Exposing a Bad Idea

by Don Boudreaux on December 13, 2007

in Work

Frayda Levin, of the New Jersey chapter of Americans for Prosperity, has this wonderful op-ed in today’s Record.  In it, Ms. Levin explains clearly why government-mandated family leave is a foolish idea — and a harmful policy.  Here’s her concluding paragraph:

The experience of Europe tells us mandated programs result in fewer
jobs, declining families and eroding work ethics. The free market
approach may not satisfy politicians’ need to say they solved a
problem. Rather, it works quietly, over time, creating multiple
solutions, with some working better than others. Over time, the bad
ones are rejected and the good ones are free to further evolve.

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  • vidyohs

    What can one say? What can anyone say that hasn't been said over and over again.


    The idiocy of socialism has been proven to be a horrible policy to at first offer to people and then later to force people to follow. It has been proven a complete and degrading failure by actual application of those policies in many groups and nations. Not once has it been successful in doing more than very temporarily improving life for a select portion of the public, after which that temorary lift fades and the long sink into degeneration comes as certain as the rising of the morning sun. It does so because socialism consumes any surpluses to obtain that temorary lift, but then begins its slide down because it also kills productivity and ambition by the continued theft of production.


    As I said in my opening, this is known yet there never seems to be a lack of fools to buy into the socialist scriptures and fall victim to the proselytizing of the socialist evangelicals such as the trolls that inhabit that empty space "under the Cafe Hayeck bridge", trolls such as muirduck, Gil, STRB, et. al.


    We know what the problem is in getting our message out. It is difficult to compete when:


    Their way is the irresponsible mushy soft touchy feely static effortless cushiony way of basking in the arms of the nanny state, where others work to provide your subsistence.


    Our way offers the task of personal responsibility, standards of behavior, self motivation, ambition, work, thinking, meeting challenge, adapting to change, honesty, and good personal character.


    Most children reaching their adolesence have no understanding or experience that tells them that each individual typically brings injustice to himself by making a repitition of bad choices from childhood on. So, the socialist way seems attractive to their immarture minds as making things better "for those that can't help themselves".


    It is not until later in their years after having been beat around by life that people come to the knowledge and understanding that socialism is the problem, not the answer. But, some like Noam Chomsky, Ted Kennedy, muirduck et. al, never mature in their thinking.......but when you observe closely those old socialist warhorses always seem to have more than enough lucre to make their lives comfortable to the extreme. Odd? Well no.


    So what do we do? Take back control of our schools, of course? But how? We are out creating wealth while they are proseltyzing our children.


    Take back control of the entertainment idustry? How?


    Take back control of the Justice system, particularly the courts? How?


    Take back control of the media? How?


    Our personal drive to self responsibility, ambition, and productivity leaves us little time to slap down every single eruption of the socialist faith. Once the disease erupts, the infection spreads rapidly among the young and stupid.


    Once you start down the road Pincochet and the Junta took in Chile you have to have the courage to go after and root out every weed, seed, nit, and pest or else the infection comes back just as it did in Chile because the courage to see it through wasn't there. Even this route isn't really going to work because the infestation slips across the borders brought by immigrants and visitors.


    Our founding fathers did put into play a pretty good corporate charter for the USA and had we (the people) taken the time to make sure it remained in force unabused and untwisted the idea of a democratic republic with restricted voting might have been the one single way of keeping the socialist infestation to a minimum.


    But we lost that battle long ago.


    What to do?

  • Gil

    Aw, want a violin vidyohs? Well it's 'productivity' that matter doesn't it? The proper denition of Socialism is about redistributed income from 'haves' to 'have nots' without any wealth creation. This is not to be confused with Mercentilism (which I believe basically means when people use 'force & fraud' as part of their toolbox). If people are out there producing regardless of their methods then wealth grows. After all, I'm don't know how (or if at all) many Libertarians cringe at knowing a lot of the wealth creation has been Mercantilism not Libertarianism. But who cares? Libertarians don't like Utilitarianism do they? After all, it's 'look after Number One'. It's no one's job to put someone else's interests above their own.

  • vidyohs

    Sure fool, got a violin for me. I am not affective with my violin, so I'll try yours.


    You trip over your "ism's" like the village idiot in my home town tripped over his shoe laces. Very apt comparison there, his shoe laces are your "ism's", the idiocy is the same, just different village.


    To make things simple for an idiot to understand.


    I work for myself.


    I help the poor by not being one and trying to teach to ignorance.


    I redistribute the wealth by buying needs and wants.


    I extend a helping hand once, twice, but never thrice, my own sons can testify to that.


