I recently received this email. It made me think.
You GOTTA LOVE this COUNTRY
My Dogs
This morning I went to sign my dogs up for welfare. At first the lady said, “Dogs are not eligible to draw welfare.” So I explained to her that my dogs are mixed in color, unemployed, lazy, can’t speak English and have no frigging
clue who their Daddies are. They expect me to feed them and provide them with housing and medical care.
So the welfare clerk looked in her policy book to see what it takes to qualify for welfare. My dogs get their first checks Friday.
Darn, this is a great country.
*******
My liberal friends would label this commentary as racist and then ignore the reality of people taking advantage of government (taxpayer) largesse. My conservative friends would label this commentary as truthful and then ignore the racist undertones. I understand the human desire to help those in need. I also understand that any taxpayer support must be short term with strict oversight or we get what we’ve gotten, a permanent welfare class supported by a burgeoning bureaucracy and a growing police state. Without checks, there is no balance.
Questions we can ask liberals and conservatives.
1. For Liberals: Why won’t liberals confront the reality that there are many people taking advantage of taxpayer largesse and advocate for systems that have limits and real oversight?
2. For Liberals: What should taxpayers think when people demand unending services but refuse to educate and upgrade themselves and their life situation?
3. For Liberals: Why do you automatically think it is understandable and forgivable for “poor” people to take improper advantage of middleclass taxpayers?
4. For Liberals: Why do you automatically think it is “fascist,” “typical,” uncharitable, not proper, etc. for taxpayers to want to weed out those scamming “the system” and restrict payments to those in genuine need?
5. For Liberals: Why do you not back efforts at real welfare reform, which examine Waste, Fraud, and Abuse within the Welfare systems?
6. For Liberals: How is it proper for young adults to refuse to educate themselves and to then expect the “right” to live on welfare for the rest of their lives and going forward for generations, as their parents have, going back several generations?
7. For Conservatives: When and why does an emphasis on maintaining standards become legitimately racist, mean spirited and wrongheaded?
8. For Conservatives: Does it matter if your opinion is racist, mean spirited or wrongheaded if you stop welfare cheats?
9. For Conservatives: Should we always allow people to wallow in their own lack of foresight, or should taxpayers provide long term support, or support only in emergencies, or should we not provide any taxpayer support at all?
10. For Conservatives: Should we go back to the old system of letting the churches and private institutions provide the help for the poor or has the situation gotten so out of hand that taxpayer support is necessary?
11. For Conservatives: Are there racial, class and other economic realities which conservatives ignore and should taxpayers be required to pay for them?
12. For Conservatives: Is it OK for people to go to churches and private institutions for help or is it too demeaning and therefore, public support is necessary to provide help?
13. For Conservatives: Why do conservatives feel a welfare program should be eliminated versus being well and properly controlled?
14. For Conservatives: Do you like receiving some of the government sponsored benefits being paid by taxpayers? Which ones would you give up?
15. For Liberals: When does help in an emergency cross over to being dependent care?
16. For Liberals: Why do liberals think it OK to steal the sustenance from the productive in order to give it to the non-productive?
17. For Liberals: Why do liberals get so exercised by symbolism and ignore realities, i.e. labeling “non-productive” as a racist term but never holding non-productive persons accountable?
18. For Liberals: Why do liberals think that theft via taxation for a supposed social good is not really theft?
19. For Both: How is society benefited when the number of individuals receiving taxpayer subsidies and the high amount of those subsidies relentlessly limit the upward mobility of the taxpayers because the taxpayer must take a second job to pay the bills instead of using that time to get further education?
20. For Both: How is society benefited when corporations receiving taxpayer subsidies relentlessly limit the upward mobility of regular taxpayers?
21. For Both: How is society benefited when corporations are allowed to become so large that they squeeze out lesser competition, and with the connivance of government, become monopolies and the dictators of policy?
22. For Both: What is worse; people surviving at a low level with lots of government help and little potential to rise because of overwhelming government control, or because of little government control, people surviving at a low level but with the real potential of rising?
23. For Liberals: Is mere subsistence existence the desired end or is it the obligation of the lucky (providers) to forever provide for the unlucky (takers)?
24. For Liberals: Why and how is it a good thing for the government to transfer wealth from those who have it to those who do not?
25. For Conservatives: Why is allowing the unlimited size of a corporation seen as good and a right, rather than being seen as bad and a monopoly or oligopoly or part of a cartel?
26. For both: Why do we continue to believe the same, unending promises of “change” made by those seeking power?
27. For both: Why do those, having gained power, never, ever live up to the promises they made?
28. For Both: What is it about the human race that it will continually suffer the indignities perpetrated by those wishing to retain power?
29. For Liberals: In each socialistic society large business entities still operate. Why do liberals not see that liberal leaders merely want to transfer the power from Crony Capitalists to themselves?
30. For Liberals: The little understood but actual definition of Socialism should be, “A marketing system intended to keep those at the top in control over those at the bottom.” After seeing that no Socialistic society has benefited mankind, you still cleave to Socialism and its fellow travelers, Fascism, Communism, Egalitarianism, Fabianism, etc. Why do you believe The Freedom Philosophy does not move men forward?
