Category: Economics

Yes, it Is a Virtue to Reject Charity – Jeffrey Tucker – Liberty.me

Once you accept the largesse, you have a political investment in continuing it. Your loyalties gradually change.People justify this based on observing how much they are paying into the system. It pillages them with every paycheck, so they might as well get something back. No matter how much welfare they pay in, they can never take enough out to make the bargain work out equally. For most people, this is surely true.

Once you accept the largesse, you have a political investment in continuing it. Your loyalties gradually change. The state becomes your benefactor. Your sense of self reliance is compromised.

Do you see the vicious cycle? You are forced to pay in, so you have no moral resistance about taking out when the time arises. Pretty soon you find yourself part of the Bastiatian calculus: the state becomes the great fiction by which everyone tries to live at everyone else’s expense.

I see this in my aunt who is a staunch conservative in most things but still refuses to realize that Social Security is government theft — robbing others to give to her.

Source: Yes, it Is a Virtue to Reject Charity – Jeffrey Tucker – Liberty.me

Justin Welby reimagines a poorer and less free Britain

Economic mistakes permeate Welby’s ideas, but they stem from a deeper philosophical omission: Forced actions do not have the same moral value as actions which are freely chosen. It is more valuable for an individual to freely decide to pay for healthcare for someone who cannot afford it than for that same individual to be forced by the government to provide that care.

Exactly.

The United States Constitution was adopted to “…provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty…”. Note it is Liberty, not force, that is to be established. Force is evil and is to be used sparingly.

Source: Justin Welby reimagines a poorer and less free Britain

The Moral War

A few decades ago, exactly no one thought it was our collective moral duty to make sure everyone has health insurance and the same level of health care as everyone else. We understood that poor people had to rely on charity. In the 1970’s, the free clinic, where young doctors volunteered as part of the training, was a staple of poor neighborhoods, especially urban ghettos. No one thought they were a failure as a citizen because the blacks in the ghetto did not have access to world class health services.

Today, the political class starts with the assumption that only a thoroughly immoral person does not dream of a world where everyone gets health insurance and access to the finest medical care. Since this is impossible in a world of choice, the default assumption is that the state must take control of the health care system.

You do not have a right to anything. It is immoral to steal from one to give to another. That is government welfare.

It is the government saying you have a ‘right’ to something someone else has and using the police powers of the state to take it, keep a sizeable chunk, and dribble the rest to you.

This makes you immoral also as it is immoral to covet that which is your neighbor’s.

Source: The Moral War

Genius of 19th Century Farmers

Large amounts of leisure time to pursue family bonds, simple things

One aspect of this seeming utopia that is often forgotten, however, is that the standard of living “enjoyed” by these workers and families was often shockingly low.

A life of no modern healthcare, no travel for pleasure, no electronics, few books or reading material, and a very-low-quality education can be had by a great many people without the sorts of work schedules we now endure.

Source: Genius of 19th Century Farmers » Alex Jones’ Infowars: There’s a war on for your mind!

They Don’t Hate The NRA. They Hate You.

The third step is to create deterrent facts on the ground. Demonstrate your commitment to your rights by joining the NRA and, further, by buying guns and ammunition. Tyranny is not out of the question – hey, aren’t they always calling Trump Hitler? Tens, even hundreds of millions of armed American Normals provide a deterrent to the kind of insanity we’ve seen the left hinting at. Be prepared to protect the Constitution, and the chances of them getting violent will diminish exponentially. Remember, they don’t want to fight; they prefer we give up under a barrage of hectoring from CNN and vicious tweets about how we hate children.

Source: They Don’t Hate The NRA. They Hate You.

What Happens When Socialists Run Out of Other People’s Money

Is Venezuela’s finance minister out of his mind? No, he’s a leftist. So he believes inflation doesn’t exist.

Luis Salas is the perfect man to head up the economies of Venezuela or California. He’s a sociologist who claims that, “Inflation does not exist in real life.”

Venezuela’s economy also doesn’t exist in real life.

Minister Salas claims that inflation isn’t caused by printing infinite amounts of money, but by corporate conspiracies.