    If your needs exceed my giving limitations you are shit out of luck.


    I take immense pride in the fact that my Dad told me as he neared his end that out of a family of eight kids my brother 4 years older than me and myself were the only ones that, after leaving home upon graduating from HS, never came back and asked him for money or any kind of financial help. Since my launch at 17.5 years I have never sought or received a single penny of assistance for myself or my own family of wife and three kids. I am damn proud of that. If this dumb ole country boy can do it so can anyone else.


    If you can say the same, God bless you; if not then in my opinion you are a waste product and should be flushed.


    This little exchange just validates my above expressions. Idiots will be idiots even in the face of hard fact.


    Hard fact #1: No one can "give" a child an education.


    Hard fact #2: A fool can be gilded, feted, celebrated, but as your own self testifies, he is still a fool.


    Hard fact #3: There is no such thing as a socialist thinker, there are only socialist fools. Once a person begins to think the fallacies of socialism become crystal clear.


    Hard fact #4: Nothing I have written will make even a pinto bean of difference to you and your fellow trolls and I know that. You will embrace your foolishness.


    You will ism and trip, ism and trip, ism and trip, ism and trip and mistakenly believe you have actually said something of intelligence and substance. Just as you have always done and probably always will do.


    How about it, Gil? Send me the violin, please. You bore me, might as well play.

  • Gil

    Why not just call a spade a spade? The key reality of life is that it's all about survival, plain ol' survival. Maybe all Libertarianism is is really trying to put a kind spin on Social Darwinism. It's all survival but let's try to be decent without falling into the trap of Socialism. Once you go down the Socialist path you start the genetic rot don't you? The 'haves' who are the future are relentlessly taxed to support the 'have nots' who aren't supposed to be siring their genetic code into the next generation. Instead of an increasing hard-working productive society you get a declining buck-passing society. I'm sure vidyohs you could provide plenty of examples in nature where there's no such thing as poverty or 'have nots' in the animal world because they live under the unrestricted laws of supply and demand as well as rewards only coming from productivity.

  • vidyohs

    You're close Gil, but still not there. Must be sobering up.


    Yes, there are plenty of examples in nature of haves and have nots. What you're missing is that that situation is not artificially imposed.


    It is a perfect part of the natural world.


    Even in the so-called lower animal level each is a unique indidivudal and like humans some have greater capacities of thriving in situations that drive others to death.


    The dilemma of the socialist, who professes to no God but State and therefore must believe in evolution (natural world), is that if one believes in the natural world and evolution one can not claim any special place in nature for the animal known as human.


    Mt. St. Helens erupted and killed human, deer, quail, hawk, spotted owl, rodents, cockroaches, plants, and fish in the lakes and did so with equal impartiality. No favorites.


    In your attempt to prove or show anything that promotes your socialism or democracy the last place you want to go is to nature as a source.


    Everything in nature supports the fact of the individual, ownership of production, profit taking, and captialism.


    True some animals herd and foolish socialist point to that as an example of nature's intent for social structures. What they always miss is that the herd is not dictated and any animal in it is free to eat what it can, drink what it can, mate as it wills, and to leave at any time, all while contributing no more to the herd than its presence.

  • Gil

    Not to mention examples in Nature shows that animals of the same species don't have any magical love for another. Many species show familial companionshiops but attack and repel members of their own species that aren't part of their own clan. Why it's just like humans! Yep good ol' survival. It shows the human history of wars and conflicts are just part and parcel of living and trying to survive. Any Libertarian trying to argue otherwise would be engaging in their own convenient Socialism and Utilitarianism.

  • vidyohs

    ""Any Libertarian trying to argue otherwise would be engaging in their own convenient Socialism and Utilitarianism""....If you say so, to me it seems you are off on your isms again.


    ""It shows the human history of wars and conflicts are just part and parcel of living and trying to survive.""..... This is ambiguous nonsense.


    Predators are natural, humans are predators. Yes there are battles between prides of, packs of, clans of, and solitary predators for the expansion of hunting grounds or territories. That, being true, dictates that it is also natural to battle in defense of hunting ground or territory, not just natural but mandatory for survival. Is man natural, yes; has man carried attack/defense instinct to an extreme? I can't say, I can only express an opinion, the same as you.


    It is presumptive and a conceit for anyone to make a claim that they know what is the natural direction for mankind. Nature is in a constant state of flux, change is constant, inevitable, and totally unpredictable. We can only look backward and learn the lessons so as to be better prepared to adapt to the coming changes.

  • Anjaleei

    nots

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