There was a fine post on this fair blog about compassion, pity and the welfare state. I though I would add my 2 grams of silver and share a few thoughts.
Outside a narrow circle of non-bleeding heart libertarians or, as I like to call them, actual libertarians, there is about zero support of completely removing welfare. The people on the left generally want more of it, and the people on the right just want somewhat less of it and “more efficiency”. Neither of these options will work in the long term, in the opinion of this heartless libertarian who just hates the damn children.
The Universal Basic Income is, for example, one of the more prominent recent attempts to fix welfare, one that even some libertarians support. The idea is no welfare is not an option, so let’s have the best system. Sadly, I do not believe a best system, even if it existed in theory, can exist in practice. Why? This is what I will try to cover.
Kind, compassionate people
The essence of the question is found in the essence of government. Government is at its core a concentration of power. This, naturally, now and always, attracts people who want power. So in the end, the ultimate goal for many at the top of government will be to get and retain power. Sure, they may have other ideas about society and maybe even be honest about wanting to improve it (at the point of a gun if necessary) and thinking they have the capability to do so (ignoring a few broken eggs here and there). But this is always secondary, at least for the ones who get to the top.
In my view, in a struggle between those who want power to use it for, let’s say for lack of a better word, “good” and those who want power for the sake of power, the latter will come on top. What has this got to do with welfare? Well, any government activity will be inevitably used as a tool to get power, and will not be shaped to maximize results but to keep people in power. Welfare is no different. You will never get the welfare that is most efficient and helps the poor; you will get the one that helps politicians.
Now, there are moments when feelings get the best of reason, and I think it would be acceptable to have a limited welfare system for the truly needy. This is a view of many right wing people I know. This will not work because there is not choice between limited welfare just for truly needy and a massive and much abused inefficient system. The choice is between no welfare and a massive and abused inefficient system. A limited system will never stay limited because, in essence, any program that allows politicians to transfer money from one person to another will be used to buy votes. More and more needy will be found. More and more people will receive something. And the limited help will be declared insufficient.
Telling it how it is
It was always strange to me how people who support a social democracy scream about the evils of campaign money as “buying votes” while their political platform is literally buying votes. If someone gets money from the government, when a politician says, “I will increase these payment,” that someone will, quite literally, hear vote for me and I give you money. A welfare state is practically a license for a politician to buy power with other people’s money. And if I am wrong, I would love to hear a reasonable, logical argument as to how I am wrong.
But there is a second layer. The large amounts of people not on welfare but who emotionally support the programs, either out of a misguided view on compassion or basic signaling of their moral high ground. So this is another group who will be convinced to give their votes because welfare is insufficient. I have seen multiple articles in the press where such people tried to live on welfare money to prove it can’t be done, and the conclusion was it can but it is not easy. So even when there is a level of welfare that many view as quite enough, others want more of it.
One should keep in mind that the cost of welfare is not just the money that ends up at welfare recipients. Welfare also keep politicians in power, which means lots of money spent on various graft, not directly related to the welfare, but related to the politicians. Another point is that there will be an ever-growing bureaucracy dedicated to administering welfare, which may end up costing more than the welfare itself. There is also the cost associated with people who may be able to do something productive and do not, both due to incentives of welfare and to the economy in general, which is affected by the taxes needed to fund all the above costs.
On the other side of the spectrum, other politicians will use it as a tool for their base, talking about scroungers and welfare frauds. But this will basically lead to another layer of division between people which is exactly what the politicians want. Divide et Impera is what keeps the big parties in power. There always need to be another side which is bad, and my side which is less so.
The art of politics is basically to keep the people split on as many issues, so that they do not notice that no issue is handled properly. Must spread attention as thinly as possible to keep scrutiny off what the government actually does.
Universal Basic Income will be no different. It will not stay for long as the only program, as different programs for different groups will be invented. It will constantly be under pressure to increase. And it will create an ultimate feeling of entitlement. You get money for breathing, basically.
So to me the alternative is no welfare or a system which will inevitably become first and foremost a tool for power, with all other functions secondary. If no welfare is not an option, I will accept a constant struggle will be on this and just stay out of it and leave it to others. I assume the system will oscillate, going too far then followed by a snap-back and then too far again. But to those who think welfare will be mostly about helping people as well as possible, I have a bridge to sell.
I’ll go along with it as long as everyone gets it and the same amount, and all other welfare is eliminated. Not going to happen, so I oppose it. Anyway, how are we going to pay for it once the Democrats get jobs for everyone, free college for everyone, and single payer healthcare? The well is dry.
We tax the universal basic income… duh!
And if I am wrong, I would love to hear a reasonable, logical argument as to how I am wrong.
Because FYTW.
Also, advocating welfare reform is racist. And suggesting that welfare has anything to do with race is racist.
We’re all in this together, comrade, now hand over part of your stuff.
Is there no one in Romania, or Europe generally, who looks at the American standard of living and thinks Christ almighty, what’s so different with us? Or do the mask their envy with contempt for our gun laws and (somewhat) privatized health system?
everyone in Europe looks at the American standard of living and thinks how incredibly low it is compared to Europe.
I have work colleagues who I heard wonder out loud why would anyone want to move to the States? He literally did not know of anything that is not worse in the States than in say Germany
Nothing says economic supremacy like double-digit unemployment rates.
but the ones employed have job security. Until the whole plant goes bankrupt and nothing else exists and they become permanent unemployed. But before, job security baby!
Employers must be punished for making the workers of the world slave away in their sweatsh–
Aw, shit. I’ve been laid off. Greedy employers!
No, at least not in Western Europe. They will say things like ‘Why the hell is everything so much more expensive here than in the United States!? Yeah, things are cheaper in America, but we have a higher standard of living’. They say things like that without any awareness of the irony, at all. Well, I do have to give them credit though, they do have shitty rationed healthcare that costs them half their income. It’s one of the things that leads them to absurd ideas like them having a higher standard of living than in the USA, which is laughable.
well the average house in Europe is about 2.4 times larger than the States, so we have more living space as well.
You haven’t been around lately to see all the McMansions spouting up everywhere like weeds, I guess.
Really? Citation or source?
Basted on a quick survey of one household I just did Romanians have 1100 square feet per person of living space
I’m crashing at Pie’s when I swing through Europe.
We all can simultaneously.
Yep, we’re all staying at Pie’s for a month. Beer is free too, right pie? It’s just your Murikan friens.
So the average Romanian family of 4 lives in a 4400 sq foot house? If that’s really true, you win (assuming you aren’t sharing a barn with chickens and goats).
My survey only included a household of 1
Hmmmm….
https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2016/32/romanians-have-smallest-dwelling-space
I think you might need more data points.
well being libertarian my survey is what I care about
Pie’s making his own reality, how dare you offend his reality! In Europe, everyone is having their own reality, we American peasants have to live in this wild west shoot em up free for all.
