Posted on 08/17/2004 3:49:10 PM PDT by beaureguard
Those that could would anyhow, for the sake of compassion, not of pa$$ion.
Well, either you factor charity into your picture, or you don't.
I do. My point is that anything, even charity, can be mischievous if not done properly.
Charity is just another form of free enterprise. Unlike welfare, it is an enterprise freely offered and taken -- we need both free commerce and charity, we shouldn't be forced to choose between the two. But when the law restricts commerce we have to depend more on charity because we have less wealth. A hurricane in warlord-ruled Africa kills a hundred times as many people as it does in Florida.
You know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
I know the value of freedom and I know the cost of tyranny.
They will watch for far advance signs of possible disasters and bring in more items well before they are needed. Then when they can sell $30,000 rather than $3,000 worth of vital commodity a day, not because they priced gougingly but because they had enough to sell at normal prices.
Hurricane Charley could have hit just about anywhere in Florida with about 24 hours notice. If every merchant in Florida were to decide to suddenly increase his stocks severalfold, I guarantee he will not be buying at wholesale prices, assuming the stocks were even available. He would eventually have to sell below cost and not sing all the way to the bank.
But suppose every merchant decides to plan farther ahead, to have a permanent stock big enough that he would not run out during a crises. That would mean that he would have huge year-round inventory costs. Storage space, land, buildings, taxes, interest on the debt etc. He has to pass that cost on to the consumer every day -- all for a disaster that may happen every thirty years.
Better to rely on free enterprise and bring in outside stocks using ad-hoc suppliers, or as you call them, "gougers". You pay a one time premium that costs less.
But the merchant should be free to do it any way he wants. If he thinks your way is best let him try -- it's a free country. Or should be.
That is the value of freedom. The cost of tyranny is everyone concerned being too intimidated by anti-gouging laws or by misguided "public opinion".
(Yes, this is a duplicate to what I said on the other post.)
A large part of the problem is that "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Economics is NOT a comprehensive worldview of man. When you try to view man through nothing but economics, you get weird distortions. It's a sociological and spiritual truth, and pointed up especially in a disaster, man is not created to carry on his affairs like the proverbial "herd of cats" each one looking out chiefly for his own interests. Man is created so that if one suffers, all suffer together, and the one who refuses is pariah. This will not always produce an optimum "economic" result, which means that how man was created is wrong in a solely economic world view. But God can't be wrong. So the economist must realize that he does not possess the keystone wisdom to mankind.
Given the power with which community pressure deals with this issue, I would actually advocate scaling back any anti-gouging law to require only (1) that gouged customers be reimbursed; (2) public shaming of the offenders i.e. publication of incidents and offenders in a list in major newspapers. Nothing more; let community pressure do what it will.
I would like to point out that it is a mighty fragile "freedom" that can be toppled by people who don't want to shop at a gouger anymore.
True freedom is more robust stuff. What it is not, is a mandate to behavior like a herd of cats.
What you said. The whine about freedom going down the drain because consumers choose to turn away in droves, is pretty pathetic.
How do we all rise above the level and the shackles of "enlightened selfishness"
We could all become Amish farmers. They pretty much do things your way. The Amish community is their fire, disaster, and health insurance policy. When someone's house burns down, the others come running and rebuild it in three days. And it is all done voluntarily.
The trouble is, we aren't Amish farmers. We rely on free enterprise. And if we outlaw free enterprise by force of law we will not become Amish farmers -- we will become the Soviet Union.
We also aren't a herd of cats. The whine about what happens when consumers hate gougers (apart from any law) is a pretty good measure of the stature of your arguments.
I see nothing "compassionate" in your desire to control your neighbor's property to accomplish your own ends.
It's very much like what Democrats do every day.
A principle you abandon at the first sign of trouble is no principle at all.
Freedom must be preserved even in the worst of times. It's not a commodity to be rationed only when skies are clear.
I know we disagree and won't change each other's minds. But what you preach isn't compassion - it's compulsion. It's the very same as government welfare, rather than legitimate charity.
I'll have none of it.
I don't kneel at the same throne you do, bub. I kneel before a heavenly one.
I haven't questioned your faith. I gave you every respect.
I'll thank you not to question mine, bub.
Do it again, and you can Cheney, if you know what I'm saying.
I question your practice with solid reason.
Good for you, tovarisch. Have fun at the next lil' socialists in denial meeting.
Gavaritsche parooskie.
Actually the Jews have a good word for this -- "mitzvah." Something God commands.
I'm not a Jew.
Jesus said to give your shirt to the poor. He didn't say give your neighbor's shirt to the poor.
If your neighbor sells his shirt for a 1000% profit to someone who is going to freeze to death without it -- God has something to say about that. It would be kin to usurious interest.
And God will say something about it.
The law shouldn't.
The law isn't about enforcing God's will.
It's about ensuring our freedom to either walk God's path, or not.
You chant this mantra about what governmental law is over and over, but there isn't any support in the Bible for it.
It's a "nice" state of affairs in many ways, but it isn't "required" by God.
And anyhow, if you look up a few posts, I am not even advocating fining gougers. Just squaring it up with the customers and a public confession.
I don't go around quoting Scripture. The devil can do that.
God gave you, me and everyone else free will. He wants me to use it. He wants me to decide whether to walk right.
The only thing that can stop me from doing what He wants is people restricting the actions or decisions I make, by strongarming me. I can't make those decisions for myself if someone isn't leaving me free to live my life - by stealing from me or killing me or threatening to beat me senseless.
That's where government comes in. To protect my God-given rights. That right to liberty means doing anything I please so long as it doesn't intrude on the same rights God gave you and the guy down the street. Old Thomas Jefferson said that.
I also can't make those decisions on whether to walk right if government is forcing me to walk right. Then it ain't my decision. Or if it's forcing me to walk wrong. That's why there's that limit on government.
A man has to be free to make the decisions that will send him to the hot place, or else his decisions to do those things that put him on the right path to God don't mean squat.
I figured that out using the reason God gave me. You're free to disagree, but that's where I'm coming from.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.