legislation to nullify religious freedom via the HHS Mandate.

Of greater concern is the way that American elites use the subtle theft of monetary expansion to finance wars.  The advent of the Federal Reserve, over a century ago, has empowered our leaders wage endless wars from 1914 onward killing millions worldwide.

The State always tends towards collectivism and to aggregate more power to itself.  It will extort resources from the disenfranchised many for the benefit of favored few.  If you not numbered among the State’s elect, rest assured that you will be screwed financially, sexually or, perhaps, for good.

 

Related Posts:

The Diminished Value of Human Beings in the Dependency State

Of the Employees, By the Employees and For the Employees

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"Half the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election.
Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction."
- Paul Simon

Washington Redskins Settle Name Dispute!

This just in! You read it here first on the 2 Percent Blog.

The Washington Redskins have settled their team name controversy with the federal government.  Effective immediately, Washington’s NFL team will be known as the Washington Elites.

A series of new rules have been implemented that befit The Elites stature as the team representing our nation’s capital.  Washington lawmakers, the President and the NFL have agreed to the following rulebook revisions:

1.       The Elites will be enabled to appropriate a portion of the revenue of every other team in the league.  That amount will determined by the Elites’ Board of trustees.  The Elites will also be empowered to audit the books of other teams in order to ensure that they in compliance with their revenue sharing obligations.

2.       Should they fall behind in a game, or be in jeopardy of falling behind, the Elites will be allowed to print their own points.

3.       The Elites will be allowed to indefinitely detain players or coaches of opposing teams who they judge to be threats.

4.       The Elites will be allowed to monitor discussions in the opponents’ locker room.

5.       They will also be allowed to listen in on opponents’ phone conversations between the upstairs coaching box and the field.

6.       They will be permitted to fly surveillance drones over the opposing team’s huddle

7.       They will be enabled to conduct random drug tests on any opposing player at any time before, during or after the game; and to suspend said player if he is in violation of the Elites’ guidelines.

8.       The Elites will be able to conscript any players or coaches that they so desire into their service.  Should a player or coach refuse service with the Elites, refer to item #3.

9.       The Elite’s will be allowed to appoint their own Refereeing Crew and Replay Review Officials.

10.   The Elites will be allowed to change the rules of the game at any time.

The White House, The NFL and the Elites management released a joint statement saying that this settlement represents and “an important step forward for the league and for football fans everywhere”.

In a related story, The Washington Nationals, Capitols and Wizards are in closed door meetings with Congressional leaders and White House representatives seeking similar deals in their respective sports.

 

Related Posts:

Contraception and User Fees
Democratize The Fed
School Daze – Philly Style

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"Half the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election.
Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction."
- Paul Simon

The Politician and the Producer

One of my family's more amusing anecdotes is the time that my father-in-law met Governor, now Senator, Tom Carper of Delaware.

My wife's dad, Dom Travaglini, is simple and straightforward guy.  He grew up poor in small mountain village in Italy among the ravages of World War II.  The town school offered only three grades so Dom went to work at a young age doing all the simple things that one needs to do in a backwater town just to survive. 

As a teenager, Dom took his practical skills with him to Australia where he went to seek work as a laborer.  He worked in the Outback for three years sending regular payments back home to his mom.  In time he made his way to America, met a girl, married, built a beautiful home and saw both of his kids through college.  All this with a third grade education, strong back and hands and hard learned stone mason skills.

This brings us to the legendary meeting with Carper.

Dom was repairing a backyard wall in and affluent neighborhood.  The next door neighbor leaned over the fence, offered his hand and introduced himself.  “Tom Carper, governor”.  Unfazed and unimpressed, Dom accepted the handshake and replied, “Dom Travaglini, concrete.”

Of course, the family joke is that immigrant, country bumpkin, Dom, failed to show the requisite deference to his social “superior”.  And it was certainly unintentional.  Dom does not have a conniving bone in his body.

But really, is Dom’s station in life, as a humble tradesman, inferior to that of a Governor or a Senator?  I say not.  In fact, I assert that he is far superior.

Dom has spent his entire adult life making people’s live better by building homes, walls, steps and sidewalks for them.  Carper, the career politician, has produced little or nothing of value for his fellow man.  Rather, he has spent his lifetime taxing, licensing and regulating productive people like Dom who make his life at the public trough possible.

In fact, Carper’s family should be laughing that he had the temerity to elevate himself to the station of a productive citizen like Dom.

It’s sad but telling sign, that most people see it otherwise.

Related Posts:

Losing Faith in Politics
The Federal Services Disruption Rebate

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"Half the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election.
Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction."
- Paul Simon

Immigration - A Libertarian Case For Tariffs

The recent surge of thousands of unaccompanied children pouring through America’s southern border poses ethical, moral and humanitarian challenges.

