NeoNote — Free market produces fewer losers
❝❝It's not that capitalism produces no losers, it's that the free market produces fewer losers by a couple of orders of magnitude.NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.
Notice that I am distinguishing between capitalism and the free market.
Again, I'm talking about a "bottom-up" self-organizing exchange versus a "top-down" system imposed by force. In a free market, the way to get ahead is providing what others want. In any other system, it's about controlling the system.
ANY artificial controls will be exploited by the most powerful at the expense of the weaker. Resources are diverted into controlling the rules rather than producing value.
"Moral obligations" will be used to shut competition out of the marketplace in the name of compassion, and it will be backed by government force, diverting still more resources away from the market and into government and control.
The free market has only one real justification, it has produced more wealth and more freedom for more people than anything else we have tried. The key is individual choice, not controlling the system.
In a free market, competition keeps us honest and choice is the only control that works.
The two most important phrases in human history:
“Let me help.”
“I can do better than that!”
It's not the tools, it's the results.
The free market is an example of people choosing for themselves. Government is controlling people by force.
And yes, the world is changing. It's embracing choice. That doesn't mean that the politicos and technocrats will give up power willingly. But they can't control everything that happens. Who could have foreseen the world wide web, Snicker's bars, or topless maid services? What government agency would have tolerated those things? What Congress critter would have sponsored legislation creating flash mobs, radar detectors, or fantasy football?
I want more freedom for more people today. I want more of the same tomorrow. Choice is the best way to get freedom. That's it, plain and simple. That's my objective.
See, you're still talking politics. "Arrange." "Cap." That's about controlling others, implying that government force will be involved sooner or later.
Why should their choice control my action? Why should my choice control your action? Why should your choice control their action?
It's not about creating the framework or tweaking the system. They've got something I want, so I have to find something they want. Voluntary exchanges between consenting adults, and no third party taking a cut or dictating rules.
Freedom and wealth. The Apaches could not produce steel knives, antiseptics, or a horseshoe. In one sense they were free, but they didn't have wealth. What freedom and wealth they had was taken at the expense of others.
Freedom taken at the expense of someone else is privilege and is generally recognized as a Bad Thing. Perhaps the keystone to Western Civilization is the Ethic of Reciprocity. This is what makes freedom more than a privilege grab. It also can't be imposed by another.
I'm proposing that the free market makes freedom and wealth possible while making things mostly better today than they were yesterday. So we have steel tools, paracord, duck tape, battery drills, and lights at the flick of a switch. These and seven million and thirteen other things weren't even a possibility with a hunter/gatherer culture.
Freedom is only one part of the payoff.
Nice things result in greater freedom.
I grow stuff in my garden, but that is not my source of food. I can go to the grocery store and find a wider variety of fruits and vegetables than I could ever hope to grow myself. My choices are increased by the store, and it couldn't happen without the free market.
A few years back I was looking at an aquaponics set-up. Beyond the design and construction, it would have taken about twenty hours a week and between two and three hundred dollars more per month. And that is if everything went right and I never left town.
Is it necessary that I use the supermarket? No, but it's a better use of my time and resources than if I tried to do it on my own. It lets me use the labor and skills of others at a minimal cost to myself.❞❞
Comments
NeoNote - Compassion, abortion and faith
Friday - 17May2019 Filed in: NeoNotes&Morality & Modern Life
❝❝Pardon, but attacking their compassion may not be the best way to go.NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.
I don't have an answer either, but I think if you asked most conservatives if abortion was more compassionate than taking care of unwanted and/or disabled babies, they would laugh in your face. You would hand them both the issue and the moral high ground.
First, those are different issues. Conservatives aren't a monolithic block. Not every conservative has issues with vaccines, and not every conservative thinks that autism is worse than death. I've not run the numbers, but I suspect the crossover with the pro-life crowd is pretty small.
Second, I'm not the one you'll have to convince. I have mixed feelings myself and it's one of those issues where I can see more than one side depending on circumstance. But when you tell most conservatives that "killing babies" is more compassionate, you've lost the argument with them and they will fight you to the end. It doesn't help that Democrats have defined abortion as their primary issue and practically THE only standard that matters for a Supreme Court justice. It doesn't help that Roe vs. Wade has no constitutional precedent and would be inevitably challenged as soon as the balance on the court changed.
This has always been a divisive issue. When conservatives look at Virginia, they see it as a call to action. This "slaughter of innocents" is something that they've been forced to accept for almost 50 years, and they are ready to fight back hard.
