My core philosophy, a followup to “Why I am no longer a Libertarian”
There were a lot of comments in my post Why I am no longer a Libertarian that I decided I would respond to with a new post.
It is best, perhaps, if I explained my overarching philosophy and why I became a Libertarian, and then partially why I left Libertarianism.
I do not like to abide seeing those with power abuse or take advantage of those without power.
I believe that society functions best when people live according to the golden rule: do unto others as you would want them to do unto you.
It is a very simple philosophy, putting it into practice is much harder.
It was the first part of my philosophy that guided me into Libertarianism. I wanted to keep those in political power in check.
This is why I am a gun owner and fundamentally believe in the Second Amendment. If power ever gets too abusive, I want the tools to fight back.
One of the reasons I started to Leave Libertarianism is that power comes in many forms. Political power is one form, violence is another, and money is a thrid.
Curbing political power is critical. Hence the importance of a Constitution that limits power and court system that enforces those limits. Then gun rights as a last resort.
Violence as power is also a reason why I am a supporter of gun rights. When the thug who lacks the moral compunction against hurting someone to take their property attacks me for my wallet, I want the tools to fight him off.
But what about money as power. More than just the ability to buy political influence. This has been the core of many of my posts about the “McKinsey effect” where top executives who have the economic power to destroy lives for their own profit, do it.
Price gouging is a part of this. Sure, John Stossel can say that with anti-gouging laws some guy won’t fill his truck and trailer with water and generators and drive down to where a twister just happened to magnanimously sell his wares for profit. But as far as I can find, those stories are anecdotal. Looking into price gouging, it seems that the vast majority of people prosecuted are independent store or bodega owners who the day before it was announced the hurricane would hit were selling water for $0.99 a gallon and the day after it was announced were selling the same water from the same inventory for $9.99 per gallon.
These are individuals who suddenly came into power due to an upset and their first thought is “now I have the upper hand so I’m going to fuck everyone I can out of as much money as I can before things return to normal.”
This guy might not be a CEO or politician but his sudden rise to power and desire to abuse it is the same.
One of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my life was the Cajun Navy. People who volunteered to rescue people stranded off rooftops after Hurricane Katrina.
I was still in college when that happened and remember my Libertarian friends saying those people really should be charging those they rescued. I cannot imagine anything uglier than a guy with a fishing boat pulling up to a house with people on the roof saying “you can get in the boat if you hand over your jewelry and cash.” I’m glad it didn’t happen.
The first thing to remember is that the economy is not a society. There are more important things than money. He who dies with the most stuff doesn’t win.
While the cold hyper-rational economic arguments for price gouging might make sense in an academic setting, what it also creates is social strife and misery.
The grandmother on a fixed income may not have the ability to store large amounts of gasoline or water in advance, or maybe a tree fell on the shed she stored it in and her stockpile was ruined. Letting the gas station owner gouge her might make him temporarily rich, but it also makes her grandson want to cave in his head with a hammer.
So much of what I saw in the Libertarian movement was “I got mine, you can go fuck yourself.” It was selfish and mean spirited.
I don’t think the government can fix most problems. I believe the private sector is far better at managing society. But at the same time, I believe that government is necessary to curb some market abuses. I have no desire to go back to the days of the traveling patent medicine shows or getting paid in script at the company store.
I want to live in a pleasant society where people generally treat each other decently and those who have power, even if it is fleeting and due to some freak incident, do not use that power to take advantage of others.
If that means that the government has to temporarily level the playing field in a crisis by imposing rules, that’s part of living in a civil society that tries to minimize strife. It’s a matter of balancing different powers against one another to come up with the lightest touch that creates an equilibrium in which a polite and civil society can flourish.
