Posted on 03/31/2010 3:04:21 AM PDT by The Raven
Different Americans have different and often intense preferences for all kinds of goods and services. Some of us have strong preferences for beer and distaste for wine while others have the opposite preference -- strong preferences for wine and distaste for beer. Some of us hate three-piece suits and love blue jeans while others love three-piece suits and hate blue jeans. When's the last time you heard of beer drinkers in conflict with wine drinkers, or three-piece suit lovers in conflict with lovers of blue jeans? It seldom if ever happens because beer and blue jean lovers get what they want. Wine and three-piece suit lovers get what they want and they all can live in peace with one another.
It would be easy to create conflict among these people. Instead of free choice and private decision-making, clothing and beverage decisions could be made in the political arena. In other words, have a democratic majority-rule process to decide what drinks and clothing that would be allowed. Then we would see wine lovers organized against beer lovers, and blue jean lovers organized against three-piece suit lovers. Conflict would emerge solely because the decision was made in the political arena. Why? The prime feature of political decision-making is that it's a zero-sum game. One person's gain is of necessity another person's loss. That is if wine lovers won, beer lovers lose. As such, political decision-making and allocation of resources is conflict enhancing while market decision-making and allocation is conflict reducing. The greater the number of decisions made in the political arena, the greater the potential for conflict.
Take the issue of prayers in school as an example. I think that everyone, except a maniacal tyrant, would agree that a parent has the right to decide whether his child will recite a morning prayer in school. Similarly, a parent has a right to decide that his child will not recite a morning prayer. Conflict arises because schools are government owned. That means it is a political decision whether prayers will be permitted or not. A win for one parent means a loss for another parent. The losing parent, in order to get what he wants, would have to muster up private school tuition while continuing to pay taxes for a school for which he has no use. If education were only government financed, as opposed to being government financed and produced, say through education vouchers, the conflict would be reduced. Both parents could have their wishes fulfilled by enrolling their child in a private school of their choice and instead of being enemies, they could be friends.
Conflict in education is just one minor example of how government allocation can raise the potential for conflict. Others would include government-backed allocation of jobs and education slots by race and sex, plus the current large conflict over government allocation of health services. Interestingly enough, the very people in our society who protest the loudest against human conflict and violence are the very ones calling for increased government resource allocation. These people fail to recognize or even wonder why our nation, with people of every race, ethnic group and religious group, has managed to live together relatively harmoniously. In their countries of origin, the same ethnic, racial and religious groups have been trying to slaughter one another for centuries. A good part of the answer is that in the United States, there was little to be gained from being a Frenchman, a German, a Jew, a Protestant or a Catholic. The reason it did not pay was because for most of our history, government played a small part in our lives. When there's significant government allocation of resources, the most effective means of organizing for the gains are those proven most divisive, such as race, ethnicity, religion and region.
As our nation forsakes our founders' wisdom of constitutional limitations placed on Washington, we raise the potential for conflict.
An absolutely brilliant piece of thinking and writing!
Professor Williams distills the current state of conflict in society to the barest essentials.
The reader cannot help but to gain greater understanding of our society’s ebb and flow, and a better appreciation of how we got to to this point in our history.
And, one can infer the solution without much effort. That is not to say that the solution will be effortless; it is the identification of the solution that is easy.
The hard part is up to us!
MUST READ PING!
Nailed it!
Stop being jerked around by mass media propaganda because they play both sides for their corporate masters. Stop fearing the future. Start understanding that the peasant class of working people (white and blue collar) are easily lead...we have been conditioned to hear the voices of our earthly masters; voices of "conservatives" "liberals" - or whoever else you think is leading your team.
Sadly, the majority of the peasants will continue to labor under the impression that they have power over the ruling elite. If we had the strength and faith to stop fighting against "them" - we would weaken their hold on us - but that's not an easy concept to grasp.
bottom line: prepare for the coming chaos
They create class warfare as a means to achieving more government power. “Those big, bad pharmaceutical companies!” “Big oil” “Soak the rich. They deserve it” “Doctors perform surgery in order to make more money”
All those aforementioned villains are some the wealth generators of our nation.
They’re nothing compared to “big government”, which can’t create any wealth at all - only certificates. That’s the class we need to be angry at.
1938
On the reduction of local self-government, hear the Governor of Kansas. He was visiting Iowa and made a speech in Des Moines. Twenty years ago, he recalled, the county — for example, the one in Kansas where he began to practice law — offered an almost perfect example of responsible self-government.