By your standards.
By their standards of compassion, they are saving babies.
And that "they" includes many women who do not believe that feminists, liberals, and Democrats speak for them. You can't win this issue if you dismiss those women as objects who can't think on their own and must be "saved" from the evil patriarchy.
I've my own issues with Christians.
But…
How is what they do that much different from what you just did? You just described a "come to Jesus" moment only with a different premise.
If faith means anything at all, it has to be freely chosen. That means that people are going to make choices that you don't like, don't understand, and don't approve of. You are no more entitled to judge their creed for them than they are entitled to judge yours for you. You can't win a battle of faith. Neither can they.
If you tell them that they are ignorant and living in fear and that everything they believe about their god is wrong, they have no reason to listen. All you are doing is feeding their perceived persecution. They don't believe they are victimized.
And not all of them are.
Please don't misunderstand. I'm not saying that they are right. And I am certainly not defending them. My own feelings on the subject are way too conflicted.
What I am saying is that in this case the liberal/progressive ideas of compassion and sympathy are completely different from the conservative ideas. You're using the same words but you are having completely different conversations. Attack them in the name of compassion and in their minds you just made their case for them and without realizing it.
The assumptions and perspectives are completely different. Your logic won't work for them, just as theirs won't work for you. Both of you are starting from absolutes for one thing, even if those absolutes are mostly opposite.
As a libertarian, I want less government than absolutely necessary. I'm not thrilled with idea of restricting rights, but I'm also not thrilled with the idea of government "picking up the slack" so to speak. And I oppose government interference with sex. But that doesn't mean I'm completely with the "left" on sex either. I don't think there should be government funding for private charities or other organizations. Which means Planned Parenthood shouldn't be getting grants or funding.
Or to cut through all the verbiage, rights good, government meddling bad.
I don't trust in the wisdom of government to "do the right thing."
See, my problem is that I see both major parties using government to interfere and push their own agendas. "For Your Own Good!" "For The Greater Good!" "Think Of The Children!"
Sex is mostly a voluntary act. I see abortion mostly and commonly used as the "contraception of last resort." A hook-up and regret after a drunken encounter is not the same thing as rape or incest. I think a case can be made for abortion because of rape or incest provided we accept that a case can be made for adoption as well.
We forget that charity used to happen outside of government. Marvin Olasky wrote The Tragedy of American Compassion. Although I don't agree with all of his conclusions, Olasky does point out that charity used to be a short-term thing, privately and locally administered, and above all intended to get people on their feet and responsible for their own choices. Instead of a faceless bureaucracy that measures it's "success" by "clients" processed and money spent, private charity measures it's success differently.
If people had to take responsibility, maybe abortion wouldn't be casual.
I'm not asking you to do anything else. I am saying that they have their own reasons which make sense to them. Their reasons are just as important to them as yours are to you.
Stars above, I get so very tired of the either/or dualism. It's never going to be winner take all. The longer we pretend that one side can decisively win, the longer the struggle will last. The people pushing hardest for either/or don't care which side wins as long as both sides are so blinded by the "righteousness" of their own cause that the never realize just how much they are surrendering to the "system."
All because somebody has to be in charge. All because we have to meddle in the lives and choices of others. All because we can't trust each other to make the "right choice" and take responsibility for that choice.
I'm not conservative. I'm not defending their position. I am not asking you to accept them on faith or anything else.
I'm saying that to really resolve this, we're going to have to sit down and talk through our differences. Smashing heads, pointing guns, and using the rule of law to declare one morality supreme above all isn't going to do anything for the long term. It will always be a holding pattern until the other side gets an advantage.
Think about all the passion we're giving away. There has got to be a better way.
ETA: I don't care who did it first. I don't care who did it more. I just want the whole mess over.
Pardon, but the liberal party also regularly proclaims that they are for the children. The last Democrat nominee ran as the "women and children" candidate. In 1996 a Democrat president proclaimed that the era of big government was over.
I don't think that government is the first, best, and last solution to our problems. I don't think politicos are qualified to decide what should be taught in schools, sex ed or not.
And here's the opinion that is not going to make me popular. If you can't afford children, you should rethink sex. People keep throwing in things like rape and incest, but most sex in this country is consensual. Mixing rape, incest, and consensual sex objectifies the woman and makes her not responsible for her own choices.
No, I am not ignoring the man in these cases. I am saying that rape and incest are the exception to the rule. Even under the ever changing definition of rate in today's culture, where some women do believe that regret equals rape.
