‘The Right Doesn’t Care’?
A common charge you hear from left-wingers is that they are the cuddly, fluffy parties of caring for those who need it most, and we are the evil parties of the rich and the privileged. If this were actually true, of course, the right wing parties would never get into power. There are far more poor people than rich people, why would they vote for a party not in their interests?
Anyway, we are going to look at why it's not true. We will compare the standpoints of the left with the standpoints of the right, and work out which side really cares more about people and freedom.
The Philosophy of Liberty
Found this while surfing and thought that I should share it here. I'm not in the USA but this pretty much sums up my views.
The Ministry of Defense: It’s in the Name…
Defense [noun]: resistance against attack; protection.
As I'm sure most of you know, I'm no big fan of war. I consider myself to be a strong believer in the Non Aggression Axiom, but I find it somewhat astonishing the number of people who believe that our armed forces should be fighting wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and even in future North Korea or Iran.
The Language of the Left
A topic which I find is often left alone is the way in which the left has corrupted language to better serve itself. I first started to consider this subject when reading Welcome to Obamaland by James Delingpole. Left-wingers have a tendency to attempt to change the meanings of words in order to stop their use in debate. As Delingpole writes:
Unfortunately when Obama talks of equality I fear he means something entirely different. What he means by equality is the liberal-left version of equality-not equality of opportunity but equality of outcome. This state-enforced fairness is in fact the very opposite of fair because it completely overlooks the most fundamental point about human beings: we are all different.
Unfortunately, 'equality' isn't the only word which the left seem to have attempted to hijack from its original meaning. Let's take 'liberty' for example.
The Welfare Trap Exposed
Something I often find myself discussing with friends in the UK is the current state of welfare in the country. For those of you who don't know, the welfare state in the UK is a mammoth, providing money for just about any reason you can think of, and quite a bit of it as well, straight from the taxpayer's purse. The belief of the left is that somehow this dinosaur helps the poor, but really all it seems to do is keep them poor and keep their productivity down. We're going to look at how.
Meet Dave, he's a 26 year old unemployed man. He left school at 16 with GCSE qualifications, and has never had a job. He claims benefits and lives off of those. You may deride Dave and tell him he's done all manner of things wrong, but has he? As an unskilled worker, Dave is probably only going to be able to work for around the minimum wage. This is £5.93 per hour. Let's assume Dave could work 40 hours a week, this would give him a total weekly income of £237.20, or £12,334.00 per annum.
The Tragedy of Communism (Homo Economicus)
I was reading this post over at Azarius' blog, and felt that I needed to have my say on it, as it describes a dichotomy between capitalism and communism as a choice between a future-driven lifestyle and a present-driven lifestyle.
What Azarius proposes is that in communism (he is an anarcho-communist), each person would have a choice about how much time to use in productive means, and this would be independent of their quality of life, whereas in capitalism, each person needs to sacrifice time in order to gain wealth.
Whilst this picture looks very glamorous for communism, what Azarius fails to mention is that although people will share society's wealth, the actual amount of wealth in society is higher when there are more hours spent on productive means.
In other words, although for the individual, his graphs are correct, the graph labelled 'Private' will always represent the time to wealth relationship for the society. The more productive society is, the more wealth will be distributed amongst the people (whether via capitalism or communism).
The Case Against Welfare
One of the tricky subjects I always seem to find myself discussing is welfare. Unfortunately, as is typical of the left, as soon as I proclaim to be opposed to the welfare state I am automatically an ideological maniac with a hard-on for the rich and hate social equality etc etc.
As a voluntarist, it is incompatible with my philosophy to demand that another person pays my way in life, especially via forced taxation. However, this is not to say that the poor should not get any services or help to afford a comfortable lifestyle.
The Law in a Stateless Realm
This post will form an introduction to law in a free society, as I would see it. The minimums of law required to run a free society.
Although I often blog about contemporary politics in a mainstream society, I am an anarcho-capitalist and accept that the state may not be the best tool for freedom in a country (the same could be said for democracy, but that's another matter entirely). To this end, I am somewhat of a Constitutional Voluntarist.
Basically, two sets of rights would exist in society: natural rights and contractual rights.
Why AGW theory is so popular…
Saw this great piece over at The Emptiness (hat tip: The UK Libertarian blog) and thought I'd share it with you all.
Governments love the issue because it provides a good excuse for more taxes, regulation and bureaucracy. Scientists love it because it provides grant money and subsidies, as well as fancy trips to exotic locales on someone else’s dime. Government bureaucrats love it for that too (actually, everyone involved loves it for that). Socialists love it because it shows the evils of capitalism. Environmentalists love it because it shows the evils of civilization. Religious leaders love it because it shows the evils of humanity. Statists love it because it seems to be a problem that can only be solved with a bigger state. Corporations love it because they can get government subsidies to pretend to invent “green” products that people can pretend will solve the non-existent problem. Guilt-ridden middle class liberals love it because it helps them to feel alive for a few brief moments before the emptiness returns. Celebrities love it because it gives them a feel good issue to advocate for in order to assuage their guilt over their own extreme wealth and lavish lifestyles. Pretty much every member of the political and intellectual class has a stake in this issue surviving, and so it probably will. Judah Cohen himself is in on the scam and has managed to mix in a bit of the military-industrial-complex for flavor.
The end of the world from climate change or global warming is probably not going to happen. They probably won’t even cause any inconvenience. If you are going to worry, worry about what the global bureaucrats and other AGW interest groups are planning to do to you.
See the whole piece here.
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