Or why slave your life away when you can have generous vacation time in Europe?
The Americans I’ve talked to who actually lived in Europe, not just visited some tourist spots, talk about how shabby much of it is. They come home with unscientific belief that the standard of living is much lower there.
Only because they didn’t visit before everything was Americanized with our sloppy fast food restaurants and impersonal box stores. At least they still have Cuba… for now.
Europe is just what passes off as the rest of the first world. Doesn’t look like that’s going to last much longer though.
If Britain was annexed by the United States, it would be the second poorest state, ahead of Mississippi. If you factor in cost of living, then they would be below even Mississippi. When your standard is worse than our poorest state, you have a problem.
http://time.com/3198225/britain-poorest-state/
I was pretty shocked when i read your post. I’m a little out of it right now but does anyone have a refutation of this argument.
No, Britain Is Not Poorer Than Alabama
So…I can take my UBI and buy this bridge from you?!
I offer a great payment plan
Also that bridge is less than 500 meters from where I live
UBI is an abomination. There are plenty of able bodied people on unemployment/welfare, and the payments allow them to be complacent. So long as they have a shitty apartment, money for Top Ramen, Pizza, and high speed internet for a) online gaming and b)movies with really flimsy plotlines that feature attractive no-name actors/actresses engaging in acts of debauchery, they will be content. For those concerned about income inequality, wait until a couple of generations go by with nobody working and just subsisting on UBI. And of course, I look forward to the annual political debate on how to increase the UBI to be “livable”.
The CCC had its faults, but compared to UBI or even modern welfare, it was almost Libertarian:
Each enrollee volunteered and, upon passing a physical exam and/or a period of conditioning, was required to serve a minimum six-month period, with the option to serve as many as four periods, or up to two years, if employment outside the Corps was not possible. Enrollees worked 40 hours per week over five days, sometimes including Saturdays if poor weather dictated. In return they received $30 per month with a compulsory allotment of $22–25 sent to a family dependent, as well as food, clothing, and medical care.
“I look forward to the annual political debate on how to increase the UBI to be “livable”
You unbeliever, you denier! Saint Bernie already has all the answers! There are magical numbers, like 15! So everyone gets $15, which is a magical number, and we call it a living wage! Duh, get woke already, brah!
If no welfare is not an option, I will accept a constant struggle will be on this and just stay out of it and leave it to others. I assume the system will oscillate, going too far then followed by a snap-back and then too far again.
This, I believe, is the best that can be hoped for in practice. It is a rare thing to find a culture of true personal responsibility, and rarer still for that culture to survive over successive generations.
Most people I know want others to be personal responsible, and a system that bails them out of shit when they are not…
This, I believe, is the best that can be hoped for in practice. It is a rare thing to find a culture of true personal responsibility, and rarer still for that culture to survive over successive generations.
The Basic problem is:
0 Base state of mankind, lives under tyrrany but fear > unhappiness
10 Generation 1+ If fear < unhappiness, revolution!
20 If path A (Woohoo now I get to be the ruler) goto 0, else path B (liberty and individual responsibility)
30 Generation 2 is born free but not wealthy enough to relax as a result learns that they must either strive or perish, strives producing tremendous economic growth
40 Generation 2+ has another moment of truth, check wealth level if amount needed to have sufficiency goto 50
70 goto 0
#$%^ somehow I copied over half of this
40 if wealth level sufficiency goto 50
d’oh apparently my Basic joke is running afoul of some coding, and the numbered lines are dropping off, oh well you all get the point. Human brains are wired to repeat the cycle of slaves to rebels to complacent to slaves to rebels.
My practical objection to UBI is rooted in the “Lucy won’t pull away the football THIS time” aspect of it. Ed Rendell ran for and won the governorship of Pennsylvania largely on the basis of his proposal to legalize casino gambling. Legalized casinos would pay for schools, so property taxes would be abolished. Entirely abolished – that was the deal. That was the biggest part of his platform. Casinos exist in PA now. Property taxes still exist. “I have altered the deal.”
Fuck the UBI-for-other-welfare trade. It won’t happen. You’ll get both. Then some third even shittier option on top of it all. Resist all socialism.
In a nutshell; government = Darth Vader. That is all.
“I already won the lottery. I was born in the US of A, baby!” Creed Bratton
Well, that’s not worth so much these days, all you have to do it walk across the border now and they’ll show you where the voter booth is and where to sign up for your bennies.
I think I lack a conclusion in the article. The point was that the welfare narrative is centered about is it right to help the poor by taking from the rich., And I think this is a false narrative, as it its based on the concept that the point of the welfare state is to help the poor. I disagree. There are whole villages in Romania on welfare and they have the same shirty life for 20 years while the politicians they vote for scraps get rich
A welfare system should exist to help the productive in time of trouble so they don’t end up destitute. Not to keep unproductive rabble happy and permanently voting for the people that have become a royal class living of the wealth and power a welfare state provides.
Great article, PiTS! Very good analysis of the practical politics.
I’d only add that, even in a world absent self-interested politicians and administrators, a UBI will strong>never be an only welfare program. Anyone who tells you it could be is either lying or hopelessly naive. It’s either no UBI or UBI+current welfare system.
If you adopt UBI, you’re fundamentally accepting the premise that people are owed some protection in life against misfortune and bad decisions, paid for by someone else. And, in UBI world, some people will blow their allotment on blow and hookers. And when those people have no money for food or no money for healthcare, who the hell believes that people are going to say “Oh well. Too bad. Fuck’em.”? By accepting UBI, they’ve already bought into the notion that that is not an acceptable answer. So, you’ll inevitably see the re-emergence of all the same welfare state structures you claimed you were going to replace with UBI.
. And, in UBI world, some people will blow their allotment on blow and hookers – the others would just waste it
Spending money on guns is never a waste.
that is why I renewed my gym membership
BOOM!
*Leaves for gym*
Divide et Impera is what keeps the big parties in power.
I think it is actually that the political parties exploit existing divisions, rather than create their own (although this does happen too, I think it is to a far lesser extent). When you think about it, what political party wouldn’t prefer to unite and rule rather than divide, if that was a viable option? The 70 year rule of the PRI in Mexico and the near total dominance of the LDP in post-war Japan would, I would think, be far preferable to politicians than rotating in and out of power constantly.
If liberty people got enough control of the government, I don’t know if we’d have to just end welfare altogether. If enough of the other problems wqere handled, I can see welfare becoming a small enough issue to just deal with at a later date. Reform immediately, try to curb the growth or expansion, and fix other stuff. In my mind, a bunch of calls to end it would be met with fear, however misguided.
It should be private. It shouldn’t need to happen.
Cities like Baltimore and Philly would be burnt to the ground if you cut off the EBT.
I think people here are already sold on the idea
Sold on burning Balmer and Philly to the ground? I can’t even really say that’s a bad idea…
sold on ending welfare. Burning those cities is just an extra benefit.