At the moment, we're in a mess with both major parties wanting control over sex. You can blame the Republicans all you want, but thanks to #MeToo it's not the "patriarchy" that is collapsing, it's how we deal with one another and how we share sex.
I'm not going to make the conservative arguments for them. I'm telling you how they feel and how they are going to react.
Kavanaugh was asked about abortion. Most of the articles about Gorsuch speculated on how he might rule in abortion cases. And most of the concern about Trump picking judges gets coached in the impact it will have on abortion cases. Like it or not, this has become the standard.
The natural conclusion to the argument that if only a woman has the right to decide, then the man has no financial obligation to ending the abortion or paying child support.
Personally I don't think that tax dollars should go to any organization providing services, medical or otherwise. But that's not the conservative argument. I'll also point out what any accountant can tell you, if government pays for a certain class of services, that frees up funding for other things.
Government involvement in health care (all types) has raised the cost of "essential services." It's no accident that health care prices have skyrocketed since Medicare and Medicaid became law, boosted by every attempt to "control costs." It doesn't help that since health insurance became an employee benefit, people don't know what they are paying for.
If we're really going to have this discussion about solutions, one thing that has got to be on the table is removing government intervention. Yes, that means no government restrictions on abortion, but that also means no government (taxpayer) funded healthcare.“The difference here being that Democrats support policies that help women, children, and families of all demographics.”
I'm sorry, but that is not true. For much of my life I've lived next to the Diné and Hopi. Democrat policies are very selective as to which groups get "helped" under which circumstances. I am not saying that the Republicans are better. I am saying that "public solutions" to social problems don't usually work, especially when they are administered hundreds or thousands of miles away from the actual problem. There are other reasons of course. Words matter, actions matter more, intentions don't.
Politicians are not qualified to determine curriculum, but neither are technocrats who don't live near the school and whose kids don't go to the school. Problems get solved when the people responsible for solving the problems have "skin in the game." Look at this. I say I don't believe that government is the first, last, and best solution and you're telling me why the Democrat experts are better. I'm not praising the Republicans. I'm criticizing the assumption that any Federal experts are better equipped to solve problems because they are Official and sanctioned by the appropriate authorities.
Responsibility for what one chooses to do is conservative? I know that is not what you meant, but it comes off as sex without consequences. Responsibility is important, and as long as sex is voluntary and consensual it's only adult to consider the consequences. Just as it's adult to consider before driving drunk, or stealing a protest sign that you don't agree with. Actions have consequences, the mark of an adult is the ability to make the right choice despite the threat of punishment.
Now I am not talking about not punishing people for their crimes or bad behavior. I'm saying that PIV sex is usually a choice and that, protected or not, might result in pregnancy. If you don't want kids, if you can't afford kids, the best time to think about that is before the moment when the hormones start carbonating.
I've never disputed that women have human rights. What I pointed out was the standard for a Federal judge has become their opinion on abortion. That's become one cornerstone of Democrat policy. Regardless of if I personally believe if abortion is right or wrong or if a women's choice should govern if abortion happens, I do find myself agreeing with those who say that the only way abortion could be made legal nationwide is through judicial declaration and not through the democratic process. Small d there. Throw in public monies and suddenly a right becomes a privilege.
I'm pointing out the logical fallacy of claiming it's a "woman's right" until it comes time to pay the bill. Choice without responsibility usually gives us spoiled brats, no matter what the gender or orientation.
The unregulated world is a charitable one. It's when charity becomes part of government that it becomes Somebody Else's Problem and Americans stop paying attention to what is needed. Americans voluntarily give more to charity than anyone else on the planet. Whether it's a child fallen down a well or a hurricane flooding New Orleans, we're there. More times than not, it's the Official™ charity and relief that gets in the way.
There's a good reason for that, and It is something I touched on earlier. Charity is supposed to be short term. When you tell someone that they will have government health care no matter what or that they will have financial aid to help pay the monthly bills no matter what, what incentive do they have to do for themselves? When you say someone needs government help, aren't you really saying that they are not good enough to do it on their own?
I'm not the first one to point out that the rising costs in heath care drastically outpaced inflation starting right after Medicare and Medicaid became law. Or that continued attempts to "fix healthcare" keep causing prices to go up and availability to go down. Think about it. The relative costs of Happy Meals, pocket calculators, cell phones, and bathroom towels have decreased while the availability and selection has gone up. That's not true with medical care, one of the most regulated industries out there. The disparity in pharmaceutical costs alone should make you wonder.
