Arguing with idiots and Dystopian dreamers

Over this past weekend, I've ran across some interesting opinions on the left.  consider this document as a primer on how to reply to these comments.

It's the job of government to rule over us.
That's why our founders fought against tyranny, so they could set up another tyranny.

The false outrage over the memorial shutdown is ridiculous.
Really? Of the seventeen previous shutdowns since 1976, spread across four presidents the open air parks have never been shutdown.

Government health care is a right!
Really, it's in the constitution?
Yes, it says we have a right to life.
You're forgetting a word there. Pursue.

The constitution says that Congress has to provide for the general welfare.
No. The constitution states congress must promote the general welfare. If they did provide for the welfare of some people it would be selective as they have to destroy some people's welfare for selective people.  it's also worth noting the term "welfare" like "liberal" had a different meaning. Congress' job was to make sure there was a healthy society for business.  as Calvin Coolidge correctly pointed out, the business of America is business.

The supreme court decided the law and upheld it's constitutionality.
And? Go and read article 3 of the constitution. You don't have a pocket constitution and you call yourself a patriot? They aren't the supreme kings. Certainly the founders would never want them to have such legislative authority.

The last election was a mandate for obamacare!
I didn't realize we were in Cuba and that elections were mandates. Opposingly though, one could say the house retained their seats with a mandate to repeal obamacare.

Syria dilemma

Once again the body politic marches to war in the middle east. Unlike Bush though, Obama can't get international support to help the Al Qaeda rebels, fighting Hezbollah.

Its important to note that these al Qaeda rebels are just as savage as Hezbollah. The murdered Syrian soldiers get their chests cut open, and organs eaten, to demonstrate Allah's will.

Is that really who we want to side with? It's bad enough that would be helping al Qaeda, its even worse that their savagery is plain to see, (even Putin talked about it) yet we are still siding with Al Qaeda!

That's like getting involved in a war between the fascists and national socialists. As long as they aren't attacking our allies, why should we get involved?

If we did get involved it should be on the side of our ally (Turkey or Israel) not on the side of Hezbollah or Al Qaeda.

Government is not the solution

I have to wonder if people who advocate solutions from Government to lives problems, have ever been to the DMV.  You go there and pull a ticket, and then sit down for four hours, and watch as one to two people try to serve a room of forty.

It looks like there's at least seven to eight people working, but they only let one to two work the counters at a time.  As soon as a new person goes out to the counter, one of them heads to the back.

This isn't an exception of Government in action, this is the rule.  When FDR tried to help feed the people, and give the farmers more money, he simultaneously made it impossible for the poor to buy food, and created massive shortages of food.  The result should have been obvious.  People standing in line waiting for bread!

When Nixon tried to control the rising cost of gas, (caused by government spending, deflating the value of the dollar!) he created gas lines that went around the block.  Setting a price cap, created supply shortages and made demand higher than supply.

It stands to reason by this point, any rational person would see that Government involvement causes long lines.  Is that enough to stop the masterminds from trying to make our lives better?

NOPE!

There are Progressives in America trying to get our healthcare system to be managed by the same people that can't figure out how to avoid long lines at gas stations, or long lines for bread.

The average wait time for Health care in the UK is OVER SIX MONTHS!!

Why in the hell would we want to model that?  The British love to stand in queue, we *don't*.  I don't want the Government involved in my family's health care decisions.  I don't want my wait time to see the Doctor to increase by 61% to over six months!  That means it was close to three months the year before btw...

Still not convinced?

The minimum wage is also a price control.  It also has created long lines.

How is minimum wage a price control, you ask?

Simple, labor is a fungible commodity like any other.  If the Government set a minimum price on milk (which ironically they do, and there is too much produced) there would be too much produced because they have a *minimum price*.

Similarly with labor, government has set a price floor.  The current price of labor is above market demand.  Hence, unemployment increases followed the minimum wage increases.  The end result is we have an abundance of labor available, with no demand at the set price.

Lines of people waiting for jobs, and because of Government, masses of people thinking they are entitled to a job.

Remember in the words of Reagan;
"Government is not the solution to our problem, Government IS the problem!"

How to make money and become financially dependent.

Funny how most of those who disparage making money as inferior to their own brand of caring for humanity are elites who have all they need
— Rabbi Daniel Lapin (@DanielLapin) August 27, 2013

This tweet got me thinking about money today, and why so many on the right and left view money as evil, or even like Government a necessary evil.

I'm here to shatter your conceptions and misconceptions to make you think.

1) Money is neither evil or good, it's inanimate like a handgun.  Similar to the handgun, it can be used for either purpose.

2) Worship of money above all else, is idolatry.  Ancient Jewish wisdom teaches us to not worship money, but to serve others FOR money.  There is nothing more noble, than receiving money voluntarily from someone else, who appreciated the goods or service you provided.  I believe the Randian view of Capitalism is closer to worship of mammon, and is something I would highly discourage.  If your goal is to just make money, than you will not put the customer first.  If your goal is to just make money, your inhibitions will get the best of you.

3) There are two states of mind.  Spending and making.  If you are in a spending state of mind, than you will not want to save anything you make, or go that extra mile to serve others for more money.  If you are in a making state of mind, you will want your money working for you, and you will want to be working for money.

4) Charity should not be expected.  While it is noble to help others, it's far more important to try and teach people on welfare how to work for themselves, and catch their own fish.  So many welfare recipients have an entitlement mentality and are permanently on the Government dole.

The worst part of this mentality, is they believe they deserve someone else's labor.  If you want to help someone, do it through micro loans.

