Our subjugation is in proportion to our ignorance
November 16, 2009 5:34 am
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.” ~H.L. Mencken
“Our individual salvation depends on collective salvation.” ~Barack H. Obama
“We are totally screwed.” ~R.D. Walker
Let’s face it; most of our countrymen are pretty damned ignorant about government. They don’t know what is going on in government and they don’t care. They are far more interested in the goings on of Brad and Angelina than they are trying to comprehend TARP, stimulus, bailouts or health care reform. To a certain degree, it is forgivable. They don’t try because most of this stuff is incomprehensible anyway. In fact, it is pretty self-evident that the legislators don’t understand what they are voting for and make their decisions along party lines and on overarching concepts, not details. The reality is that the United States government is too large to be rationally managed and, therefore, will be constantly mismanaged.
Based on its current size, making the government larger will come at the cost of functionality. If it is too large to be rationally managed today, making it even larger will make it even more irrational. Huge swaths of the citizenry, however, are not the least interested in understanding this basic concept. They continue to see the government as mommy, daddy, Santa Claus and God rolled into one benevolent force of good. They are taken in, therefore, by politicians who enable and cultivate their misplaced trust in government.
Obama is one of those politicians. He talks hope, change and creates a vague feeling that he and the government will take care of people and make their lives better. During the campaign, he pandered to the ignorant using vacuous and meaningless platitudes: “yes we can,” “we are the people we have been waiting for,” “this is our moment,” and so on leading people to believe that if he were elected, he would use the machinery of state to make their lives better. There was no possible way for him to do what they believed he would, but that belief was enough to make him tremendously popular.
A set of baseless beliefs collectively held by millions of politically and economically ignorant voters, therefore, resulted in his election and, on his coattails, the election of a congress that made promises they couldn’t deliver to a people who didn’t understand their inability to deliver. Frankly, Obama was elected on style. Obama is this country’s first “American Idol president” elected on his performance and nothing else.
The result is to be expected: an amateur and foolish administration that never stops campaigning and never stops feeding the ignorant masses the tripe that resulted in electoral victory. Their goal is power. The means to attain that power is in convincing the ignorant that government can give them what they need to make their lives whole. They will use the power they attain to impose dependency on government on the people who elected them to office.
In the last election, 64 million Americans, largely ignorant of history, economics, the workings of government and politics took the bait and elected Obama on the basis of his personal appeal and vague promises that he would deliver them largess from the treasury. They elected him because they incorrectly believed that he understood what they did not and that he would use his knowledge to make their lives better. An ignorant electorate will eventually elect a power hungry government. This is where we find ourselves today as predicted by Alexis de Tocqueville over a century and a half ago.
“If education enables men at all times to defend their independence, this is most especially true in democratic times. When all men are alike, it is easy to found a sole and all-powerful government by the aid of mere instinct. But men require much intelligence, knowledge, and art to organize and to maintain secondary powers under similar circumstances and to create, amid the independence and individual weakness of the citizens, such free associations as may be able to struggle against tyranny without destroying public order.
Hence the concentration of power and the subjection of individuals will increase among democratic nations, not only in the same proportion as their equality, but in the same proportion as their ignorance.” ~ (Volume 2, Section 4: Chapter IV, Democracy in America)
Today, as ignorance grows, so does the power of the state.
James :
Date: November 16, 2009
At work, a small group of engineers were complaining about cost changes in our insurance plan. One guy was adamant that a public “option” plan was required to control insurance costs. He then went on about how insurance companies made “30%” profit, and since government would only have an overhead of “5%”, costs would drop. He then parroted a marathon runner skit from a political TV commercial.
I explained the main problem was cost of services was decoupled from those receiving services. Since our deductibles and co-payments are so low, I argued our company really had a model of pre-paid healthcare. It’s an all you can eat buffet.
I then pointed out that everyone sooner or later has a $50k to $150k or more medical event, and many people don’t pay that amount of taxes in a decade, or over a lifetime. So how would government including them reduce costs? And that Medicare can’t control costs, so why would creating a larger government program work? I stated cost projections were $1T, we would trash the currency, bloat the debt, and those estimate were low.
The result was I was called a “Republican”, and the general consensus I was an “asshole.” Somehow brainwashing had been done that any rational person not wanting to erode property rights and “share” was selfish. Of course “share” always means with money from someone richer than you.
Even people I consider “smart” rely on the convenience of the media, rather than logically think through cause and effect.
R.D. Walker :
Date: November 16, 2009
He was full of shit about profit levels anyway.
Here is the truth about health insurer profits…
BaconNeggs :
Date: November 16, 2009
Nicely explained James and RD, there is nothing better to defeat these Socialist arguements than cold hard dollars and cents.
I too recently had a brief discussion with a couple of guys from the UK who have had socialised everything for about 50 years.
They think the Yanks are absolutely crazy not to have Obama socialized NHS Health care and Higher Education.
During the discussion it came out that one guy’s daughter was doing a Degree in France because it was cheaper. He had tried getting a Free University Education for his daughter in the UK but found out as he was an average middle income engineer, his family would only get about 10% of the costs from an over burdened University program.
So his daughter went to France as a higher proportion of University Education was covered by French Taxpayers, which they were obliged to pay for his duaghter as the UK is part of the European Union.
When I pointed out the obvious flaws of his so called “Free UK Health Care and Education” he laughed, “its a club mate, as long as someone was paying for it” then in his eyes it was okay.
When I asked him if he thinks its fair to go out with a group of friends, put a “fiver” in the group kitty, and expect “free” drinks and food for the rest of the night, it suddenly dawned on him that maybe there is something about this socialised Health and Education that wasnt fair after all.
Tatersalad :
Date: November 16, 2009
Stimulus money bamboozle given to Americans:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/maps/Bogus-jobs-created-or-saved-by-the-Stimulus.html
James :
Date: November 16, 2009
R.D. is right.
I have a rational friend who later told me insurance profits were around 3.5%. His argument was “If the insurance business is so profitable, why wouldn’t there be lots of insurance companies?” There’s low barrier to entry – just some initial cash. Why wouldn’t co-operatives be formed where members shared the revenues?
Of course the true answer is because insurance is a low profit margin business with little room for innovation. The money really goes to healthcare providers who charge what they can in their business environment. Since government raises their cost of business via regulations, and mandates to provide free healthcare at a loss, and also puts in price floors via Medicare, costs are passed to the rest of us.
The solution is to remove government involvement.