Removing government from the solution does work even if the government experts and the experts who depend on government tell you it won't. There's a couple of dozen special interest groups right there, all of them greedy for power and money. Somehow the accepted solution is always more government.❞❞
We let it happen
Saturday - 25Nov2017 Filed in: Quotes & Thinkums&Morality & Modern Life
NeoNotes — government requires
❝❝There's a very real question why there should be any government grants, but I will leave that for another time.NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.
Assume for a moment that you ran a bookstore. Should you be required by law to carry the Bible even though you were not Christian and did not believe Christianity was a valid faith? What if someone complained because you didn't have it?
Should a vegan restaurant be required to sell pulled pork BBQ?
Should a health food store be required to sell pipe tobacco?
Except we know that government does mandate that some products and services be sold or provided.
Let's take another example or two, shall we?
Imagine you are a lawyer or accountant. You know a specific businessman is crooked and can't be trusted. Should you be required to provided services?
Imagine you are an employer. Should you be required to verify the immigration status of each of your employees?
Most importantly, why should prior marginalization get a higher priority when it comes to the rule of law? Doesn't that lead to abuse of it's own when the formerly victimized class games the system?
Ah, so you are going to stick to "class of people." That's the problem. People aren't their labels. Or at least they shouldn't be.
Someone doesn't have higher moral authority because their group has been marginalized in the past.
And just in case you hadn't noticed, "American identity politics" is all about oppressing everyone else. All of which is predicated on the guilt of the former oppressor.
Black Lives Matter. All too ready to go after "white" cops, but doesn't want to address the problem of "black on black" crime. Nor does it want to address the major underlying problem, single parent families. Something that was encouraged by government, effectively relegating inner city families to poverty. Nor do they accept any criticism of their movement.
Much of third and fourth wave feminism. Apparently feminism is no longer about equality, it's about forcing men to sit down and shut up. And if a man complains, he's accused of rape.
The recent kerfuffle over the "redesigned" rainbow flag that put black and brown stripes at the top so that "people of color" had "representation." Literally "my victimhood is more important than your victimhood."
Identity politics is built on a carefully maintained hierarchy of victimhood. You're not allowed to speak unless you rank high enough with your victimhood or have demonstrated sufficient "compassion," usually by drawing attention to the "problem." But never actually solving anything.
And you are not allowed to question the victimhood.
Stop.
Step back. You are excusing their behavior.
Look at what has been done, not at the justifications.
Look at what is allowed within the groups.
Your enabling is just one example of what has locked people into their victimhood.
What you've given is excuses why people can't be held accountable.
Black Lives Matter is pushing a narrative that all police interactions with minorities but especially with "blacks" are racist. That's not true. And as I said, they overlook "black" on "black" crime that does not fit with the narrative.
It's victimhood I don't like, especially when perpetuated by bad government policy and "community outreach" that exploits the victims by keeping them victims.
And the courts were wrong.
Not because interracial marriages were wrong (they aren't). But because government can't be trusted to make individual moral decisions for you.
If you didn't choose your morality and if you do not commit to your morality, is it really yours?
Or did it just get sacrificed for the greater good?
Remember, most of the complaints against the current President are because he is doing the wrong moral things. Or at least, according to some people. Such as pulling out of the Paris accord.
Frankly there are people I want to discriminate against. There are evangelical Christians I want nothing to do with. There are radical feminists that I also don't want anything to do with. My list also includes some of the climate alarmists, the man-boy love crowd, anyone associated with a child beauty pageant, the extra-devout followers of Silver Ravenwolf, pretty much any organized political party, and a few dozen others.
Should government protect those people from my discrimination?
Actually we don't know that pulling out of the Paris accord is dangerous for the planet.
Here's what we do know. The "debate" about climate change has been heavily weighed on one side. A recent study has some of the most prominent climate alarmists admitting that the predictions didn't match the reality. President Obama committed the US, but the G20 and Obama didn't call it a treaty so it wouldn't have to go to the US Senate for approval. These aren't exactly moral actions.
Commerce is based on voluntary economic transactions between consenting adults. There's no “public service” about it. A company improves it's product or service (and lowers the price) because it wants to keep business from the competition. The "moral good" is based on pure greed. Nothing government demands from a business won't impose greater costs on the customer. Government relies on force. When government acts against people, it distorts the economy and morality.
It's not about public service, and commerce shouldn't answer to corrupt politicos.