31. For Conservatives: Why don’t you believe in The Freedom Philosophy enough to help move it forward?
32. For All: The US Constitution set up a negative form of government, i.e. government that is required to defend a person’s natural rights to their life, liberty and property, acting as a sheriff to right a wrong after it has been committed. The Constitution IS the republic. Why won’t you defend “the republic” as you have pledged your allegiance to do?
33. For All: Why have you not come to study and understand how the concept of positive government, i.e. government creating rules to protect a person, gives government power while it deprives Americans of responsibility and freedom of action. Government gets the power to make and administer the rules and the power to enforce its rules against the people.
Negative versus Positive Government
The argument for positive government is that it is supposed to prevent law breaking. However, persons of good will, and that is most of us, consistently perform good behavior. We don’t break the rules, especially the unwritten rules. Positive government only gives government power and takes it away from citizens. Those disposed to breaking the rules don’t care if rules exist, that’s why some are criminals. Therefore, it is axiomatic that the positive government rules are in existence merely to enable power to exist, i.e. to allow the powerful to control those who would do correct behavior even if the rules were not in place.
If government were not in place, the Natural Law of Self Defense enables each person to hold accountable those who steal or harm, hence, the idea of Citizen’s Arrest. Because it is not convenient or possible for all of us to chase criminals, we hire a sheriff and entitle his office with the power of the people’s rights to arrest so as to defend US. The sheriff has no more power than each of US.
Every time I hear someone say that the Constitution is a “living” document, I immediately ask what is meant by that. I’m always told that, “the Constitution can change with the times;” that, “the Constitution was written for an agrarian society.” Some say this view is dangerous.
I ask them to compare the Constitution to the Ten Commandments. The ideas in the Ten Commandments are truths that endure, truths upon which an entire society can be based and prosper. I ask, “Would you do away with ‘Thou shalt not steal.’? “Of course not,” they say. “Why not?” I ask. “The Ten Commandments are very old and were given during an agrarian economy – that seems to be your criteria.”
People sort of shrug, realizing that their ideas are not fully formed but they don’t change their minds because they have been brainwashed to think that positive government “is a good thing.”
People see a problem and human nature requires a solution. Because government has become the be all and end all, they endorse some government solution which usually makes things worse; which of course, requires more government “solutions.”
I have never understood why people do not take seriously the lessons learned from their own experience or from the experience of others? Why do we not make the clear connection between: 1. someone advocating a government solution, 2. the idea that it is the government that then has the power and 3. that despite overwhelming evidence, the belief that a government bureaucrat will not exercise power for his own benefit, which usually equates to the detriment of the people.
People are naïve believing that lawmakers and bureaucrats are going to make rules that will “fix” the problem. Lawmakers, under the spell of lobbyists, make law to assuage the public demand. Bureaucrats, who someday hope to be lobbyists, make sets of rules which set standards, but allow for lots of loophole exceptions. The lawmakers only speak about the high standards – but within the industry regulated, they instruct how to invoke the loopholes.
The Answer
The answer to all the madness in society is Tort Law. This is the law of negligence. People, having been hurt by some action, are able to get compensated for the harm done. However, legal, corporate and other systems have been purposefully devised to evade legal and moral responsibility and personal and corporate liability. If the Common Law attitudes of responsibility and adherence to standards were followed, much negative in society would dissolve.
Examples of Negligence: Ralph Nader, in “Unsafe At Any Speed” outlined how the Chevy Corvair and other American cars were purposefully not designed to reflect safety needs. Lee Iacocca at Ford, who stated, “safety doesn’t sell,” was an icon of the economic appraisal of human life ideal. Iacocca signed the memo foregoing the retrofit to the Pinto because the analysis showed it would cost less to pay the monetary damages than to fix the car. The analysis showed Ford would benefit monetarily more if it allowed more victims to burn when the Pinto burst into flames from a rear collision than to fix the car. This was cost-benefit analysis run amuck. Yet, Portfolio named Iacocca the 18th-greatest American CEO of all time.
Example of a Tort Law solution: Instead of being absolved by corporate cover, just imagine if Iacocca had been held personally responsible for his Pinto decision. Along with the monetary damages, imagine that charges of Conspiracy to Commit Murder had been leveled at Iacocca and the rest of the upper management at Ford and the Ford Board of Directors? Imagine further that they had been found guilty of this malicious conduct. Imagine if the assets of these individuals had been taken to compensate victims and to pay for court costs.
Result: For their good decision making, corporate management and Directors get well compensated and receive bonuses. Were corporate managements and Boards of Directors to be held personally responsible for a bad decision, then self-preservation requires that all businesses in all industries would self-regulate. The idea that business would stop is silly. People do business all the time without the benefit of legal “protections.”
Result: Trial lawyers would need to seek other areas of law to work. If high level managers were being held responsible for their actions, I expect nuisance lawsuits would disappear, freeing up the courts, because juries would then also hold regular individuals to a higher standard and not pay out for spilling hot water on themselves when driving, as in the famous McDonald’s case. Much government regulation would not be seen as necessary, therefore lobbyists would need other employment, lawmakers could restrict themselves to making law within the bounds set by the Constitution, government could be reduced, taxpayers could keep their monies and citizens and residents, legal or not, could live, work and prosper in an America that embodied the vision of the Founders.
Freedom Requires Responsibility. This idea applies to all areas of our lives.
G-d Bless US –
© 2016 Mitchell Goldstein – All Rights Reserved
