soup lines for everyone

UNIVERSAL RIGHTS

There are only two certainties in life - death and taxes. Despite this, a lot of people believe in universal positive rights. Everyone has a right to health care, a home, a decent paying job, a good education (material rights) the socialists say. Not just the right to pursue these things but rather they must be given to everyone on earth even if they are capable but unwilling to get things on their own (due to systemic dicrimination of course). And to achieve this 'material security' they propose taking away other's negative rights (liberty of action, the right to own property, freedom of thought). Progressives dictate that it is everyones legal responsibility to make sure everyone else has these material rights through paying taxes to the state which then provides all these benefits - and if you refuse to subsidise the materially challenged, you will be imprisoned. And that sums up the problem with positive rights in the first place. How can they exist across time? Did they apply when humans lived as hunter-gatherers? Will they apply when the earth goes out of balance due to global warming in ten years? If positive rights don't have this continuity of existence, then when were they created and by whom? If one willingly chooses to do nothing, is the rest of society still obligated to provide them with positive rights though government? Does one have the right to willingly harm themselves? If one expects "from all: what one is capable" then who judges what ones capabilities are? (or is the assumption that human nature is altruistic when removed from the capitalist rat race?) The same problem arises in determining "to all: what one needs." Legitimate governments are created to protect individuals' negative rights not to bestow positive rights on select groups. The only thing universal in socialist mantra is suffering.

corporate welfare as we know it

WEALTH

Not all robber barons are the same. The so-called gilded age of the late 1800's and supposedly re-emerging today is full of popular populist myths. The original robber barons extracted tolls along the Rhine river by force in the middle ages - but Rockefeller and Gates competed in a competitive marketplace to gain their commanding advantage and did not rely on the fiat power of government. If anything they wanted government to leave them alone. The same is not true of Sun Microsystems and Netscape that tried to use government power to un-enrich Microsoft. John Edwards thinks there is two Americas - and he is correct - but not along lines of class defined by wealth as he fantasizes. The two Americas are those that make it on their own and pay taxes and those who rely on transfer payments from government politicians for their very own survival (and vise versa). The investment banker making many millions a year is in the same class as the specialty bakery owner making a more modest income. The millionaire sports team owner who blackmails his city for a new taxpayer funded stadium is in the same class as the welfare queen with half a dozen illegitimate children. Now standard oil (ExonMobil) is truly becoming a robber baron with their acceptance of human CO2 caused global warming and their eventual demand for tax writeoffs and subsidies to reduce greenhouse gasses. This is an important distinction.

removed from accountability

FEDERALISM

Sitting at the bar, hat with sunglasses on the bill - cell phone plopped down on the table (to be spun occasionally), Joey contemplated all the injustices in the nation. You see, the states are cash strapped - their peoples don't tolerate large tax increases, and state government is often limited in open ended borrowing. Inbetween cell phone calls at the top of his lungs to Friends, Joey decided that the true culprit was the U.S. concept of federalism. He agreed that the federal government already ran roughshod over the states, but he thought the whole concept should be thrown out completely. The federal government should just open up its pocket book and shovel cash to the states - that way local politicians could talk about all the new programs they have proposed and enacted without having to show the price tag. Headstart, medicaid, cops-on-the-street, homeland (pork) security, job training, and college tuition should all be lavished with more federal funding, Joey thought. With the direct election of senators the pork flows pretty good, but certain concepts of federalism still stood in the way. For instance, schools are funded mostly at the state level, and even though education dollar per pupil is tops in the world, no child left behind remains an unfunded mandate. He also lamented the Gingrich revolution taking away the federally mandated speed limit of 55. After stating his whole agenda for the day to the waitress - and describing his car and official job title in exacting detail, Joey left determined to undermine limited government and peoples natural rights - he despised the tenth amendment. He totally disagreed with the statement that "a government powerful enough to promise everything to everybody is powerful enough to take it away", because he knew that with a little slight-of-hand, the only thing being taken away was wealth from the rich.