We often think of immigration in terms mature full grown adults seeking a better life.  That certainly makes it easier to strike a more strident stand regarding legalities and remedies.  The thought of repatriating callow youths back to dysfunctional homelands seems cruel.

Freedom of movement is a fundamental libertarian principle.  It is an extension of free market principles. People can and will relocate to where prospects for a good life a rosier.   When it comes to adult immigration, the Cato Institute argues that the net benefit of immigration is positive.  Does their argument hold true in the case of unaccompanied children?  Perhaps not.

This brings to mind Milton Friedman’s incisive observation that "It's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state."

In the case of adults, it can be argued that many, if not most, are honest, hard workers who are seeking remunerative opportunities.  Children, however, are certainly going to become wards of the taxpayers.  The kids will need to be fed, clothed, sheltered, educated and given medical care.  To afford this, federal, state and local governments will impose an unelected and therefore, un-libertarian, burden on their citizens.

Anyone who saw the classic DePlama / Pacino Scarface will recall that the film’s premise was that Castro was deporting his social problems to the U.S.  Fidel emptied his prisons and asylums and set these unwanted souls adrift in the Atlantic, headed for Miami.  This closely adheres to the libertarian definition of pollution.  That is, dumping your refuse on another person’s property.

In a sense, Mexico and Central American nations are doing the same thing.  They are dumping their social ills onto our soil. The remedy, I believe, is to attack the dumpers, not the dumpees.

The solution lies in an idea that the Obama administration put forward in the early days of the Russian incursion into Ukraine.  Impound the assets of those responsible for creating the problem.

Let’s start by allowing all who are not known disease carriers or criminals into the U.S.  Then we ask the good old IRS to track the net monetary contribution that each individual immigrant has made to his community.  The IRS will also track whatever cost burdens that said immigrant has placed upon his host community.  If the contributions exceed the costs, no problemo! Everybody wins.

If the cost to maintain the immigrant individual and / or his family exceeds his contributions, someone must be made to pay.  This is where the asset freezing comes in.

The U.S. will simply put a lien on the U.S. based financial assets of the originating government, its corporations and its leading citizens.  Funds from these accounts will be used to reimburse American taxpayers for the expense of maintaining that country’s citizens while they were guests in the U.S.A.

This is the Immigration Tariff.  It is a tariff that is libertarian because it imposes costs on those who create the immigration problem. I am sure that once those nations that dump their social ills on America are forced to pay a price, they will make needed reforms to retain their most vulnerable countrymen.

 

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"Half the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election.
Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction."
- Paul Simon

Donald, Adam, Milton & Will

Unlike Will Rogers, I have met a number of men who I did not like.  Perhaps Will did not get out much.

I’ve never met Donald Sterling but I get it.  He’s a jerk.  He’s said some nasty and objectionable things.

Nonetheless Donald Sterling, as an NBA owner, has run a business that has turned dozens of African Americans into millionaires.  Despite what he may or may not really feel about people of African ancestry, he realizes that to run a credible basketball enterprise he must employ top notch talent.  In the basketball business that talent is overwhelmingly Black.  Sir Charles is correct when he says that the NBA “is a Black league”.

Donald’s case is a sterling example of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”.  By selfishly pursuing his own interest, Sterling inadvertently helped many Black men become rich.  He wasn’t dumb enough to staff his roster with a bunch of suckey white stiffs.  Smith discovered that while an individual strives for his own enrichment,

"He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it ... He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for society that it was no part of his intention. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.”

Let’s consider the reverse situation.  The apparatchiks of the American welfare state have lots of warm and fuzzy things to say about minorities.  Yet nearly fifty years ago the liberal Democrat, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, sounded the alarms that the welfare system was destroying African American families and communities.  And even under the auspices of America’s first Black President, the fortunes of Americans have continued to erode.  This was forcefully pointed out NAACP president, Benjamin Jealous.  Nearly 250 years ago Smith saw that government meddling caused nothing but hardship.  “I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good."   

This does not excuse Sterling’s gaffs.  However, it begs the question of who would you prefer to have in your corner – the a-hole who makes you millions or the nice guy who bankrupts you? 

Milton Friedman nailed it when he wrote that, “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”  Our supposedly compassionate welfare state only aggravates the plight of the economic underclass. In addition is stokes resentment among taxpayers and recipients alike.  

The market brings people together who may not like each other.  However they soon learn to cooperate and make exchanges for mutual benefit.

We can never know what is in a man’s soul.  That’s between him and his Maker or his shrink.  However, we do know that the free market rewards those who serve their neighbors well and who do the best job of creating satisfaction for customers.