Not to mention, cutting off free cash and making people hungry for work doesn’t create employment opportunities, even if you deregulated loads, too. There’s a reason so many tech startups start up in Commiefornia, despite the expense and hostility to business: it’s where the tech dweebs congregate. Unemployment in Philly, for example, is 15.3%. Looking at the age breakdown, 16-19 year olds are unemployed at a rate of 45%; 20-24, 26%; 25-44, almost 14%. That’s a lot of hardcore unemployed and likely unemployable people. No doubt marginal firms would locate divisions there, but whose workforce are such people going to serve? They’ve been betrayed by their crummy public schools and crummy infrastructure and crummy police and convinced by their bigoted leaders that white people are to blame.
white heterosexual men my dude, lesbyn femmz are not to blame
My favorite development in the mass hallucination we call feminism is the growing resentment and hostility of POCs and white women.
“it’s where the tech dweebs congregate.”
And I’m sure there are no government troughs attracting them at all.
Yeah, but there are probably some downsides as well.
Here’s the problem, when you lump in entitlements (which I do), welfare spending is around 50-60% of the national budget. Let’s say we get the libertarian moment and elect a supermajority of porcupines to congress, along with Calvin Coolidge’s rotting body in the oval office. You may get 30% cuts of the welfare spending before riots in the streets. Now welfare is only 40% of the federal budget. That’s still hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
It’s truly insurmountable. This is why I’ve become a fatalist in regards to the whole American experiment. There’s no clawing back, the mountain is too big.
Also, since I forgot to add it to one of my previous posts: good article! I enjoyed the read.
Great job, Pie. I’m with you on everything. When the bleating hearts get going, I remind them that there are an almost infinite number of private charities that they can work with. Why the fuck are we laundering money through Washington to solve challenges in Minneapolis?
Wheel’s need greased, Tundra, gotta grease them wheels.
I always refer to it as the vig.
it is fascinating how people look at the same reality and see different things
Is this not an argument against any funding of any government program?
*lights sparklers*
Basically. Or at least an argument to have just the very few strictly necessary and keep a close eye on them. The more programs there are the harder it gets to keep them under control.
Fair enough. I asked because I was genuinely interested in whether you had some distinction in your mind that made this somehow not a problem for all other government programs and if you did, I wanted to consider it. Thanks.
Some of the programs started out with a real purpose. Like the EPA for instance. The problem is, is that all of them eventually become themselves the goal. Get a bigger budget and expand the fiefdom. All of them fall pray to that in time. Then look what happens when someone tries to come in and cut some of the waste, the employees go into rebellion.
I wish government agencies followed the original (sadly gone) laws of incorporation, a maximum a 40-year life span followed by mandatory dissolution.
It would be nice, as well as a sunset clause for every bill. If the bill is doing such great things, then it shouldn’t have any issue being passed and funded again.
12 is better.
The country seems to change it’s mind about things every 2 or 3 presidential cycles.
Every government program should sunset within 12 years.
What would be the renewal rate, even if you put it to a popular vote? 90%+ ?
No renewal.
By sunset, mean
rapekill it and force congress to start from scratch all over again.+ dozenal system
Why yes, yes it is. There is no good answer to this problem, just a least bad one. The FF mostly got it right by trying to create a system that limited the concentration of power and set the government against itself but in the end they fell slightly short. It is still the best system ever created, I give them that.
I agree on both points. The fact that the system is still *basically* functional today is a truly amazing testament to their thinking. How many people could bang out a system of government more-or-less from scratch which is still functional centuries later and NOT based entirely on force? It’s impressive. And yet, still slightly short. I’m not optimistic that it won’t collapse before making it another hundred.
I think people would be shocked at how little government we truly need to function as a working society.
Expanding on this thought briefly, it seems to me that the root of the problem is the core funding mechanism of the US government: voters can keep voting (whether directly or by proxy) to take each other’s money until the system finally implodes. I think ole Ben Franklin really nailed this one and Mitt “Worse than Hitler” Romney was right when he echoed it a couple hundred years later.
I don’t see how you can fix the problem without changing this fundamental mechanism. Personally, the solution I’d most like to see is that at tax time you get a list of all the funding requests and you fill in how many dollars you’re personally willing to contribute to each line item, then send in your check. Yep, you end up with a pretty significant free rider problem, but I don’t see how that’s worse than where we are now.
I think a lot of you are pretty smart (except for the ones who aren’t), I’d be interested in hearing other people’s pet ideas about how they’d fix this, whether or not those ideas are politically pragmatic with today as the starting point.
No matter what method you use the pols will increase amounts and angles they can come at you by hook or crook. Never mind the method, I want a constitutional limit on the total percentage of income that can be collected in a year.
I like it.
They’ll just completely cheat with the accounting.
The solution that I’ve kicked around is to take the power to set tax rates away from Congress. A conditional amendment that eliminates all taxes except for one, the income tax. Why the income tax? Because everyone hates it. No excise taxes. No tariffs. No corporate taxes. Just the income tax. Flat rate, no exceptions, no exemptions, no deductions, everyone pays the same percentage. Count capital gains as income, inflation adjusted. When Congress passes a budget the rate for the tax is automatically calculated and set for the year to the rate necessary to cover the outlays. If Congress doesn’t pass a budget than the tax is automatically set 10% higher than it was last year. I have more to say about it, but I’m on my phone so I’m done typing.
Essentially, the only way to keep people from voting for other people’s money is to make it where they can’t. You want more government? Fine, you’re going to pay for it. It would suck, but as Calvin said, “A good compromise leaves everyone unhappy.”
No more with holding either. April 15th, everyone has to pay in full. With holding disguises how much is stolen each week for the majority of people, and gives many the impression that their return from overpaying all year is a good thing, instead of a forcible interest free loan to the federal government.
Oh, there wouldn’t be a return. If the tax brought in a surplus it would go to debt service.
With you on that, except that I might prefer that you have to cut Uncle Sam a check every month to keep them going, not just once a year.
take the power to set tax rates away from Congress.
I like where you’re going with that idea, but I’m not sure how it solves the problem if the tax rate is set to whatever budget congress passes. I see how that solves the “kick the can down the road with debt” problem, but it still seems like it won’t prevent the majority from voting themselves ever more money. Yes, they’re affected by the tax, but if what they get in return is government payouts that exceed the additional taxes *on them* then it still seems fatally unstable.
Granted, you didn’t have the time to spell it all out right now, I still enjoyed reading the idea and it’s given me something new to consider.
There’s a part of the larger spiel that counts welfare as income; raising welfare payments to high would have a diminishing effect, unless other programs are cut to compensate. It isn’t a perfect solution, nothing is, but the main point is that it would force the electorate to be accountable for the terrible politicians they send to Washington. I crunched some numbers on it once; if I ever get some motivation maybe I’ll do a proper article submission on it.
