In my web wanderings, I ran across this piece on AlterNet.

AlterNet is another one of those sites I don't usually link to here. Like LewRockwell.com, their bias often gets in the way of their usefulness. But this is one I felt I should respond to. Not because I have anything to do with the Tea Party, but because of several misconceptions that several modern liberals seem to have.

Yep, libertarian here saying that modern liberals (as I defined them here) have several misconceptions. I'll stop saying it as soon as they stop trying to control the economic behavior of others.

““Never mind that free markets are anything but free for ordinary people.””

Except by definition, the free market is more free than anything yet used by humanity. Mutual and voluntary exchange of goods and services. Or if you prefer the poetic, "consenting activities between consenting adults."

Most of this misconception is because the U.S. has had only a partial free market for decades. If the prices are regulated, it's not a free market. If licenses are required, it's not a free market. If a legislature tries to correct "economic disparity," it's not a free market.

But that is how it has been sold to the American people.

The answer is KYFHO. Get government out of the way.

I'm not going to touch the pseudo-psychological-social stuff, it's all highly subjective and open to interpretation. If someone can show an objective way to measure it, then it's worth considering.

I'm not exactly sure exactly what Robert Murdoch and David Koch are supposed to have done that is so wrong, especially when we consider the semi-secret cabal headed by George Soros and it's ongoing influence on the DNC since about 2001. That's not to say that Murdoch and Koch are angels, Murdoch in particular is no friend of the free market or of liberty.

One other thing, the billionaires embraced the Tea Party agenda, not the other way around. Much of the Tea Party is highly decentralized with no recognized national leadership.

Beck's mess wasn't just a travesty, it was a call for a theocracy. Hmm, seems like I said something like that. It wasn't racist though, except that it criticized President Obama. This is something I've seen quite a bit in the last two years, when liberals don't want to address the merits of the argument, they trot out the race card.

I won't address the crooked accounting schemes behind Social Security, but I do want to talk about if Social Security is a Good Thing Courtesy of Your Friends In Government.

*deep breath*

They're lying.

Please don't take my word for it. Find your last paycheck stub from last year. Grab a calculator and figure what the interest on that money would be this year in a standard savings account.

Government doesn't give you interest on your money.

You really want to cry, figure out how much you would have made if you just invested in the top ten of the Dow Jones 40 last year.

I've heard that it's theoretically possible, but I've never found anyone who withdrew from the Social Security system. Since everyone is required to participate and much of the available funds go there, of course the free market alternatives are lacking. Of course it doesn't help that the FedGovs regularly change the laws and rules on retirement income to keep YOUR retirement money firmly under government control.

Same thing with Medicare. And since there is effectively a single payer system for many medical procedures, the Inferior Golden Rule applies. "He who has the gold makes the rules." Literally in this case, since under penalty of law American citizens are forbidden from owning too much gold. In this case though, it means that the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, and health care providers are more beholden to the Federal government than they are individual citizens.

And when all this totters and threatens to collapse, the very government that prevents a free market in health care blames the greedy free market for not taking care of people.

Learn to recognize this pattern.

What no one in government wants to talk about is that government spends too much money. They talk about taxes, but no one talks about spending cuts. They talk about class distinctions, but not government regularly wasting cash. They talk about corporate accountability, but destroy contract law.

If government doesn't take money, it stays in your pocket so you can choose. But the various elites do not think you can be trusted to do the right thing with your money.

Like, a bridge to nowhere. Or a "auto bailout" that goes mainly to unions. Or a closed room deal designed to shut down certain investment firms while propping up others. Get the picture here?

I'll believe in "Net Neutrality" when some of the very same exact people stop proposing regulating blogs. Or what content is "appropriate." Or when the FedGovs shut down their cyberwarfare units, especially the ones focused locally.

I've already called Public Education as I see it, I won't go into more details here. I will say that the very limited voucher programs around the country have shown that competition is one of the best things that could happen to education. That's probably why so many in the public education establishment are so set against education vouchers.

As should be obvious by now, historically whenever government has talked about "reform," it's been to shift money and control to the government out of private hands. You should ask yourself if they have done a good job with that trust, especially when they have to go back every few years and seize more.

There are some Libertarians and some libertarians in the the Tea Party movement. Since the Tea Party started with distrust of government, that is not surprising. But very few modern liberals and progressives want to talk about the ideas themselves, they just find it easier to dismiss the movement.

That is a big reason why I expect the government to collapse. It can't keep it's promises.

Posted: Mon - September 6, 2010 at 02:46 PM