A nation of happy consumers and prosperous pleasers is good enough for me.  To return to Mr. Smith, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” 

Unlike Will Rogers, these merchants need not like us nor we them.  Businesses sell to us because they want our money.  We give them money because we want meat, bread and brewskies. 

The collectivist, however, wants much more than burgers, bread and brew.  He wants your heart, you mind and your soul.  He cares little for your material well being.

Recognition of our interdependence is what enables flawed, limited and even stupid men, such as this writer, and women to cooperate freely and prosper harmoniously. 

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OnFire Radio Show

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"Half the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election.
Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction."
- Paul Simon

Adam and Eve Visit Vienna

Occasionally it helps to suspend the prejudices of belief and unbelief to see what insights the ancient scriptures may offer on contemporary concerns.  In this instance, the topic is work.

Human work, or “toil” as it is referred to in my Bible, is first mentioned when God ejects Adam and Eve from the Garden. “Through painful toil you will eat…..By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground”.  (NIV)

Here is the story up until that moment.  Adam and Eve are new to the world.  They are essentially children in adult bodies.  Today we call them adolescents.  Like most adolescents, they have no clue.  They live in a home that their Father provided, eat his food, swim in his ponds and play with his animals.

Upon eating from the forbidden tree of knowledge, they were rudely thrust into adulthood and sent out into the harsh world to work at jobs for which they were ill prepared.  

Thus it is embedded in our deepest traditions to regard work as a curse. 

Austrian economists call this the “disutility of labor”.  Put quite simply, “Men prefer the absence of labor, i.e., leisure, to labor, or as the economists put it: they attach disutility to labor…….They are eager to stop working at the point at which the mediate gratification expected no longer outweighs the disutility involved in the performance of additional work.” (Mises: Human Action).

Returning to Scripture for a moment, the actual word “work” first appears at the beginning of Genesis 2 when God, “rested from all the work he had done in creation”.  In this sense, work is a blessing and not a curse.  Work need not always be tedious toil.  Rather, it can be rewarding participation in the continuing process of creation.

When God expelled the first couple from Paradise, he did not leave them helpless. They still had their arms, legs, hands and feet.  They still had “dominion” over the things of nature.  Most importantly, they retained their brains, their ability to reason.  The Creator never said that his children should remain poor and miserable.  Mankind could mix his hard work and reason with the abundant resources of this world to lift himself out of destitution and to create prosperity, peace and abundance.  This is the essence of “production”.

Murray Rothbard observes that, “Power over nature is the sort of power on which civilization must be built; the record of man's history is the record of the advance or attempted advance of that power.”

Mankind’s ability to sublimate nature to his own ends stems from his power to think and reason.  Ayn Rand states that “The action required to sustain human life is primarily intellectual: everything man needs has to be discovered by his mind and produced by his effort. Production is the application of reason to the problem of survival.”

A great many of our world’s problems, however; stem from the fact that so few people link work with production.  Those who see labor as purely a curse will often demand compensation for their toil that exceeds their production.  They think that their pay is merely compensation for suffering drudgery, not a reflection of value created for others.  This lies at the heart of the minimum wage fallacy.

And though God may have given mankind dominion over nature, he never gave one man or women dominion over another.  All God’s children are free and equal in his eyes as our Declaration of Independence asserts.  Yet there are those who prefer a shortcut to abundance by attaining power over others as opposed to power over nature.

Rothbard explains: “Power over men, on the other hand, does not raise the general standard of living or promote the satisfactions of all, as does power over nature. By its very essence, only some men in society can wield power over men. Where power over man exists, some must be the powerful, and others must be objects of power….. Power of one man over another cannot contribute to the advance of mankind; it can only bring about a society in which plunder has replaced production”.

This is the mode of the corporatist welfare / warfare state that expropriates lawful productivity for the benefit of elites and their clientele.  This is a model for a society that is unstable and unsustainable

The legal plunder of the all powerful state threatens to tear down the American Dream that was built upon respect for individual liberty and property rights.  It portends a return to the harsh days of humanity’s first parents who were sentenced to a life of hardship on account of their hubris.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In the following graphic, Professor Rothbard neatly sums up the differences between the ways of peace, liberty and productivity (The Market Principle) versus the ways of violence and legalized plunder (The Hegemonic Principle).

Related Posts:

Those Who Live By The Sword
The Wisdom of the Ancients
Work 40

Subscribe to the 2 Percenter blog by going to http://feedage.com  and entering 2percentpov into the Search box on top -choose your favorite reader.

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OnFire Radio Show

Streaming  on Hamiltonradio.net

   Podcast at Blogspot, iTunes, Stitcher, Podomatic & YouTube

"Half the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election.
Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction."
- Paul Simon