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The Neolibertarian NetworkThis Is What I Mean…
…by neo-socialist hand wringing pussies.
Promoting a permanent mindset of victimhood.
Listen, I’m sympathetic to the troubles of getting a life started. I have kids that are young adults going through all the stuff Matt talks about and more. But when did life come with guarantees against uncertainty? And if you remove “worry” from the equation you also remove a really important factor in progress: motivation.
I’ve got a recommendation: stop whining and start bettering your lives. Compare yourselves to the off-the-boat immigrants that come here, live on bird feed for a few years, and end up owning the American dream. The obstacles that those people face make your worries look like neurotic tics and yet you dismiss your privileged station in life as someone else’s responsibility. Weak. Pathetic.
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At least you’re not overreacting.
Here here!
Honestly, Dave, you seem to have lost your mind.
Don’t think so, but at least I have one to lose.
Snappy comeback, nutjob.
I think you’re right Dave that people have to deal with troubles or they get fat and lazy, and that we’ve had it pretty good. I’ve been lucky – I financed my own education, bought my first house when houses were cheap, but it isn’t so easy anymore. Isn’t that a point worth debating – that it is getting harder for kids to get started?
Of course, do you see these mansions that people call “starter” homes? Good grief. And often enough you see a monster SUV parked out front, probably another smaller car in the garage. That seems to be the way – gotta have everything now.
By the way, since you use the term “neo” socialist, I wonder if you could tell me what’s new in that area?
I don;t see that there’s much to debate that it’s harder to get started. That, however, doesn’t change my point. I can’t see kids doing today what’s needed to get things done. I put myself through college too and, while I did it I had a wife and two kids (then three.) I worked 30 hours a week, took an average of 23 credit hours per session and, it was hard inasmuch as my wife was a stay-at-home mom.
But I also have kids who have put themselves themselves through school or are in the process. I don’t any of their tuition or expense and they choose to live on their own. And like me they work 30 hours a week, more or less, and are getting by.
In the many years I worked in Chicago I new hundreds of immigrant families that came to the U.S. with nothing and built significant wealth. What is is about them? Are they smarter than us? I don’t think so. What I saw in them was a great deal of personal sacrifice, never buying anything that couldn’t afford (like music and lattes, and beer, and…) Most kids today have lost that.
Sure it’s tough in these times, but looking for someone else to bail you out is, as I said, weak. And I know that it can be done otherwise.
From the standpoint of what’s new in progressive dogma is that they no longer take ownership to being socialists. The idea, as David Sirota puts it, is to pass legislation to force business to “do the right” thing which, as he means it, serve the economic purposes of the populous rather than the owners of the capital. As the risk of invoking Godwin’s Law many of the propositions from progressives are much like National Socialists of Germany in the 1930’s. (Don’t take the analogy further than its due, I’m not invoking Naziism as much as I’m looking at the economic model.)
So, no, it’s not “new” per se, but a new cloak for an old idea.
Dave: What is a “neo-socialist hand wringing pussy” anyway? Can I order one on-line?
So much for Right’s “Family Values.”
Dave: What is a “neo-socialist hand wringing pussy” anyway? Can I order one on-line?
So much for the Right’s “Family Values.”
There is a point where two lines cross – responsibility to owners, responsibility to society. Obvious example – polluting a stream. It benefits the owners immensely.
We debate about where the lines intersect, with you perhaps thinking that it ought to be much further towards ownership than society. I put the line further towards the society, even as I know it increases the cost of doing business. But a business venture needs to be justified both on what it does for owners and how it affects society too. High profits and cost externalization are not a birthright.
There – I’ve had the whole debate. Chime in if you want.
Mark, what do you mean that you’ve had the whole debate. Although you bring up the issue of “public goods” – such as the environment, I don’t know where I’ve ever said that any business has the right to spoil those goods for their own profit. In fact, I have said in the past that the protection of public goods doesn’t depart from the libertarian ideology. That said, there is a canyon of difference between me and many on what exactly is a public good. I will stipulate that air and water qualify to the extent that they cannot be sequestered by property definitions. There are others as well.
But I argue with you that high profits are, in fact, a right by virtue of the fact that society should not have the right to limit them – provided they are made inside the construct of robust competition.