Please do. We very badly need solutions to the runaway government that plagues us now.
Yep, you end up with a pretty significant free rider problem, but I don’t see how that’s worse than where we are now.
The free rider issue could be solved by taxing people a set amount but giving them the choice of where it goes. Under that regime, I see all the essential government services (and the popular, nonessential ones) being sufficiently funded to operate.
That thought has crossed my mind as well Gadfly. I admit that I haven’t thought about it enough to figure out what the biggest gotcha’s are, but the idea appeals to me on the surface.
Quantitative Easing is softball. If you really want Venezuela Universal Basic Income is how you get it when you mean business.
I don’t know, I think the Democrats current platform with guaranteed jobs, free college for all, and single payer healthcare is already that one way ticket to Venezuela. Venezuela do Norte, amigos!
Don’t forget the post office bank.
So, I can just walk in there, get some stamps, and borrow, say $30,000? Neato, man, totally rad.
Good God, if the PO is a money pit now…
They should also put in a Mickey Ds and add a drive through. ‘Uh yeah, I’ll have a big mac, fries, some stamps, and 30 grand. Can you put that in a paper bag?’.
What? No booze, blow, and bitchez?
Title IX violation.
“This will not work because there is not choice between limited welfare just for truly needy and a massive and much abused inefficient system”
You could substitute government for welfare and the sentence would still be true. If you give a government a limited amount of power to do a few specific things, it will always gain more and more power over time. For an example see: States of America, United
NK frees American prisoners
So, how does the left media spin this? Let me guess, ‘Trump endangers lives of Americans who were on vacation in beautiful Pyongyang and forceably makes them cut their vacation short to promote his own selfish agenda and Russians!’.
They are too busy pissing their pants and predicting the end of the world over his withdrawal from the Iran deal. They will do their best to keep us distracted from Korea.
Withdrawal from the Paris Accord Scam
Withdrawal from the Iran Scam
End of the Korean War
Possible denuclearization of the Korean Pennensula
Tax cuts
Massive deregulation
Killing the watermelon initiative in Govt
Gorsuch
Moving embassy to Jeruselum
That is off of the top of my head. How there can be non-lefties that still hate the guy is a mystery. Well, it’s not really.
so racist sexist Arab hating environment destroying science denying warmonger policies. got it
He is still expressing an interest in ending the 427 wars we are up to our eyeballs in. Also, I didn’t list all of the horrible, awful shit we would have gotten with The Hildebeast.
How there can be non-lefties that still hate the guy is a mystery.
Signalling is best when it’s done socially!
I had a lefty tell me he prayed that the whole Korea thing would unravel for Trump, so it wouldn’t make Obama and the left look like the imbeciles they are (my words, he said something about undermining the left’s belief in diplomacy)…
These people would rather burn the world down than admit they were duped and the shit they believe in not only doesn’t make them as intellectual and smart as they want to pretend they are, but actually showcases them as absolute morons…
#winning
That’s a lot of accomplishments in a little over a year.
I actually heard a Democrat admit last week that Trump has done some good things. The conversation was about North Korea. I wasn’t involved, just overheard it. Of course that’s not your typical Democrat reaction, most of them are still hysterical and will practically have a nervous breakdown if you even mention Trump’s name, although they themselves have to bring him up every 5 minutes.
No shit Sean, and thats just off of the top of my head in ten seconds. Who here would have dreamed we could have gotten all of that from even a two termer? The political establishment is all about preserving the status quo. That’s not this guy. He might piss me off before it’s over but that is one hell of a Christmas list.
He’s just missing one secret weapon. Deschedule weed and the left will lose their fucking minds completely. The meltdown would be the greatest thing ever and we’d get to watch Democrats become raging drug warriors overnight. Putin wants drugs on our playgrounds!
I don’t get it either, best president of my lifetime. I’m sure he’ll eventually do something stupid that we will all hate, but hey, I can’t even imagine how this cannot be a million times better than Hillary.
That also plays heavily with the crowd that hates that Trump won. His actions leave no doubt that Obama was inept, and that Hillary, following in his footsteps, would have been more of the same. That is why they are so hardcore about undermining him and bringing him down. These people exemplify the adage about the idiot that would cut off his nose to spite his face.
I might be reading too much between the lines, but sometimes I get the impression that AlexinCT just isn’t that fond of progressives.
I despise collectivism, and especially that marxist brand of it Badolph. People peddling that shit will always get my ire.
The fact that my choices are usually between hardcore marxists and soft ass pseudo-marxist is infuriating. Both team blue and team red suck donkey balls.
If it weren’t for the Quisling Congressional Pubs, you could add nuking Zero-care to that list. Unfortunately we’re stuck with it.
Well, McCain did get that one shot in at Trump, while completely not caring about the rest of us.
He ended the mandate, which is the worst part of 0-care.
We would be completely rid of it if not for McCain throwing a baby tantrum because of his hatred of Trump.
McCain is just pissed that Trump refused to bow to the establishment and won, while he had them line up to suck them off, and they still fucked him over.
Removing the individual mandate may have the same effect in the end. Thank you, Roberts, you fucking turncoat.
He still signed a shit budget that keeps us on track for National Bankruptcy in my lifetime. All the things you listed are good, but let’s not forget, unless something is done about the U.S. debt and spending, all my savings will be worthless before I retire.
I see your problem…
You think you will actually get to retire.
I have been saving towards my retirement since I was about 20 years old. I have a good chunk of change put back and have lived well below my means to accomplish this. If the U.S. government bankrupt the country and devalues all my savings, then an awful lot of my hard work and austerity will be for nothing.
I know that the only way I’m going to retire is if one of my businesses takes off like crazy. Right now they’re all money pits, but I keep trying.
Stealing is always wrong, whether it’s done individually or institutionally. Since government mandated welfare (as distinct from privately funded charity) relies on stealing, it is always wrong no matter what justification statists try to make.
Q gets it. Any system based upon systematic theft is immoral and can only be run by immoral people.
Immoral, but compassionate
Stealing is always wrong – unless stealing the heart of a big boobed lady
She gets plenty of Q love in return. Voluntary transaction IYKWIMAITYD.
Exactly. But I’d go further and say that not only is welfare immoral for being based on theft of money from those who pay, but worse, it robs those it is purporting to help by stealing their autonomy and independence.
Freedom is slavery
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/dennis-kucinich-lost-in-ohio-on-tuesday-night-but-hes-still-the-future-of-the-democratic-party.html
Dennis Kucinich lost in Ohio on Tuesday night, but his old platform is now the future of the Democratic Party.
Blue wave my ass.
The blue wave ain’t coming, man. There’s going to be a lot of crying booths full of Democrats come November.