The data was fudged. The people who fudged it knew it. The people who sought to make it a political issue beyond the control of any single government knew it.
If it's not about "saving the planet," then you have to ask what it is about. Especially when there is an everchanging deadline and No One Is Allowed To Question the failed predictions.
The entire movement is built on computer models, not science. I can't emphasize that enough. Models, not science. If the models have bad assumptions and/or if the data has been changed, the models aren't accurate.
But, "the science is settled." So you aren't allowed to dissent. You wouldn't accept that from a Creationist, why accept it from people who benefit financially and politically from forcing their agenda?
That wasn't what I said.
The models haven't been accurate in more than a dozen years. Even before that, the models had to be "goosed" to show a link between the past and the present.
I've said before that I can create a spreadsheet that makes me a millionaire in a week. That doesn't mean that the spreadsheet is accurate. And it sure doesn't mean I should wave cash around.
If the model isn't accurate, if we know it's not accurate, and if the people pushing the model hardest know that it's not accurate, don't you think it's time to ask why we should use the model?
No, that is what you have been told that the model is.
I strongly urge you to take a closer look. And I would remind you that there is no science in history that has ever been considered holy writ and beyond criticism.
For example, if I wanted to know the average global temperature right now this very minute, I'd have to accept that most land based measuring stations are in developed areas, many in highly urban areas that influence the readings. Satillite measurements are better, but don't go back further than about sixty years. And most of the ocean is a mystery below a mile deep.
So what exactly is the global average temperature?
I'm not shy about it. I don't approve of their life choices. I especially don't approve when *insert group name here* demands that it is not enough for to acknowledge their words and actions, it must be celebrated as the only accepted truth.
I don't want them on the ballot. I don't want to do business with them. I don't want them in my town.
And I think they are corrupting society.
Again, should government protect them from my discrimination?
I may not be a pure libertarian when it comes to the Zero Aggression Principle, but I don't usually initiate force. It's sloppy and takes too much energy.
“How many NAMBLA neighbors do you have, anyway?”
One.
Once.
I've been a corporate VP and I've run my own business.
Can you point to the spot in the Constitution where it defines the powers of the Federal government to control who I can and can't do business with? How about the spot where it defines that I must do business with everyone who wants to do business with me? Because under the Tenth Amendment, there isn't one.
If government isn't defending my ability to choose as long as I accept the consequences, then government has failed.
Even if my neighbors don't approve of my choice.
Especially if my neighbors don't approve of my choice.
If I am not free to discriminate as I choose, then government is discriminating against me. And that is what we see now. Some choices are more equal than others.
Not really.
That clause is the most abused in the Constitution, largely because it does not place significant restrictions on the Federal government. By some interpretations, the government can do what it wants when it wants and despite what people want. When you consider that everything from FDA approval to requiring transgender bathrooms is shoved through that loophole, it's a wonder that there is anything left of the rest of the Constitution.
Even in your flawed interpretation, public accommodation only applies in certain cases. Some are more victimized than others, remember?
Volumes have also been written against it. For generations in fact, right back to to the Anti-Federalist Papers
And then there is always the practical common sense approach. Here's the clause straight from Article 1 Section 8.
“To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;”
I can tell you know many Diné, Hopi, Havasupai, and White Mountain Apache who think that "Great White Father speaks with forked tongue." Just look at what the Interior Department did when it came to mineral rights.
You've tried to tell me what the consensus says, but you haven't disputed my conclusions. The commerce clause has been used to expand Federal power far beyond the scope of the rest of the Constitution. The only other comparable Federal power grab in American history has been the USA PATRIOT Act and the open-ended declaration of hostilities that happened after 9-11.
Or we could just stop handing out government grants and do something radically different like lower taxes, reduce government spending, and let people decide what to do with their own money.
Church playgrounds aren't national religious issues unless government is funding them.
The First Amendment is very clear: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
Neither help nor hinder. It's the only way to win this particular battle. Otherwise you have things like a Faith Based Initiative (for certain faiths approved by law) and school prayer.
I think we do. And it's right there in the First Amendment.
Don't.
If there is one thing worse than a politico wrapping themselves in the flag, it's a politico standing on religion wrapping themselves in a flag.❞❞
I'll tell you what I believe
Thursday - 20Nov2008 Filed in: Morality & Modern Life
"Gutter punks" in San Francisco
Sunday - 03Jun2007 Filed in: Morality & Modern Life
Victims and paying for bad choices
Monday - 03Oct2005 Filed in: Politics