Miguel reminded me earlier of what Ayn Rand had to say on this topic:
All kinds of people today call themselves “libertarians,” especially something calling itself the New Right, which consists of hippies who are anarchists instead of leftist collectivists; but anarchists are collectivists. Capitalism is the one system that requires absolute objective law, yet libertarians combine capitalism and anarchism. That’s worse than anything the New Left has proposed. It’s a mockery of philosophy and ideology. They sling slogans and try to ride on two bandwagons. They want to be hippies, but don’t want to preach collectivism because those jobs are already taken. But anarchism is a logical outgrowth of the anti-intellectual side of collectivism. I could deal with a Marxist with a greater chance of reaching some kind of understanding, and with much greater respect. Anarchists are the scum of the intellectual world of the Left, which has given them up. So the Right picks up another leftist discard. That’s the libertarian movement.
For the record, I shall repeat what I have said many times before: I do not join or endorse any political group or movement. More specifically, I disapprove of, disagree with and have no connection with, the latest aberration of some conservatives, the so-called “hippies of the right,” who attempt to snare the younger or more careless ones of my readers by claiming simultaneously to be followers of my philosophy and advocates of anarchism. Anyone offering such a combination confesses his inability to understand either. Anarchism is the most irrational, anti-intellectual notion ever spun by the concrete-bound, context-dropping, whim-worshiping fringe of the collectivist movement, where it properly belongs.
I have to agree. So much of what I read in the comments just seems like economic anarchy.
And just because I believe that some bodega owner shouldn’t be able to say “there was a run on milk yesterday so when I get my new stock in this morning I’m going to up the price ten times today,” that doesn’t make me Hitler.
The toilet paper crisis has broken me
Dear Lord almightly:
Oregon police department asks public not to call 911 if they run out of toilet paper
This is real. Here is the text in its entirety:
It’s hard to believe that we even have to post this. Do not call 9-1-1 just because you ran out of toilet paper. You will survive without our assistance.
In fact, history offers many other options for you in your time of need if you cannot find a roll of your favorite soft, ultra plush two-ply citrus scented tissue.
Seamen used old rope and anchor lines soaked in salt water. Ancient Romans used a sea sponge on a stick, also soaked in salt water. We are a coastal town. We have an abundance of salt water available. Sea shells were also used.
Mayans used corn cobs. Colonial Americans also used the core of the cob. Farmers not only used corn cobs, but used pages from the Farmers Almanac. Many Americans took advantage of the numerous pages torn from free catalogs such as Sears and Roebuck. The Sears Christmas catalog, four times thicker than the normal catalog, could get a family of three wiped clean from December through Valentine’s Day; or Saint Patrick’s Day if they were frugal.
Then, of course, there are always alternatives to toilet paper. Grocery receipts, newspaper, cloth rags, lace, cotton balls, and that empty toilet paper roll sitting on the holder right now. Plus, there are a variety of leaves you can safely use. Mother Earth News magazine will even tell you how to make your own wipes using fifteen different leaves. When all else fails, you have magazine pages. Start saving those catalogs you get in the mail that you usually toss into the recycle bin. Be resourceful. Be patient. There is a TP shortage. This too shall pass. Just don’t call 9-1-1. We cannot bring you toilet paper.
How hard is it to figure out what to do if you run out of toilet paper at home?
At work, it might be a litter harder, but you can improvise: the coffee filters in the break room, any memo posted by management, the suit jacket your executive manager left in his office (be sure to turn the sleeve inside out to wipe with the satin lining, then turn it back right side out before putting it back).
But at home, the shower is right there. What is wrong with people?
You know what. Maybe the Libertarians are right. If you run out of toilet paper, offer your neighbors $500 and/or a blowjob for a roll. Who am I to moralize against profiteering and sex work.
Better yet, let chaos reign. If you catch your neighbor hoarding toilet paper, wipe your ass with his cat when he lets it out. Or just steal his toilet paper with swift and violent action.
You know what paper products are still available? When I went to Lowes yesterday, they still had an aisle full of sandpaper. Just be sure to get the ultra-fine finish stuff.
There are no rules anymore. The police cannot handle the downfall of society from the number of people who can’t figure out how to clean shit off their asses in the myriad of ways humans have since the first human civilization was formed in Mesopotamia 6,000 years ago until toilet paper was invented in 1857.
