Collectivism’s False Theories Lead To Real Suffering
The ever erudite conservative commentator P.J. O’Rourke wrote,
“Collectivism doesn’t work because it’s based on a faulty economic premise. There is no such thing as a person’s ‘fair share’ of wealth. The gross national product is not a pizza that must be carefully divided because if I get too many slices, you have to eat the box. The economy is expandable and, in any practical sense, limitless.” — P. J. O’Rourke
O’Rourke’s comment is right on. The primary difference between collectivists of any stripe and those who favor a free market is whether they believe (or admit) that the economy can be expanded.
The collectivist belief that the economy is a zero-sum game always leads to some form of deprivation. At first, it may be only deprivation of a given commodity; if there are 1,000 loaves of bread available, but 1,500 people who want it, obviously some are going to have to go without. This is a microcosm of the larger economy, e.g. where there is a limited amount of resources, some people may get more than others.
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The Wall Street Journal published this story today:
In 2006, after 25 years and 50 million preventable deaths, the World Health Organization reversed course and endorsed widespread use of the insecticide DDT to combat malaria. So much for that. Earlier this month, the U.N. agency quietly reverted to promoting less effective methods for attacking the disease. The result is a victory for politics over public health, and millions of the world’s poor will suffer as a result.
The U.N. now plans to advocate for drastic reductions in the use of DDT, which kills or repels the mosquitoes that spread malaria. The aim “is to achieve a 30% cut in the application of DDT worldwide by 2014 and its total phase-out by the early 2020s, if not sooner,” said WHO and the U.N. Environment Program in a statement on May 6.
The impact of the ban on DDT on the world’s poorest people will be terrible. The Leftist environmental movement, which sees humans as a disease to be eradicated, has pressured the World Health Organization to reconsider its use of DDT to combat Malaria.
The ultimate purpose of the Left is not so much to limit the use of DDT in the world, as it is to reduce the human population around the world, mostly in underdeveloped nations. Their genocidal agenda is evident in several statements from prominent Leftists:
Should we eliminate suffering, diseases? The idea is beautiful, but perhaps not a benefit for long term. We should not allow our dread of diseases to endanger the future of our species… In order to stabilize world population, we need to eliminate 350,000 people a day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it’s just as bad not to say it.
Guess who? Jacques Cousteau, in an interview in the UNESCO Courier, November 1991. There’s more.
When questioned on the propriety of banning DDT, with a view to the possible unintended consequences, Dr. Charles Wurster replied,
So what? People are the cause of all the problems. We have too many of them. We need to get rid of some of them and this is as good a way as any.
There are many other quotes from people like Ted Turner, who once said in an interview with Audubon Magazine,
A total world population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.
Why are we not running these people off the edge of the Continent? It’s time power for these anti-human elitists was brought to an abrupt and complete end.
The headline reads, Obama’s new rules will transform US auto fleet. One question–what US auto fleet? There is no US auto fleet, unless all vehicles in the US are owned by the government. With these new developments, that may not be far off.
The Obama Administration imposed new rules for the automotive industry today, set to go into effect by 2016. The rules are designed to increase mileage in all vehicles sold in the US.
Of course, there is a price tag associated with imposing these new regulations. The Obama team is estimating an additional cost of $1300 per vehicle. The actual cost will be closer to $7000. The additional costs will be the result of car makers needing to retool their factories to comply with the new laws.
Critics might argue that CAFE laws were in place years before Obama showed up. Yes, and they were wrong then, too. Obama is taking them to the next level.
Here is a rule of thumb I wish every politician would be required to honor, and every American would memorize. Any law that requires you to pay money to be in compliance is bad law. Good, positive law shouldn’t cost you a dime.
Obama is dictating changes in how the automotive industry will operate for the next decade or more, without any Constitutional authority. He controls how companies can operate, what kind of car you can buy, and how you can spend your money. Property rights just went out the door.
Obama is working toward an increase in gas prices, as well. He wants to see more hybrids on the road, but “automakers have said they need stable, relatively high gasoline prices to create a market for electric vehicles.”
Sales of hybrid cars have fallen drastically along with the drop in gas prices. If Obama is to get his wish, he will have to put restrictions on gas supplies in the US to keep prices artificially high, which means he will effectively control the production of gasoline.
The new standards will also mean smaller, lighter cars, which in turn will mean more traffic fatalities and higher costs of repair.