And they still wont understand. This morning I saw angry mobs in California cursing about state and municipal governments putting the interests of illegal aliens above that of the citizens and then a shot of Keith Ellison walking down the street with a t-shirt that read “I dont believe in borders”.
It will make them double down and move even further left. Although at this point, I’m not sure how much further they can go, they’re almost all the way there already.
We have been here before. They eventually had to crawl back under their rocks last time and they will have to this time as well. Then some rock group will write a stupid song about how we wont let the lunatic fringe fool us again.
It doesn’t matter. Prop 187 was passed by 58% of the electorate in CA, but then torpedoed in the courts & by a complicit governor.
And that ruling was the biggest load of horseshit, but yet actual & flagrant flouting of federal immigration law today is accepted.
So we get Cordray who is a shitweasle or Dewine who is a shitweasle. I won’t be voting for either.
Just because…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkeQGV7H1Ws
Just Because
Well, any government activity will be inevitably used as a tool to get power, and will not be shaped to maximize results but to keep people in power. Welfare is no different. You will never get the welfare that is most efficient and helps the poor; you will get the one that helps politicians.
And. of course, the most important (and deserving) beneficiaries of the welfare state are not the lowly impoverished recipients of the dole, but the government employees who administer it.
Anyway, how are we going to pay for it once the Democrats get jobs for everyone, free college for everyone, and single payer healthcare? The well is dry.
That pump primes itself!
Next stop, Utopia.
Marginally on topic, insofar as it’s another demonstration of stunning corruption and hypocrisy.
https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/schneiderman-scandal-should-be-a-spiritual-crisis-for-democrats/
I’d say I’m having a schadenfreude orgasm from this, but it’s tempered by feeling bad for his victims.
Yeah, that guy is a piece of work alright. I wonder how many people have noticed that most MeToo’ers are not Rand Paul or members of the Glibertariat? Someone asked about that a while back. It was a mystery why the vast majority of the perpetrators were lefties. Schneiderman really seems over the top, worst of the lot.
I think you’ve made that point a couple of times, haven’t you? People who believe in individual sovereignty and self-ownership aren’t inclined to coercive relationships.
But, I think there’s another part of the story. What do lefties believe? Don’t they believe that society represents all of us and that society has an obligation to ensure that the everyone’s wants and needs are met? Don’t they believe that happiness and satisfaction over the demands of others is selfish, no matter what those demands are? When you think about it guys like Eric Schneiderman or Harvey Weinstein were acting on their professed beliefs. They had desires that they wished to have satisfied. Whether they had some sort of legitimate claim on others, whether they’d earned that affection from those women by being desirable to them was really some sort of old-fashioned notion about individual achievement. I mean, after all, who more than the sexy guy that women actually want “didn’t build that”.
Since they are all projection, that would fit into the whole “toxic masculinity entitlement” they’re constantly decrying.
Well, yeah. It’s a point I’ve made before. The entire “incel” thing is just progressive doctrine applied to sex, romance, and affection.
Yes I have. Aside from here it was mostly met with slack jaws and blank stares. People who dont have principles dont understand what principles are.
I fully expect they’ll stamp it out before much longer with the Nina Burleigh excuse that anything is permissible as long as he has the right stance on abortion.
“Just lie back and think of Planned Parenthood.”
I ask myself this question, now and then: How much does it cost to to put a dollar in the pocket of a welfare recipient?
I suspect there is no way to answer the question definitively, and my presumption is the people who run the system would fight to the death to keep that information hidden from the public view.
By my back of envelope calculations Social Security administrative costs are about 1.4% of expenditures. Social “don’t call it welfare” Security is the most efficient of the welfare programs. So more than that for the other welfare programs. Like you said that information would be a little harder to come by.
Thou shall not offend old people, the military or the education lobby. Elections are all about getting elected, not solving problems.
Depends on if the dollar is for a man or a woman. If it’s a woman, it’s 77% percent less
We don’t put actual money in the pockets of welfare recipients. They can’t be trusted.
There was a battle here in which Pubs tried to pass a bill making it illegal to use the welfare debit cards at ATMs in strip clubs and marijuana dispensaries.
The Dems killed it.
I have heard estimates before that up to 90% of the money is soaked up by the system. Pie makes the point nicely. The money doesnt go to help the recipients, it goes to help politicians and bureaucrats.
How should libertarians address poverty?
Do we need to?
If the people are free and prosperous, charity should flourish and it would do a much better job to distinguish who really needs help and deadbeats.
Not a big Christian, but two quotes from the Bible come to mind:
The poor will always be with you
If you do not work, you do not eat.
“Do we need to?”
Exactly. All we need is a system where those that want to have the opportunity to try (no guarantees of success).
I typed a long response to this and then realized that all I was doing was repeating the thesis of Pie’s article: I could support a minimal safety net system for those unlucky sods who are legit fucked due to no moral failure on their part (debilitating disease or disfigurement), but such a system never fails to expand into something that exists mainly to support bureaucrats and people who just prefer to live off the system.
I don’t think I can support even a minimal public safety net. Experience shows it would suffer mission creep and eventually grow into the behemoth we have now.
As painful as it might be, some people get left behind. Hopefully private charities would fill the void.
Pretty much where I am also Q.
I guess the better answer, as usual, is: provide that support through a non-government entity of my choosing. While not guaranteed to be free from graft, inefficiency, or outright fraud, they’re at least significantly more likely to be better and significantly more susceptible to punitive correction by the market if/when they fuck it up.
Free markets, eliminate income tax, severely curtain occupational licensing, reduce barriers of entry for small businesses, deregulation of healthcare, end mandatory government school, and accept some people will be relatively poor in a rich country.
How is any of this going to help the political oligarchy accrue more power and enriching themselves and their friends?
Only things that do that are acceptable these days…
That’s why I’m an apathist.
Hard work?
You cant address the poverty of other people who make poor choices or belong to a dysfunctional culture. Give a million bucks to a guy living in a shanty with pigs and chickens running in and out of the door. Come back in a year and see how he is living.
I know such a guy. He made 1.6M in real estate when he sold the family farm he inherited. The sale was on a thursday. Friday he was in Las Vegas. Monday morning he was back and flat-ass broke. He has to have room mates now to keep a roof over his head and the lights on. He is also on welfare of some sort so he can eat.
a 4% drawdown would make that $64,000.00 per year. That’s a sad story actually.
I know sadder ones. 80 acre farm south of Lecompte traded for a few bottles of wine. 30 years later the timber was sold off of it for 275,000 bucks.
When I used to have a kiosk at the shopping mall, there was a guy there with a kiosk selling carpet remnants. Sometimes It was really slow, so I’d just walk around talking to the other small vendors. Come to find out from someone else, that guy’s parents owned an entire chain of carpet stores over a couple of states. Guy was very wealthy. After his parents passed away, he apparently became a big spender, mismanaged the business and lost all of it in a matter of less than 2 years, lost everything he had, and was living out of his van. I mean it’s one thing to have always been poor and suddenly come into some money and just squander it, but to be wealthy your entire life and wind up living out of a van, that sucks, man.