5) The money in your bank account is your life force.  You expend your time (your life energy) to get paid by your customer.  Your customer could be your employer, or it could be someone buying a good or service from you.  In exchange for you expending your life force they give you money, likewise when you purchase property (from a TV to a car, to a toaster oven), you are spending your life energy.  This is why Jewish law was okay with using lethal force to stop theft.  People who steal property and money, are literally stealing people's life force.

6) All taxation is by force, and is another theft of your life force.  This is why the founders wanted taxes applied equally, so that the democracy, couldn't pile on the wealthy.  The Jewish slaves of the Pharaoh were only forced to hand over 20% of their life force.  We currently force 5% of the people to hand over anywhere from 40 to 60% of their life force to the Federal and State Government.  That is EXTREMELY immoral.

The fact that we punitively tax wealth creation is why the economy is stagnating and why more people are not escaping poverty.  We should eliminate the progressive income tax, and hold up the wealthy as a model to follow.  We should all aspire to work that hard, and become self dependent.

The truth shall set you free

We've all heard the old adage, "the truth shall set you free." but few of us really examine the phrase with anything more than a passing glance.

1) What is the truth? The truth is painful, downright ugly. Our society with its political correctness, debt dependent culture evades the truth like a viper. We don't want the truth as it will shatter the fantasy of no responsibility.

2) What is freedom? Freedom isn't free, right? That's another cliche I'll blog about on another day. The bottom line is, we cannot be free while ignoring the truth.

Are you furtively glancing past the truth in your own life? Could be anything, from a spouse that's not paying as much attention to a kid that's changed their behavior. Could be your financially underwater, every month and pretending your making do.

What about in the larger scale? Do you ignore the Marxist indoctrination you're kids get in public schools?

Is your city taking away property rights in name of the collective? Are you really okay with that?

Let the brick of truth trip you and wake you up from your dream world. Everything is not okay, in your family, in your city, in your state and in your country. As long as people run from the truth, they are also giving up liberty in the name of security.

The soviets felt really free with all of their "free" security.

Why I'm still buying a PS4

Let's go down the list of why I'm still switching to PS4.

1) trust. Microsoft has trust issues with its customer base and thought we'd be okay with losing our consumer rights. They have the software and hardware in place to do this again. Aka I still don't trust them.

2) control. The DRM issue and how they treat indies also shows a control issue. They are trying to be like apple but are ending up worse than Apple. Apple still let's developers self publish after going through a review process. Microsoft won't. Indie developers that have worked with Microsoft exclusively are now not working with Microsoft. The new raved about indie game hotline Miami 2 is coming to ps3 and vita and PC, but not Xbox 360. Sony believes in the free market and I along with trusting consumers, trusts developers.

3) vision. Microsoft had no clear vision. Cloud computing being additive? Not without a serious upgrade to the existing infrastructure. They could do what Sony is doing with gaikai and do all of the computations on the cloud. As if right now that will only be enough to power ps3 games. Also part of their vision is muddled, with the DRM crap and reversing it. Sony has had a clear vision all along. Why am I paying $100 more for a box with a kinect? Kinect sucks, why aren't they showing me how it improves the experience with halo, beyond yelling reload or grenade?

4) price. That leads me to this one. Because Microsoft is packing in the kinect it costs $100 more than the ps4. Why am I paying for something I don't want? Why hasn't Microsoft shown off why this new kinect is so awesome and worth the extra money? Honestly this could be also placed in vision.

5) focus. They are trying to make an entertainment box first that also does gaming features. Sony from the get go is making a box that does gaming and also does entertainment. I don't care about the cable TV integration. I don't care that you can Skype while playing a game. I can Skype on my phone while playing a game. Microsoft is trying to make one box to rule them all. And with the trust issues? No way I'm buying one.

6. Exclusives. I think Sony is going to lead with that again. I'm looking forward to uncharted 4 and last of us 2.

Feel Good Philosophy Of Banning Things

People, get a bug up their butt to ban something they see as detrimental to society.  It could be drugs, it could be prostitution, or it could even be something as simple as a plastic bag.  As a free market capitalist, banning these things makes absolutely zero sense to me.  There are unintended consequences that sometimes override the supposed benefits of the feel good ban.

This utopian worldview and feel good philosophy has many unintended consequences.

So what are the unintended consequences of banning plastic bags?

First, increased crime:

The plastic bag ban has caused more crime.

Second, it causes increased disease

From the Article:
“A reusable grocery bag left in a hotel bathroom caused an outbreak of norovirus-induced diarrhea and nausea that struck nine of 13 members of a girls’ soccer team in October, Oregon researchers reported Wednesday.”

The free market and reality are going to make plastic bags, irregardless of your feel good policies trying to ban them and save the world.  Just like with drugs, banning something only increases demand and lowers the supply.  Just like with other items banned the unintended consequences end up worse than the problem they were trying to fix.

The data clearly shows the plastic bag ban is killing and hurting people.

It would also be extremely educational to understand how oil is cracked.  No matter what a refinery does today, they are going to end up with the material to make plastics.  It doesn't use less oil to ban bags, that poly material will be cracked no matter what.

This one is seriously under taught to our youth and politicians.  The question is what will the oil refineries do with that material?  Now that these dystopian mindsets are trying to make the world a better place by banning something that exists naturally as part of cracking a barrel of oil.

In conclusion, we would be well served to not so quickly ban something for the sake of trying to make the world a better place.  What can you do?  Get involved in local politics.  If the city you live in proposes banning plastic bags, present the facts to them.