religious fools

RELIGION

The chief characteristics of religion throughout history are (1)belief in a deity, (2)a doctrine of salvation, (3)a code of conduct (4)the use of sacred texts and (5)religious rituals. Also religion requires a leap of faith to explain some things that are not explained by science or are in contradiction to science. The Global Warming Religion fits this bill, a branch of the commi-enviro religions. Practitioners believe in the earth, pre-civilization, unmolested by humans as the supreme deity. Their doctrine of salvation is to take humanity back to the time before industrialisation. To do this, all sins against the earth must be recanted such as - so called -polluting CO2 greenhouse gasses (water vapor is also a greenhouse gas, btw). Recycling and energy reduction also weigh heavily in their code of conduct, as well as keeping developing nations undeveloped. Their sacred texts are many but the most authoritative would be the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. Their rituals include advocating policies of human sacrifice of technological progress, by abandoning hydro-carbons, and all human activities that change the earth. Followers of this religion may be know as Greens or EcoFreinds, and follow their prophet Al Gore. They label as heretics any Global Warming Religion deniers, and excommunicate scientist from the climate change community if they worship false idols or are skeptical of the computer models (enlightenment advances such as the scientific method have not caught on yet with the Debate is Over Crowd). The leap of faith they take is that man-made CO2 causes global warming and that global warming will make life on earth less habitable. With the great prophet predicting only ten years to act, it should not be too long before a giant pitcher of Kool-Aid is mixed up at Davos.

western imposition

HISTORY OF VALUES

Ok, slavery has existed across all cultures and all times until the present. It is not a fundamental characteristic unique to the west. The same with colonialism and conquering so called native peoples and taking their land. In antiquity, when new successful civilizations expanded, they displaced or absorbed less successful ones. The original native Americans were displaced many times by new groups of asian/pacific peoples from the pacific islands or across the Bering strait long before Columbus showed up. And the borders among the various tribes of native Americans were always in flux, with the stronger conquering the weaker before the Spanish, British and French warred over the new world. Europeans gave the west "indians" small pox, they gave Europe tobacco (organic and not grown by multi-nationals though) and maybe syphilis. The only thing unique about western culture is that it ended slavery world-wide, even against the protestation of African tribal kings who greatly profited from capturing rival African tribes and selling them into slavery. The Barbary pirates may have enslaved more Europeans into Africa than the number of Africans taken to the new world, yet this was ended by western society (with their evil western tradition and moral vanity). It is also the present western culture that dominates the international system with rules regarding the static freezing of national borders. Colonialism brought many advances into the third world that would not have been achieved otherwise (including the excuse of colonialism to explain ones present backwardness). The concept of a nation state with fixed borders was more advanced than many primitive people had yet discovered and this is why most of the worlds national borders were drawn by the west. The concept of the individual with natural rights and equality under the rule of law are western in origin. These concepts have been forced on the benighted mostly against their will. This is not an argument that colonialism or slavery are justified by the results. But it reminds me of that scene in Life of Brian, where the Palestinians are making a decree against Roman tyranny but have to exempt all the good things the Romans brought such as: law and order, the aqueduct, roads ect., ect. We should pay reparations to the real victims here: Neanderthals.

aren't they dreamy

INTERNATIONS

It would appear that there are a lot of lonely politicians in the world - that they would love to talk and have more summits if only they were not so shy. Many dictators and tyrants are isolated and marginalized on the international scene, not getting the high level meetings they crave and need for their own good health and legitimacy. Also many in the media and ant-west faction of politics absolutely adore these types of totalitarian rulers - either admiring their economic (disasters) or anti-Bush rhetoric. Still others of a more compassionate bent believe with the proper dialogue they can be changed - like the hopeless (fatherfigureless) girl trying to save her bad-boy boyfriend. Well a good remedy would be an international pen pal / conversation partner program that could be administered by the U.N. It would match international thugs with bleeding heart modern liberals based on skills and needs. Imagine in addition to Nancy Pelosi/Bashar al-Assad there could be Barbra Boxer/Fidel Castro, Dianne Feinstein/Kim Jong Il, Hillary Clinton/Robert Mugabe, Katie Couric/Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, John Edwards/Hugo Chavez, all in the Madlin Albright/Yessir Arafat tradition. It could be chicken soup soul therapy for all involved.

the cure at last

PUBLIC HEALTH

After millions of dollars were raised by walking millions of miles and passing out millions of ribbons and wrist bands, the cure was finally found. What a triumph of medical science, and proof positive that if a goal is set, no matter how lofty, if one follows their dreams, their dreams may just come true. Of course the government played a big role so the accolades were spread around plenty. Especially the employees at the official statistics of health were celebrating with much celebratory vigor. But after all the gala's and parties and self congratulation, something bazaar was discovered and quite counterintuitive. Micheal Knight, the supervisor of the programme that monitors death statistics noticed that after the cure was found less people died of that disease, but all other disease rates increased. He knew it probably had to do with global warming or McDonalds yet he was having trouble formulating a proper theory. Before testifying before the government legislative committee for health he rehearsed his talking points. "Yes we have found the cure but so much more needs to be done, other diseases are increasing. Government needs to raise taxes to provide more funding to find other cures. The overall death rate for humans still seems to be 100%!" Micheal Knight, with the help of a talking wrist watch, took great pride in his official duties insuring that government programs had a beginning a middle but never an end.