Every step Obama takes brings his Socialist Utopia a little closer to reality. Conservatives should be fighting him tooth and nail every step of the way.
By 2010, we will need to have people ready to take elected office who are not afraid to roll back everything he has done, who value Liberty and Freedom more than Popularity. It will not be enough to do half the job. Remember that Ronald Reagan fell short on his promise to eliminate the Department of Education. We cannot fall short now. The stakes are much too high.
Remember cartoons? Please watch this one, America.
Those were the days…
Russian President Calls Obama “Comrade”
“Birds of a feather flock together,” as the old saying goes.
Or more appropriately in this case, “It takes one to know one.”
We could have told them so—that is, if they would ever listen.
I’m talking about the Leftists (Environmentalists and Socialists) who insist on changing aspects of society without having anything acceptable with which to replace them. That goes for products as well. Spokane County, WA is learning this the hard way. The Greens up North thought they could just pass a mandate forcing everyone to use low-phosphate dish detergents, and that would save the environment, they would feel good about protecting the planet, and everyone would be happy.
Not so fast there, pal.
It turns out the green detergents don’t work. Phosphate is what makes detergents work. If you remove the active ingredient, what do you get? Just a bunch of white powder that won’t even get you high. Useless garbage.
So the people in Spokane are doing what people naturally do when they can’t get what they want in their own neighborhoods; they go to the next state over–Idaho. So now there is a booming black market for effective dish soap purchased in Idaho, where there are no silly phosphate restrictions, and people can actually have clean dishes.
The funny thing is that the law doesn’t prohibit ownership or use of high-phosphate detergents, only the sale of those products. The end results is that people will naturally purchase the products where it is legal to sell them and bring them back into the state, completely negating the intent of the law in the first place. That’s just stupid.
The Communists figured out how to keep people from leaving. I’m afraid that’s what these morons might try next.
Venezuela announced the death of Republican government there today, with the victory of Hugo Chavez’s campaign to overturn presidential term-limits.
The vote allows Chavez to run for another 12-year term. And being that he controls the media there, and has heavy influence on government employees, it is almost certain he will win.
An election for another term would make him literally a dictator for life. Socialism always begins with promises to the poor (who always outnumber the rich) at the expense of the rich. But it cannot survive free and open elections. It always needs to control of the outcome of the elections to keep itself in power. The people in Venezuela are already slaves to Chavez’s will and apparently are not intelligent enough to realize it. They don’t realize that this is just the first step towards Communism. Seizure of all private property will follow before too long, along with complete government control of resources and production, and finally mass murder.
The most disturbing part is that his democratic opponents are just standing aside, claiming the moral high-ground, while their system of government is set ablaze. Doing nothing, while letting evil men like Chavez run roughshod over their Constitution, is immoral. They deserve the government they get.
Ultimately, Chavez won’t be content to run his own country. He will also want to control the surrounding countries, and will eventually attack the United States. It may not be an outright military attacxk, but it will be an attack nonetheless.
The Repugnance of Socialism
This is a great post…
Some of his best points include:
“One must never mistake repugnance for fear. The first is based upon reason, the latter upon emotion.”
Hear, hear! Fear is not a reliable motivator. Reason usually is.
“No free man or woman will tolerate the loss of liberty in exchange for material comfort.”
This is what Benjamin Franklin was saying in this oft mis-interpreted phrase
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
which has been rewritten by many leftists to support their opposition to the Patriot Act and other American efforts to hold back the tide of Terrorism. But such an understanding of the quote cannot be supported by the context.
Unfortunately, Conservatism often loses in ideological battles because it refuses to promise anything, leaving the fate of its adherents entirely in their own hands. Socialism, on the other hand, promises some form of salvation, whether economic, political, or even religious, to those who might benefit most from it.
As George Bernard Shaw wrote, “A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”
Our Founding Fathers would be appalled at our apostasy.
Idiots from the Planet Stupid
Here’s a fine example of why Barak Obama must be defeated in November. With morons like this guy supporting his positions, we’ll all soon be enjoying the fruits of American Liberalism–we’ll all be dirt poor, our standard of living will fall through the floor, we will see the rise of a new European lifestyle in the big cities of America, and abject poverty and death in the small towns, the jobless rate will skyrocket, and crime rates will follow, and a depression far deeper and more vast will begin here in America as corporations move overseas, and will engulf the entire global economy that will last for at least 4 years.