Money is impartial, and It will always go where it belongs in the end. If you don’t deserve it, you won’t be able to keep it.
That seems a significant understatement. IG Munis are yielding 2.6% right now. That translates to $41,600 without touching a dime of principal. Tax free.
Hire people to do things for us. If I got to keep all the money I made, I would have all kinds of money to pay others to do stuff that I do now but would happily pay others to do if possible.
I was thinking of you when I told the story above. Mentally I was contrasting the guy who completely squandered a lifetime of wealth in a weekend with what a guy like you would have done with that money.
Oh, and fall is coming. Are you fattening up another pig? I am thinking of splitting one with my brother and spending a cool fall day making sausage. The price of hogs has fallen to ridiculously low levels at the auction here.
My father in law and I bought 3 pigs back in March. We will have plenty of pork this fall. They can’t get fat soon enough either. My freezer is almost absent of pork at the moment.
If you’re interested, I have a recipe for what we call “whole hog” sausage I can dig up and share. It’s my grandfather’s invention and it makes the best cased sausage I have ever had.
I would be very pleased to have that. Thank you. I dont know how many sausage aficionados we have around here but just in case publish here so all can see…or if you prefer ccbphot1atgmaildotcom.
I’ll dig it up and submit it to the glibs recipe page. I’ll let you know when I do. The key to recipe is what parts of the pig are used and the smoking process. It’s called whole hog because that’s what it uses. All the good cuts go in. I have also heard it referred to as dinner sausage.
Lachowsky: TOTALLY interested! Will be making sausage this Fall with the BIL/SIL/niece. Pork’s dirt cheap around here, too, and we’ve got several hog farms in the area that sell direct-to-public. Loads of good butchers, too (there’s lots of hunters around the eastern half of The Lower Rainland™…).
1.6 million in my hands tomorrow?
I’d buy all the land around my house, a small bulldozer, a bunch of drill stem, barbed wire, and t-posts. That would get Lachowsky Cattle LLC started.
^^^ I like the way this man thinks.
X2. Time is valuable and I’ve begun buying more of it. If I had more money available, I would hire more people for more tasks but now I just keep it to basic labor. My back is saved and the guy I use is able to pay his bills without government assistance.
Poverty is a personal issue like drug use. We can donate to private charities and remove bureaucratic obstacles to prosperity, but ultimately, it comes down to the individual on how to solve their own problems.
I am comfortable with “your problem; not mine”.
The question is how to sell that to the overwhelming majority of people that don’t think that way yet.
I don’t think you can. Virtue signaling, self-righteousness and false compassion are all very powerful drugs. People continue to support “compassionate” prog policies in spite of decades of indisputable evidence that they not only don’t work, but often make the problem worse.
I got a prog friend to essentially stipulate this as fact, but he still wouldn’t rethink his commitment to prog social policies because “we have to try!”
“I’m going to punch you in the face now. I know it may not be the best answer, but we have to try something.”
If concentrating kids in camps where only responsible government-approved adults look after them could save the life of even one child, don’t we have an obligation to try?
I actually came up with this in response to Obama’s hissy fit when post-Sandy Hook gun confiscation laws were shot down and used the “don’t we have an obligation to try” bullshit.
“Virtue signaling, self-righteousness and false compassion”
In a biblical sense, that is all “vanity”.
I am an agnostic, but I increasingly find myself angry that we as a society threw away the millennia of brilliant thought about morality and humanity when we moved on from a theological base.
The deadly sins are at the root of our issues:
Pride leads “Top Men” to believe they can know the unknowable and control the uncontrollable to allow for central planning
Gluttony has many forms but boils down to a consumption driven world view instead of production driven
Greed for unearned largess
Sloth leads to dependency
Lust (well I won’t discuss the problems there in this forum cause I fear you all’s
Wrath
and
Envy, every bit of egalitarian thought is based in envy. Envy is unhappiness at other’s achievements. I believe it is the real root of all evil.
Who’s “we”? It’s pretty much just the Marxist cult that shitcanned morality.
That should be the subject of a post itself.
I would argue that most of the externalities that cause poverty today are caused by the government in the form of labor and trade regulations.
In my ideal world those regulations would cease to exist and the markets would operate freely. In that environment you are still going to have poverty because some people are just not capable of making a decent living on their own, due to various physical, mental and emotional incapacities. I would argue that the average competent individual will be much better off in that world than in our current one, and will be in better position to provide charitable assistance to those who can’t do for themselves.
just not capable of making a decent living on their own, due to various physical, mental and emotional incapacities.
This is a subject I think about frequently. People who are lazy get no sympathy. People without much talent can make enough to eat by sweeping floors or some other menial task. But the truly disabled are another topic.
My general take is that some pair of people brought that disable person into the world. It’s their problem.
So don’t fuck someone you aren’t willing to spend your life with caring for a completely disabled child/adult.
Extended families are important.
One of my neighbors has some sort of mental disability. I saw him leaving the house at 7 am on his way into work at Publix. Which is why I won’t give one thin dime to the mid 20 year old beggars that harrass people at stop lights here.
I saw him leaving the house at 7 am on his way into work at Publix.
He’s probably happier than 90% of “kids” attending college these days.
This, exactly. I’m a big advocate of a “taking care of shit” pyramid. You start at the top with expenditure of resources, and if you have leftovers work your way down.
1. Take care of yourself
2. Once you can take care of yourself, make sure your can take care of family
3. If you think you can take care of family, you can then help your neighbors/friends
4. If you have your friends covered, you can look at less direct forms of charity
Once you get to the part where extended family gets taken care of, you’re going to be getting a lot of long lost cousins showing up at your door.
I’m not even wealthy, pretty well off, not wealthy. But I had one call me up a couple of months ago and it finally got around to ‘Have I ever asked you for anything?’. My answer was ‘No, and don’t start now if that something has to be with money’. That was that.
The only times I’ve given a significant amount of money away is to family members for funerals. They didn’t ask, but I knew they couldn’t afford a proper burial without the money.
Family to me is not defined by blood relationships.
The thing is that you’re always going to have poverty. I wish I could remember the source, but a while ago I read something to the effect that populations of people go through cycles of poverty in every economic system. The key isn’t to try to minimize the depth or scope of that poverty, which is what most governments try to do, because that just lengthens the duration and dulls the recovery. You want to make it so those cycles are as brief as possible, and you do that by ensuring that the government doesn’t stand in the way of people trying to lift themselves out of poverty. All the policies that address poverty tend to focus on one of the first two elements, depth and scope, such as minimum wage laws, with the effect that they worsen the problem by making it harder for people to get employment, for example.