MT Wildernesshunter, WTF are you talking about? What does this have to do with “family values” (and if you had spent any significant time on this site you would know that I have NEVER promoted the right wings version of such.) I support gay marriage, legalization of drugs, the right to sell pron, etc. Before casting some off the wall “observation” you would do better to know what you’re talking about.
I thought the Montana Wilderness guy made a good joke.
All I was doing was to use a cocktail napkin to draw a curve to see where interests collide. I used an obvious example, and said that the rest is what we debate. You replied by giving your side of that debate, which is reasonable, but with which I disagree – I place more emphasis on societal responsibility, and impose more costs on business than you.
Dave wrote, “I support gay marriage, legalization of drugs, the right to sell pron [sic], etc.”
Oh, so you’re a “neo-socialist hand wringing pussy.” I get it.
Sorry for the mistake on my part regarding the “Family Values” thing. I pledge to pay closer attention in the future.
And, by the way, before casting some off the wall “name-calling†you would do better….
At least I’m not a troll.
By the way, if you are checking IP’s I’m in a motel in Billings, but totally up-front with you. I am who am.
Mark, I never had any doubt.
Dave,
Given what Mark brought up (as well as your response), I would like to ask: Would there ever be a cost point for getting started (costs of rent, food, gas, etc) that would preclude the notion that straight up hard work is enough? Is it possible for the economic hardships for young people (even if they had no music, lattes, and beer) to become so large that they actually cannot make it on their own?
I suppose there would, at least for a time. During the depression is was common that kids couldn’t get started in life and had to band together with other family members. My father and his family lived with 15 people other (from three other married families of siblings) in a 4 bedroom house. It wasn’t until WWII that that they all moved out and could afford their own places.
But we’re not there now and history tells us that economic cycles make adjustments toward equilibrium in the long run.
Dave— You can’t do anything with these people. They have no grasp of economics. They think “business†is some entity divorced from society, and you can do whatever you please to business with no negative consequences for society. You can tax business with impunity, regulate it to death, or just expropriate its property. Whatever.
All of these socialist wannabes, like Singer and Tokarski, need to read Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson,†if only to stop making fools of themselves in public.
The Lesson: “The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.â€
On the other hand, I don’t think there is any help for somebody like Colby Natale. He theorizes that everything could become too expense for everyone. And then what happens? Prices keep going up, right, Colby?
What’s interesting about Singer’s post over at LITW is that he’s the first to label WalMart at a social pariah while bemoaning the plight of young workers. I bet there are a lot of young workers with families that shop at WalMart and save several hundred dollars annually. Singer, like many, are afraid of freedom. They are fixated on security, not freedom. How can one succeed without the assurance of some social safety net? Like you, Dave, I worked my way through school — back when school was affordable. Tell me, Matt, when students get loans to pay for college, do you really think they’re only getting a loan for the actual cost of tuition? No, not at all; they are getting a loan that enables them to live the same standard of living afforded by their parents. In other words, their loan pays for no job, car payments, rent, mass entertainment, cell phone, laptop, iPod, and heavy consumerism. So, when they get out of college with that ball and chain of debt, I’m not exactly sorry for them. Moreover, I don’t believe that I, or any of my fellow citizens, should have to insulate them from their bad decisions.
Another thing that Singer, Mark T, et al always, always leave out are the unintended consequences of paternalistic gov’t. Chiefly, the perpetuation of irresponsibility and the entitlement mentality. Moreover, can policy makers truly determine at what point a person is simply experiencing “hard luck” and deserves a helping hand from the public? Could it be that public assistance will lead an individual into a cycle of poverty? Ludwig von Mises said something pertinent here: “Freedom is the freedom to make mistakes.” We learn from mistakes. Singer et al also totally disregard the morality of using the coercive power of gov’t to take from one person to give it to another. They also conveniently ignore the fact that big gov’t is the reason many workers can’t afford cars, gas, health care, so on, so forth.
Sure, it would be great to give these young kids a boost after getting out of college. The best boost they can get is to get a job, start saving, avoid consumerism, stay healthy, etc. Gov’t is the last thing they need. In fact, when they get into their thirties and actually start making decent incomes, they will soon learn that profligate, confiscatory gov’t is their worst enemy. They will begin to realize that the gov’t exists not to protect their rights but to manipulate their behavior and beliefs with public policies and the tax code.
I can’t help but quote Thomas Jefferson, who warned us that gov’t sponsored security is the enemy of liberty. To wit, “Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty.” Singer et al are timid men.