Posted on 02/18/2020 7:01:48 AM PST by Heartlander
We are fast approaching a tipping point in these United States of America. It seems as though an increasing percentage of the electorate believes that the purpose of the sovereign franchise is to vote themselves an ever-expanding portion of the public treasury. There seems to be this idea that just because one person has a need, perhaps a really significant, life or death need, that it is the business of government to force other citizens to respond to that need with their own labor or property.
Part of this thought process comes from a false separation between personal and property rights to the diminution of both. By divorcing property from people, we devalue the labor that produced it, thereby also devaluing the humans who performed that labor. Some time back, I penned a piece that described the relationship between property and people.
In that piece, I opined that in one sense, property, whether cash or actual stuff, was a form of stored labor. Its actually a biological imperative in many animals. Look at squirrels. They labor during the summer and fall, gathering up nuts to last them for a cold winter. A tree trunk full of nuts stored labor.
Men do the same thing. They perform so many tasks and in return, receive compensation in the form of money which in turn can be converted into things necessary for survival. The short version is, property, whether cash or in-kind, represents the effort of human beings. I came to this epiphany when my daughters bike got stolen off of my back porch one year, two weeks after Christmas, and I had to perform some extra labor to replace it, thus losing a portion of my life in the process. You can read about this mental awakening here: Your Property is Your Property.
This diminution of humanity isnt restricted to a Patrol Deputy being less than excited about doing a report for a stolen bicycle. The Democrats are taking this disregard for property rights, for human rights, to a whole new level. It starts with the fundamental question, What is the value of a mans labor? A reasonable, thinking person might answer thusly, The only folks morally entitled to opine, much less vote as to the value of a mans labor, are that man and his would-be employer. There are follow-ons to that assertion:
-In a voluntary economy and absent artificial interference, no man is paid any more or any less than his labor is worth.
-Each day a man comes to work and his employer pays him, constitutes a voluntary agreement between the two as to the value of that mans labor.
The left cannot seem to grasp that, constantly interfering in the conversation between a man and his prospective employer. Their latest meddling involves what we like to refer to as the gig economy, folks working as independent contractors for a variety of reasons and a variety of work circumstances freely negotiated with the folks who pay them. Leftists, forever seeking even more control (and more union voters along the way) have sought to convert independent contractors such as Uber drivers and independent Red State Contributors, into employees against their will. This, of course, makes the cost of their services prohibitive and brings financial harm to the very people they purport to help. My colleague has a great article out about this here: President Trump Vows to Veto Anti-Freelance Worker Bill
If that werent bad enough, in the name of compassion, (actually vote buying) the left seeks to forcibly take property from those who have earned it for the sole purpose of handing it to those who have not. Please understand, Christian charity is a personal, moral obligation just not one that should be state-mandated via the threat of imprisonment for non-compliance.
Part of the leftist line is the use of society and government as synonyms. Society has a moral obligation to care for the weak, the mantra goes. I agree. However, society is not the same thing as government. Our society also includes private charity. The circumstances under which a man chooses to work, how he chooses to spend the fruits of that labor, and how he addresses his moral obligation to his fellow man are no business of government. These are where President Trump can do even more good in his second term.
The President can continue to place solid conservative judges on the federal bench at all levels, hopefully even the Supreme Court. Once he has achieved a critical mass and a solidly conservative High Court, we can start readdressing some of these issues. The Supremes can recognize that only a man and his employer have any business discussing the terms of that employees compensation. At that point, we can do away with the opportunity-killing abomination known as Minimum Wage.
We can again allow employers and employees determine the employees status
employee or independent contractor. Best of all, the Supreme Court can, through a series of rulings against federally-funded charity, remind us all that there is only one
ONE instance whereby the U.S. Constitution allows a citizen to demand the labor of his fellow citizens against their will
Only One.
You can’t spell BREadlINE without BERNIE!
The only folks morally entitled to opine, much less vote as to the value of a mans labor, are that man and his would-be employer.
It depends on how he defines employer. If by employer, he means the market, then yes, he is correct but if he simply means the person who gives you a job, he is wrong.
Put another way, the market determines value. If an employer is not doing something of value for someone else, i.e. the customer or employer, you will not employed long. Furthermore, the employee MUST create value beyond his cost (I don’t say salary because there are so many other things involved in employing someone, taxes, insurances, etc.). Profit is the REAl message of a business’ or an employee’s value. We vote everyday whether that good or service is needed. THE PURPOSE OF ANY BUSINESS IS TO CREATE PROFIT NOT TO EMPLOY. Profit tells us whether the good or action is needed.
“Stored labor”. Good phrase.
Progressives are chronically unable to comprehend the starting point for sustenance is literally dirt: all are welcome to elicit what they can from the earth, be it rocks or dirt/mud or plants. One alone can develop shelter & sustenance from there (see the Primitive Technology videos). From there, quickly becomes apparent that specialization & trade is beneficial in a group, with cost being painfully apparent and trade being very much “a thing is worth what another will give for it”; continuing from there becomes increasingly luxurious & abstract, confusing Leftists. $ represents work done; just because an ignorant third party doesn’t understand why work X is valued at $Y doesn’t mean X isn’t worth $Y, nor that the value of X can be unilaterally declared $Z by others.
My 22 yr old nephew, a ringer for rimless glasses John Lennon and a Bernie bro, is morally outraged at the idea that it isn’t governments job to meet the charitable needs of the people.
bkmk
This brings to mind the parable of the Dog Food Company:
I use this parable to illustrate the problem the Left has now:
They have all kinds of ideas about how things should be done, the way people should act, the foods we should eat (or not eat, like Bloomberg and his soda ban) the language we should use (or not use) and the list goes on and on. They have focus groups that analyze aspects of what a candidate should be all about, they are running commercials nauseatingly non-stop (which I believe will eventually have a negative impact) and overall, they think they are the smartest, most organized, most moral, most "woke", most environmentally conscious, most tolerant, most democratic, and most American group of people around.
Their problem is a fundamental one:
Their Ideas Suck.
They exist inside a Leftist echo chamber, and they have no understanding of that fact. They think that if they keep saying over and over again what they believe in, inundate America from all sides of the media with their ideas, spray those ideas at us with the firehoses of media and entertainment, scold us, yell at us, tell us how stupid we are not to see them for the geniuses that they are...well, they think that approach, like that of the marketing executives in the Dog Food Parable, that they can somehow fix their "product" composed of ideas.
They can't.
Their Ideas Suck.
And normal people who don't live in that Leftist Echo Chamber have (I hope) begun to see it, especially with the contrast between the eight years of Obama and his ilk, and less than four years of Trump.
And that reality, the simple fact that they on the Left with their sucky ideas can do nothing about it, that they cannot massage their message (because no matter how much you polish a dog turd, it is still a dog turd) is driving them out of their minds.
And so we get these "books" trying to show us the light, these podcasts of spitting, frothing, Leftists, these ex-DOJ officials and members of a judges union producing media releases talking about what a danger Donald Trump and his ideas are to the very fabric of this country.
And so we are subjected to the spectacle of these foam-mouthed Leftists, hermetically sealed inside their Leftist echo chambers engaging in their increasingly frenetic Leftist circle-jerks telling us how wrong we are and what danger our country is in, while Trump waves his non-existent magic wand, our unemployment rates go down and our wages go up.
It is driving them to both madness and violence, and they are helpless to do anything about it. Because fundamentally...
Their Ideas Suck.
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