The issue is, it’s no longer even about poverty. It’s about equality. So no matter if most Americans are better off today than pretty much anyone living before in the history of human existence, that’s not important. The problem is everyone is not equal. So if Jeff Bezos and I both get to make $15 an hour right now, and no more, we’re both better off because equality. See how this works? Some people (progs) are like sheep being led to a slaughter.
“How should libertarians address poverty?”
Leave the poor alone. Trying to address their “problem” only makes them worse off.
This is the right societal answer. On the personal level, the answer is different for every person. Some folks need education. Some need mommy and daddy to stop enabling them. Some need help out of a temporary bad spot. Some need ignored.
any government activity will be inevitably used as a tool to get power, and will not be shaped to maximize results but to keep people in power
And when it doesn’t meet it stated goals, push for more funding!*
*Feature, not bug.
Great article Pie.
How should libertarians address poverty?
Step one is (would be) to refrain from creating a top-down government generated definition of “poverty”. Facile as it may seem, impoverishment is subjective.
Second, clear away all the bullshit barriers to work which have been erected in the aftermath of the New Deal.
“Facile as it may seem, impoverishment is subjective.”
This is true. Every time I drive through Northern New Mexico I think this. NM has a very high “poverty rate” relative to the rest of the country, however a lot of the people that live up in those areas are perfectly content. They have some land, a roof over their head and enough to eat. However, the state/fed gov’ts can’t leave it alone have to “do something”.
I’ve been contemplating buying an island and living in poverty. Fishing for dinner, raising chickens, snapping off rounds at any boats that approach, but my wife won’t get on board. *grumble*
I was watching a documentary a while back, can’t remember the name right now. But basically it was about a very wealthy business owner, guy owned his own jet, had everything. Every now and then he’d become a hobo and just go hop trains and hang out with bums, doing drugs and drinking cheap liquor. Then he’d go home and go back to work only to do it again in a year. Apparently him and his wife were ok about it. He said it was just something he had to do. Weird stuff.
I’ll see if I can find it. I like docs.
That’s not poverty man, that’s paradise.
It’s fairly doable. I was looking and you can get some islands for well under 1 million. If I sold my house and cashed in my retirement accounts I could make it happen. I’d be “poor” because I’d have no money, but I don’t think I’d feel impoverished. Unfortunately my wife likes to interact with other humans.
“Unfortunately my wife likes to interact with other humans.”
Your wife has that issue too? I hate that, humans are so overrated.
Not my wife. She prefers animals to humans.
Unfortunately my wife likes to interact with other humans.
I know, what is with that??!?
https://www.privateislandsonline.com/central-america/nicaragua/pink-pearl-island
Only thing is, you never can tell what Maduro like figure is going to pop up in control of one of those tinpot countries and seize your property, in which case, there would be nothing you could do.
That’s why a tiny island. With luck, they’d forget I was there.
I’m not sure how much more dangerous that is there than it is anywhere else anymore.
No, it’s a lot more dangerous. I mean here in the USA you’re more likely to be shot by a cop than pretty much anywhere. But outside of that, you have criminal gangs and cartels and ultra corrupt government officials who will not hesitate to shake you down. And you will have no real rights and no right to protect yourself from armed bandits, etc.
Not to mention that being American paints a huge target on you, rich gringo.
You are Oliver Reed?
Great movie. I dont remember the name.
Well, the standard libertarian answer might be, “Nothing.”
My reasoning is that government can’t create wealth, which is the opposite of poverty, they can only redistribute wealth, and that at a loss, and government cannot exist without siphoning wealth, so the smaller the government the more wealth can be created. Now, at a certain point you might say that some reduction in wealth is an acceptable price to pay for, say, protecting property rights by using government to enact, adjudicate, and enforce laws regarding theft, or various other duties performed by governments, but the fact remains that the government doesn’t perform any of those functions without some cost to people outside of the government, and it doesn’t earn money on its own by the sweat of its own brow, so to speak.
Libertarians cannot address poverty. There is no real solution for it. That is why we have little popularity. Most people will say they cannot accept this answer. There must be a solution. This is false. Some problems, like in math, have no solution and this is a reality whether we accept or not.
i.
That is imaginary
Much like the fabled libertarian woman. But not like my girlfriend. You wouldn’t know her, she lives in Canada.
Dude, she is cheating on you with some dude who plays for the Saints.
HAR! Nice.
True, but you’re irrational.
This is the same problem libertarians have with everything how can you use reason with people who dont care for it… a conondrum
Oops
Gosh! It’s almost as if banks are providing standardized data on all transactions to one central institution that is dominated by progressives.
Hmmmm. I wonder who it could be? Who could be collecting all that data? Who?!?!
I like their mission statement there. Making sure financial institutions treat you fairly. I think they misspelled find a financial institution to shake down for our own profit.
The Deep State keeps confusing Michael Cohens. These people are really not that bright.
How long have those folks been imprisoned by the Norks? Because meeting President Trump at Andrews could be mind fuck.
Geez, hope they aren’t progs who still think the dreamy one is president. They might have a heart attack or just complete mental breakdown.
“I’m president Donald Trump. Follow me if you want to live.”
This is what “libertarian” welfare would look like…
we take some old military bases and set them up as welfare camps then staff them with retired military. Anyone who cannot survive on their own can walk into any welfare camp at any time and they have to be accepted with one exception I will get to later. Inside the camp you will be given 3 hots, uniforms, a secure place to live and access to resources for things like mental health counseling, substance abuse therapy, parenting classes, money management classes, and job training. Once admitted into the camp your creditors are notified and your debts are put on hold. Similarly your assets will be rounded up and put into storage/in recievership until such time as you choose to leave the camp. While you are in the camp they do not generate any further interest but neither are they forgiven. You may choose to leave the camp at any time you wish and no one may legally stop you, all you need do is sign a statement of understanding that once outside the gates of the camp you recognize that you are responsible for providing for yourself with no further assistance from the government and your previous debts are reactivated and begin generating interest charges again.
The catch is that staying in the camp requires that you abide by camp rules.
All camp residents over the age of 18 are required to put at least 4 hours a day 7 days a week into a work detail maintaining the camp
Camp residents are not allowed to consume any mind altering substances of any sort regardless of their legality
Camp residents are not allowed to engage in unprotected sex under any circumstances. If you become pregnant or make someone pregnant you are in violation of the terms of continued residency
Camp residents are not allowed to commit any act which is normally against the law, doing so will result in expulsion from the camp regardless of whether police pursue criminal charges
Camp residents are required to wear their uniforms at all times save for when they are in their quarters.
You may move in and out of welfare camps as often as you feel you need to but if you are ever expelled from a camp for any reason you are not eligible to be admitted into one for a period of 1 year.
The idea is to make welfare as uncomfortable as possible while still giving those who need it access to the tools they need to be able to straighten their lives out and succeed when they are ready to stand on their own.
