Dan Popp
Jabberwocky
By Dan Popp
Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch! — Lewis Carroll
Politicians and the media don't always lie or talk nonsense. Sometimes they do both.
A balanced approach
If you were a previously healthy 200-pound man now carrying around a 200-pound tumor, should we lop off half of your disease-free body and half of the cancer? If someone ran up an astronomical credit card bill making (mostly illegal) purchases, and then demanded that all the other cardholders pay it, would that be "balance?" Yes, apparently, to an upside-downer. Some problems can be solved by addressing all the factors involved — and some can't. Sometimes, viable alternatives should be rejected because they are immoral. Reconciling a budget by printing money or by hiking income tax rates are indeed sound options — if theft and robbery are acceptable.
The left's conundrum boils down to this: If there is no private property, and what you naively consider to be "your" stuff really belongs to everyone, then government is unnecessary. That condition is called anarchy: the strongest group takes what it wants from the rest. We need government only if we're interested in protecting people and safeguarding their stuff from the covetousness of others; which presupposes the right of private property.
The underlying leftist assumption seems to be that the rich owe more simply because they have more. But this is the logic of the bandit. When Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he reportedly replied, "Because that's where the money is." That's the ethical foundation for redistributionism.
"Rich" and "poor" are differences in degree, not differences in kind. There is no moral distinction between the single mother heroically attempting to feed her family, educate herself and eventually prosper; and the person who has worked hard, studied hard and prospered. They may even be the same person at different stages of life. The same person doing the same thing in the same way cannot be good when struggling, and bad when succeeding.
Debt crisis
What we have in the United States is an overspending crisis, caused by the over-government.
Stimulus
If the record of the past three years does not fully debunk Keynesian economics, what would?
Balanced Budget Amendment
If the usurpers who now hold the reins of our national government could be restrained by the Constitution, we wouldn't have any federal "entitlements," and thus, no overspending crisis. A balanced budget amendment, in my opinion, is superfluous. Why write more laws for our employees in Washington to ignore? The amendment we need is one that repeals the 16th Amendment. Without the ability to rob some citizens in order to buy votes from others, most of the other Marxist shenanigans could not happen. If everyone paid the same taxes — once per dollar, at the point of purchase of every good or service — then class warfare would be brought to a halt.
One particular danger of the Balanced Budget Amendment, in the form recently brought forth, is that it assumes that the government has a right to almost 20% of everything produced in the country. Despite the good intentions of those proposing it, that's ridiculous, unjust, and must not be enshrined in the Constitution.
Means testing
Even Good Guys like Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the Heritage Foundation have suggested means testing as one way to keep Social Security solvent. In case you're not familiar with the concept, means testing Social Security would take from each according to his ability, and give to each according to his needs. Yes, boys and girls, "means testing" means Marxism. It's another layer of redistribution to be added on top of the original (now crashing) redistribution. So when Marxism inevitably fails, the solution is more Marxism?
Social Security reform
You reform a Ponzi scheme by ending it. Social Security may be broke, but it isn't broken; it's functioning exactly as FDR intended: as a fund for buying votes for Democrats in perpetuity.
Double-dip recession
When are the media going to acknowledge that we're living through the Second Great Depression, created and exacerbated by the philosophical grandchildren of the First?
And my favorite bit of jabberwocky:
We can't balance the budget on the backs of the poor
Translation: Let's keep trying to balance Socialism on the backs of Capitalists. Sooner or later it's got to work.
© Dan Popp
August 5, 2011
Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch! — Lewis Carroll
Politicians and the media don't always lie or talk nonsense. Sometimes they do both.
A balanced approach
If you were a previously healthy 200-pound man now carrying around a 200-pound tumor, should we lop off half of your disease-free body and half of the cancer? If someone ran up an astronomical credit card bill making (mostly illegal) purchases, and then demanded that all the other cardholders pay it, would that be "balance?" Yes, apparently, to an upside-downer. Some problems can be solved by addressing all the factors involved — and some can't. Sometimes, viable alternatives should be rejected because they are immoral. Reconciling a budget by printing money or by hiking income tax rates are indeed sound options — if theft and robbery are acceptable.
The left's conundrum boils down to this: If there is no private property, and what you naively consider to be "your" stuff really belongs to everyone, then government is unnecessary. That condition is called anarchy: the strongest group takes what it wants from the rest. We need government only if we're interested in protecting people and safeguarding their stuff from the covetousness of others; which presupposes the right of private property.
The underlying leftist assumption seems to be that the rich owe more simply because they have more. But this is the logic of the bandit. When Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he reportedly replied, "Because that's where the money is." That's the ethical foundation for redistributionism.
"Rich" and "poor" are differences in degree, not differences in kind. There is no moral distinction between the single mother heroically attempting to feed her family, educate herself and eventually prosper; and the person who has worked hard, studied hard and prospered. They may even be the same person at different stages of life. The same person doing the same thing in the same way cannot be good when struggling, and bad when succeeding.
Debt crisis
What we have in the United States is an overspending crisis, caused by the over-government.
Stimulus
If the record of the past three years does not fully debunk Keynesian economics, what would?
Balanced Budget Amendment
If the usurpers who now hold the reins of our national government could be restrained by the Constitution, we wouldn't have any federal "entitlements," and thus, no overspending crisis. A balanced budget amendment, in my opinion, is superfluous. Why write more laws for our employees in Washington to ignore? The amendment we need is one that repeals the 16th Amendment. Without the ability to rob some citizens in order to buy votes from others, most of the other Marxist shenanigans could not happen. If everyone paid the same taxes — once per dollar, at the point of purchase of every good or service — then class warfare would be brought to a halt.
One particular danger of the Balanced Budget Amendment, in the form recently brought forth, is that it assumes that the government has a right to almost 20% of everything produced in the country. Despite the good intentions of those proposing it, that's ridiculous, unjust, and must not be enshrined in the Constitution.
Means testing
Even Good Guys like Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the Heritage Foundation have suggested means testing as one way to keep Social Security solvent. In case you're not familiar with the concept, means testing Social Security would take from each according to his ability, and give to each according to his needs. Yes, boys and girls, "means testing" means Marxism. It's another layer of redistribution to be added on top of the original (now crashing) redistribution. So when Marxism inevitably fails, the solution is more Marxism?
Social Security reform
You reform a Ponzi scheme by ending it. Social Security may be broke, but it isn't broken; it's functioning exactly as FDR intended: as a fund for buying votes for Democrats in perpetuity.
Double-dip recession
When are the media going to acknowledge that we're living through the Second Great Depression, created and exacerbated by the philosophical grandchildren of the First?
And my favorite bit of jabberwocky:
We can't balance the budget on the backs of the poor
Translation: Let's keep trying to balance Socialism on the backs of Capitalists. Sooner or later it's got to work.
© Dan Popp
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