This is why the Electoral College is so vitally important–more so now than ever. If it were up to the educated idiots who live in places like New York and Los Angeles, the rest of the country would have become a trash heap long ago. These people think nothing exists beyond what they can see from the tallest skyscraper. To their understanding, there are no wide stretches of open land in America. There is only a 200-mile stretch once you leave New York before you get to L.A. The only reason they don’t travel there via ground transportation is because the subways don’t connect.
Sean Hannity repeated a quote by someone, I forget who, who could not understand how a Republican could win in an election, when nobody they knew voted for them. It’s the same principle on a larger scale. They don’t believe anything exists outside their own little sphere.
And the sphere includes not just space, but time as well. They are completely ignorant of the lessons of experience and history. You can’t point out to them how the policies of Barak Obama are not much more than Jimmy Carter’s policies revisited, and therefore will have a similar effect. The difference is that because of this lame-brained tendency to refuse to learn the correct lessons, they think these policies will work this time if only they try harder, or work at making government even larger and more powerful, or take more of our money. They think it will be different because the people involved are different.
Barak Obama is a full-blown Marxist. If he gets elected, America will have fulfilled Nikita Khrushchev’s prediction of one day becoming a Communist nation by our own stupidity:
You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept Communism outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have Communism. We won’t have to fight you. We’ll so weaken your economy until you’ll fall like overripe fruit into our hands.
Given the behavior of the current Democratic leadership, and the goals of Barak Obama and his liberal friends, is there any wonder about whom Khrushchev was speaking when he said “we.” there is only one explanation for the complete opposition by the Democrats to forestall the slide of our economy into chaos and wreckage by allowing us to drill for oil in our own country, only one explanation for their policies of the past 40 years. They have become the enemy. Traitors to their own people, they have sold themselves out for the chance to wield power over mankind. They are Stalin’s useful idiots. They are not our countrymen; they do not belong among us.
(Updated) I have long held, and often said, that Leftists are abusive, violent people underneath their compassionate veneers. Their history betrays them. Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Che Guevara, all leftists, and all murderers.
In our society, we don’t see them murdering others. Instead we see a different kind of violence–a psychological rather than physical violence. Thomas Sowell has written a column today that explains what I mean.
Dr. Sowell exposes abuse of the same character as found in Jonah Goldberg’s recent book, Liberal Facism. In it, Mr. Goldberg delivers well-documented evidence of the Left’s heritage of coercion. The American flavor of Fascism comes with smiles and institutional programs and rehabilitation. The insidious nature of the American Left’s abuse is the assurance that it’s for your own good.
Dr. Sowell highlights another aspect of Leftism in America–those programs designed to “help” people who are incapable of helping themselves. The American Left sees itself as superior to everyone else on the planet. Their arrogance and self-adulation are the source of their belief in their own moral superiority. But in order to feel vindicated, they need some outward evidence of that superiority. As Dr. Sowell points out, that’s where they latch onto others, preferably people of color, or other types of minorities (i.e. the poor, women, the disabled, etc). These people become trophies. They are used as evidence of the Left’s goodness.
The abuse is not limited to the American Left, either. A news report from MSN shows that child sexual abuse by UN peacekeeping forces and humanitarian experts is widespread and little or nothing is done to curb the problem. These are not right-wingers arranging sex-for-food deals with 14-year-old girls. What is the Left’s response? Demands that we reinstate funding for abortions overseas.
Glenn Beck’s column gives us another view of the results of the “help” the left offers. It is unfortunate that some republicans have parroted the line about immigrants filling jobs Americans won’t do. In their attempts at being compassionate, those who favor illegal immigration by doing nothing to stop it have created what Glenn calls “Corporate slavery.”
The living conditions described in some of Glenn’s examples are appalling. Perhaps the line should be reworked to say “living the life Americans won’t live.” The Left has a contemptible knack for looking the other way when their ideas produce misery. This isn’t compassion. It is the natural result of believing you are superior to everyone else. The Left traffics in Condescension, and there is enough for everyone.
The Left does nothing out of true charity or altruism. Everything is calculated to produce some kind of gain whether it be political, financial, or otherwise. In countries where civility has not firmly taken root, murder may be one of the methods used to produce such gain.
The Left always seeks power over others. Invariably the stated goal is the good of the people. It is alarming how many must die as part of the achievement of that goal. Some argue the world would be better off if the Left did not exist. One thing is certain–there would be a lot more people.


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