Honestly that sounds fair to me. The only part I didn’t think sounds fair is the 7 day 4 hours a day. Maybe 8 hours 5 days, makes it feel more like a job in which you are paid with your amenities and meals. Really, that’a a great system, and it’s totally racist you shitlord!
The purpose of the work details is 2fold
1) to keep the cost of running the camps to a minimum the residents (under guidance of the staff) basically provide all of the logistical support
2) to teach the residents more about running a houseold than having a job.
The work details are going to be landscaping of the camp, maintenance of the buildings, working in the kitchen, tending to the camp garden which will be one of the main sources of food. All basically things you would need to do on pretty much a daily basis in order to maintain a household. It is up to them to take the initiative to avail themselves of the resources available to learn the skills to get a job.
Juan wait until the welfare campers unionize and elect president “make welfare camps humane”
I have a few minutes before I have to go to my husbandly duties: designated driver on girls night out, so i will tell another story related to the earlier discussion.
My wife and I live pretty frugally. We eat well and pay all of our bills on about 3500/mo. Our cars are paid for, the house is paid for and our electric/water are less than 300/mo. We probably spend more on dog food and vet bills than we do on ourselves. Despite this spartan lifestyle we are happy. We have substantial savings. Occasionally she gets bored and points out how much we have. I put her off on buying a new car for seven years until we had the money to pay for it outright. Now she has a new car, a nice one – top of the line, fancy Honda CRV. Sunroof, heated seats, backup camera and gadgety gizmos everywhere. She still made noises about being bored so…
“We better save that back. It’s security. I know you say we cant take it with us, but security is priceless. That call is going to come.”
“What call?”
“The one that comes out of the blue telling us a grandchild has cancer. Or has been in a car accident. Or even just one of our kids unable to afford an expensive car repair. That call is coming as sure as the sun comes up. We wont see it coming and we cant know what it will be, but it’s coming.”
She agreed. Less than two weeks later at 3:00 the phone rang. Her infant grandson needed emergency surgery. Not tomorrow. Not in an hour. Now.
Yes, he is fine now.
“I have a few minutes before I have to go to my husbandly duties: designated driver on girls night out”
Holy shit, Suthen, that sounds like hell to me. I’m truly sorry.
Actually it’s bearable. I bring my dog. I sit in the parking lot and share fried chicken with my dog. Then I take him for a walk. I listen to the radio and read Glibs. They only stay a couple of hours. Small price to pay for a happy wife.
I have zero sympathy for people who squander resources for their own amusement. As mentioned above I have great sympathy for the disabled who cannot work. For generational welfare mooches who are able-bodied, no so much. For self-indulgent shitheads who love Vegas? None at all.
Hey! I’m in Vegas!
Granted I’m here for work and have only spent about 100 dollars of my own money.
That call is going to come
Nods in agreement as I remember last year that I replaced two engines, washer, dryer, and fridge. No loan required just kept paying cash. That is a fantastic feeling.
Great to hear about the baby.
Getting close to afternoon links, so this thread will die soon. But here is a thought experiment to try on your friendly neighborhood progress.
The people in the house next to you are broke. Their kids go without food.
The people down the street live in a big house and party all the time.
Your job is to walk down to the big house with your trusty hand gun and demand the party-happy people give you money to feed the starving kids. If they refuse, you shoot them.
That is welfare.
There is no fun in that. You need to coerce others into doing your stealing for you. Haven’t you seen the articles about how progressives give next to nothing to charity because they say it weakens the case for government welfare? That’s right. They prefer a system of coercion over voluntary welfare regardless of which is better for the people it helps. They actually prefer immorality.
I’ve said it before – appeal to the worst parts of human nature – envy, greed, resentment, tribalism – and you get the worst kind of people.
You need to coerce others into doing your stealing for you.
No coercion needed. Cushy job totally immune from consequences when you screw things up and a gold-plated retirement program.
They are perfectly OK with that plan as long as they don’t have to hold the gun. I’m guessing most of them are, at least theoretically, happy to even accompany the guy with the gun.
I bet not. Deep down they know what they are doing and are probably ashamed to show their face or accept any responsibility.
They will defend it as long as it is just an abstraction to them. Face the actual people you are stealing from? No way.
^This
Progressives absolutely reject the notion that government cannot function without the threat of violence, including immediate execution at the hands of an overzealous officer of the law.
They are delusional. So I’m not sure they can form the requisite chain of logic to reach embarrassment.
You have a more generous opinion than I do. I picture “can I get some muscle over here?” woman, and I don’t see her having a lot of qualms about use of naked force.
If you are the government… keep 2/3 of the stolen money for yourself. Don’t forget to give yourself awesome benefits and a full pension for your good deeds. Oh, and have some sovereign immunity if you do shoot the rich people, or the poor people, or a dog you pass while doing your good deeds.
great minds . . . .
Good article, Pie. Thanks.
And great article Pie!
I come home from a hard days shopping for my wife and, no links?
They’re delaying them just for you, Yusef. Push them later so the West coast had time to join in. It’s only 1:15, plenty of time.
That’s why I never bothered at TOS, I didn’t want to Dead thread
Lookit the welfare queen over here wanting something for nothing.
I contribute in more ways than one DeadBeat!
You need more links to not read? You want Swiss to keep descending into this existential apathy? Please think of the children! The poor children traumatized when their fondue looks up at them with a very narrow dead gaze.
Yes!
And we can have the children traumatized by OMWC instead.
Shopping. Ugh. I’d rather do almost anything else.
I hope she’s well.
Thanks Ted, She might get to come home tomorrow, so I’m sprucing up, Bought a new Sheet set and Comforter, little cool things, MDay is on Sunday so….
Goddammit Robby, stop styling your hair and give us links!
Maybe the ennui and nihilism finally got the best of Swiss and he said fuck it.
*le sigh*
This is a libertarian site. I expect the excuse to include pot and butt sex.
Where’s the sign up sheet for the no linx riot?
How will I know if I need to outraged if there are no links!
NAKED AGGRESSION BY THE PAULISTA BULLY
*snicker
Homophobe BULLY attacking Robby to prove his JUVENILE Persona!
Golf clap.
Also, I miss Injun. Dammit.
“Universal Basic Income will be no different. It will not stay for long as the only program, as different programs for different groups will be invented. It will constantly be under pressure to increase.”
Naturally.
Some people don’t know how to manage their money and will always expect someone else to cover them with stuff like this. They’ll misspend the $1500 and demand $1505. What’s a $5 increase, right? Like how politicians say, ‘what, you can’t handle a 2% tax increase?’ And so on….
Ok. I’m going to ask a question no one has the courage to ask.
If you’re Romanian, why is your English so good? Eh? Hm?
/narrows gaze.
A Melanian Spy perhaps?
The people in the house next to you are broke. Their kids go without food.
The people down the street live in a big house and party all the time.
*flashback*
MNG, is that you?
Does MNG carry a 1911?