Our Founding Fathers managed to shit and write both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States without paper on a roll.
Michaelangelo managed to carve the Pieta and paint the Sistine Chapel before toilet paper was commercially available.
Beethoven composed the 9th Symphony before he could wipe ass with mass-marketed ass wipe tissue.
But now that there is a temporary shortage of toilet paper the Western World can no longer function.
We are doomed. Doomed I tell you.
You know what, maybe I’m thinking about this all wrong.
I need to buy an upholstery cleaner. There is going to be a lot of money to be made off of people who own fabric couches and had no idea what to do when they ran out of toilet paper for two weeks.
Bernie was really showing his true colors at the debate against Joe
I saw this posted on Twitter, and holy crap, Bernie has no idea how awful this makes him look.
Bernie Sanders just responded to his justification of Cuba's human rights abuses by justifying China's human rights abuses.
Yes, really. He's this bad at this. #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/VvOZKIkXTJ
— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) March 16, 2020
China’s economy is entirely the result of it being a cruel authoritarian society.
The well connected can get ahead. Those who are entrepreneurial have to play the government game (bribery, corruption, etc).
The rest of China is just fodder for the machine.
Literally:
The base of the Chinese economy runs on essentially conscript slave labor. Workers are treated as disposable. This forced labor for pay isn’t exactly the same raising people out of poverty as the growth of the Middle Class in the United States.
Furthermore, the Chinese standard for extreme poverty is very different than ours. Much of central and rural China is impoverished, by Western standards, as the Chinese government declared the poverty line to be $350 per year. In 2018, nearly 500 Million Chinese lived on the equivalent to $5.50 per day.
For Sanders to praise conscript labor in a factory under dangerous conditions for a daily wage that won’t cover a Big Mac meal as an accomplishment is reprehensible.
If Sanders conducted a seance and channeled the spirit of Chairman Mao straight from hell, his answer wouldn’t have been any different.
Prescient Trump… – The Last Refuge
So perhaps it’s not a surprise that most Americans did not know about the proactive steps that President Trump was taking. After all, the entirety of the media focus was on a ridiculous Senate impeachment trial while the White House Coronavirus mitigation effort was happening.
However, it sure is blood-boiling to watch the media now. To see the media cheer-leading for a national health crisis -literally with smiling faces as they hope for an economic collapse- for the exact same gleeful reason they cheered the impeachment effort. The level of U.S. media vitriol against President Trump is sickening.
I just want to reinforce one more thing: The Democrats were aware of the Corona Virus problem too. They chose to ignore it for the political clown show of impeachment. As long as they get to win, they do not care how many die. Power demand broken eggs for the omelette.
When this virus thing is over, the case of Italy needs to be studied.
I have taken up reading Italian Newspapers (still amazed I can understand so much and thanks to browser translators) and I believe Italians are the epidemiological version of deer caught in the headlights.
Why is there such a huge cluster of infection up north? Italy is an old country in the sense of the age of its people’s age, but I don’t think old people are living all north.
«The health situation in Bergamo is very complicated,’ Gori continued. The city is the epicenter of this emergency. The number of infected continues to grow, of those taken to the hospital, put in intensive care. Unfortunately, the number of deaths is increasing, about 50 a day, 300 in the last week. Meanwhile, doctors in hospitals and GPs are sick, there are more than 70 of them who are ill for doing their job.
Already in these hours some serious patients have been transferred to other regions, which I thank for the availability. Similarly, many bodies were shipped to other places for cremation. The oven in the city of Bergamo is not able to dispose of all the work it has to do;
Coronavirus a Bergamo, Gori da Fazio: «Manca tutto». Borrelli: «Arrivano mascherine»
They are overwhelmed.
I have no idea but wild guesses about bot being ready for even the most basic of epidemics. Was it politics? Bureaucracy? or simply good old Italian relaxed culture?
I hope they figure it out and we get to learn from it.