“We were able, I believe, to do a reasonably good job of local government. In meeting and solving our problems we looked to the state government very little and to the national government not at all. The citizens of the county knew who their elected officers were. They came and talked with us frequently. We knew their difficulties. We dealt with them across the desk, over the counter, and sometimes down at the corner drug store. They had definite opinions about the affairs of the county. They spoke their minds freely and they registered their approval and disapproval directly at the polls on the second Tuesday of the next November. There was no doubt and no uncertainty about it.
“Now, that has been a matter of only about twenty years — a short time indeed in the history of people. But in that twenty years there has taken place a most astonishing change. The court house is the same. The theoretical structure of county government is unaltered. But in practical operation the picture now is very different. Federal agencies are all around us. There is scarcely a problem presented to the county officials of today which is not either directly or indirectly involved with implications and issues related occasionally to state, but more often to Federal, regulation. There are Federal offices in the basement and in the corridors on the second floor. Except during the regular term of court there are extra employees of some Federal agency in the court room. A couple of Federal auditors or investigators are usually using the jury room. The whale warp and woof of local government is enmeshed in the coils of bureaucratic control and regulation.
“And that is only the story so far as county government is concerned. You know that parallels could be drawn in our cities, in our educational districts, and even more clearly in our state capitals. Let me cite just one example. In 1874 the western part of Kansas suffered a very severe calamity in the form of a horde of grasshoppers. Our state was young, only thirteen years old. The ravages of the grasshopper threatened the livelihood of many of the settlers. Upon that occasion the Governor called a special session of the legislature. It met, considered the problem and enacted proper legislation for relief and aid... and a disaster was averted.
“If that same situation should occur today we all know what would happen. It would take practically a photo finish to determine which would land first — the grasshoppers or a horde of Federal agents. The state and the county would have absolutely and exactly nothing to say about it. The policy and the means and the method of dealing with the problem would all be determined in Washington, D.C. The benefits, all from the Federal Treasury, in such manner and such form as Washington should dictate, would come to the farmers without their scarcely knowing what it was about — and we take it for granted. The other day a great number of farmers in my state did receive Federal checks, and dozens of them were wondering what in the world they were for, as they knew of no payment that was due under any of the existing programs in which they were participating.”
From The Revolution was, Garet Garrett, 1938
A great piece of writing and thinking here.
The most denigrated and least understood factor about the Founding Fathers was their understanding of "democratic majority rule" as the "tyranny of the majority".
The NON-majoritarian features (supermajority vote to Amend Constitution, both of the Congress and of state legislatures, the electoral college, and others) were aimed at assuring that any change in the Constitution had support of a consensus that was both broad and deep.
"Simple majority" votes assure large and discontented "minority" groups.
Best defense of the free market vs. government I’ve ever seen, and he did it in less than a page.
It’s self-serving to say this but I have made this point a time or two in relation to school prayer, school dances, school sports, etc.
Fighting battles on the government’s turf is a guarantee of at least a partial loss. Get them out of the picture and the holier-than-thou left become pipsqueaks.
Thanks for the ping; post. That is an excellent, though-provoking article by Walter Williams.
I just looked at her and said, "No. I want to be left alone. That's all I want. I'm not telling you what to do. But you are telling me what to do. You don't like the idea that I might make a choice that you wouldn't make. And you want to use to threat of violence, via the government, to force me to live my life as you see fit. That's all government is ever capable of doing. I want less of it. You want more of it. So he's the dictatorial meanie?"
She hates talking to me.
It’s called “DIVIDE AND CONQUER.”
OBOZO, PELOUSY, HAIRY GREED, ET ARE MASTERS OF THAT PARTICULARLY PERVERSE “ART FORM.”
THE DIVIDING HAS BEGUN. THE CONQUERING PART IS IN RIGHT AROUND THE CORNET.
(AND, YES, I’M SHOUTING SO EVERYONE CAN HEAR THAT.)
But, unless forced upon them, it will go unread by those who need to read it most!
That's right. We're being pitted against each other for a couple of reasons.
One, if we're fighting each other we're not fighting the real enemy; our own Government.
Two, once we buy into the idiotic idea that Government has the power to regulate these aspects of our lives they win.
It's long past time for us to tell Government to go p*** up a rope.
You are absolutely correct Taxman and I would expect nothing less from Dr. Williams! I never miss one of his articles.
I have just read most of the complete essay — it is a long, extraordinarily worthwhile read. Much food for thought!
Why don’t you post the essay on FR as a “must read if you want to understand the Obama administration” post?
It is posted several times. I try to bump it at least several times per year. There are other postings in the FR archive.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2185147/posts
bump
You’re correct; but I would add CONFUSE to the mix. Confuse, Divide, and Conquer.
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