Imagine: you are in school. The end of the term is coming. You've not always been a great student, but you have been trying hard. You think you've done well, but the actual grades are not in. You're waiting to hear how you've done.
Your siblings, concerned because your standing with your parents has been on shaky ground, yet they're often in even more trouble, are pre-broadcasting your grades (though they have no way of knowing them) to your parents. There is a reward being offered for the kid with the best grades, and they know you're trying harder than them and that your study habits are going to pay off. They're going to lose. "He's always playing games - he is okay playing PlayStation, but his grades? They suck. You should see how bad things are - teachers are always talking to him, he's always getting stopped in the hall. It's disgraceful.
The fact is that you have been studying, you haven't been playing games excessively, teachers are talking to you because they're telling you how well you're doing, and you're being stopped in the halls because people are impressed with you turning your life around.
The report card comes back. Three As, two B+s, and a B.
What happens? Do your parents question you, thinking you've gamed the system? Do your siblings get in trouble or are they believed over the teachers? How does everyone's position change on this result?
Very shortly now we will be getting General Petraeus' report on how things are going in Iraq. Democrats are pre-broadcasting that not only is the war lost, they are attempting to make it impossible to believe the Commander in Iraq. We must believe them and their news more than the actual people on the field whose job it is to assess risk and determine how we're doing. Yes, the General is going to be optimistic-bias, but he is going to be realistic and practical. No general wants to be recorded in history as having lost their war. They want to win it.
By contrast, the Democrat Party has based their whole foundation on the fact that President Bush is incompetent, a bungler, and a liar. They have done this by investing all their political future on the failure of the Iraq war. In short, they can't afford for us to win this war. If they are to gain more power in our government, we must lose.
What I see as most likely is that we are winning. That the "surge" has done exactly what it was supposed to, and that we are going to get very good news from General Petraeus' report. I may be wrong, and I am willing to take that advice and work with it, but I am going to wait for that advice - the source before making my decision. The only reason to pre-guess publicly and loudly is if you want to influence someone else.
It disgusts me that one entire political party in this country has not only bet everything they have against America, against the best among us at that, but is actively attempting to undermine us in order that they gain power politically.
I have little to no hope that President Bush will take the gloves off and battle like I so desperately wish he would, but soon we will elect a new President. A strong President. One who smokes big cigars and acts in movies. One who will put an end to flippy-wristed whiners in the legislative branch.
One can hope, anyway.
My message to President Bush:
Please, kick ass. If you refuse to do that, at the very least, just talk to us, tell us more often how things are going, so that there is no place for these horrid, undermining tactics.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Socialism, Dictatorships, and Universal Health Care
I believe socialism is less sustainable than a dictatorship.
I am going to trust that you understand capitalism is incentives based: you do more, you get more. On the contrary, socialism (a mild form of communism which leads to that end) has no incentives: do more or do less, you get the same. Dictatorships sound as though they should be the least sustainable: do what you are told and get what you are given.
Here's the basic problem that makes socialism the least sustainable of those options. Socialism provides the illusion of freedom and the realities of dictatorships. It plays to the absolute laziest elements in human nature. While there is enough capitalism left in socialism that someone who tries to get ahead can actually have some things that others don't (rich people with nice cars, etc.) the process is so much more difficult, and such a larger piece of the hard-worker's profits are taken away, that hard-workers and achievers are severely discouraged. Instead of offering incentives to those people to achieve, discover, expand, and do great things, it becomes easier to live a smaller, easier, hand-fed life.
In socialism, the leaders must still be elected, and the products must still come from the willing. If the leaders are no longer "fairly" elected, and the people are forced to produce, socialism becomes dictatorship (and dictatorships are ultimately unsustainable - witness the vast change in global politics since the 1700s - though the dictatorship model lasted far longer than socialism has to this point).
If, therefore socialist leaders are going to remain in power and not become dictators (who have a habit of dying horrible deaths at the hands of other wannabe dictators, in coups, or in revolutions) they must continue to keep the populace happy. Unfortunately, as life becomes boring, or as people look around and see that other people have things they don't (government leaders with private jets flying all over the world, going on cruises, eating expensive food, driving nice cars or being driven in them) people start to want to have those things too. Socialism goes from offering the needy something they really need to offering what people want to people who don't really need it, to inventing things people "need" (but don't) in order to provide them.
This causes a massive, out of control spiral of resource consumption. If everyone can have free medicine, where is that medicine going to come from? Who is going to make it, and at what price? Most important of all: who is going to pay for it?
In the original model, the "first hand-out" of socialism - someone who desperately needs assistance is given something they couldn't have otherwise afforded. The rest of us split the cost, and the cost is minimal. One person requiring $100,000 of surgery split 300,000,000 ways does not cost much. However, if everyone needs $500 worth of prescription drugs, everyone has to come up with $500 to pay for them. Meaning, if ten people are covering the cost for ten people's worth of drugs, it comes out to the same as one person covering the cost of one person's worth of drugs.
Where does the fairness stop? Should everyone have life-improving drugs? How about life-improving transportation? What about life-giving food and water? How about life-improving internet connectivity? In today's society, couldn't you make an argument that cell phones can save a lot of lives - being able to contact police or medical services in an emergency? Do we move on from there into laptops? Should it be one per household? One per adult? One per person?
Where are all of these products going to come from? If there are only a limited number of drugs to be had - only so much of the chemicals to go around, who decides who gets what is available? What happens when enough people are expecting their drugs but don't get them because there is a shortage? In that case, they don't have the option of selling their house and living in their basement for treatment because MONEY CAN'T BUY IT. Not even a sad, sob-story case where we all cringe and wish we could help because it truly is awful. NOTHING we do could help it, because the resources simply aren't available at any price.
In that case, the populace begins to rise, to throw out the politicians (by electoral process or military) who got them there, or the populace is repressed. The very fact that the people feel some entitlement (which is the name of most of these social programs) entices them to, at last, take some action. Unlike in a dictatorship where they are already living in physical and political fear and are easier, therefore to control. In a socialist government, enforcement (internal as well as external) consists of the very citizens who are starting to feel cheated. In a dictatorship, enforcement consists of those people who are where they are because the dictator compensates them and improves their lives over those of the other subjects.
In a perfect world, all people who need help would get it. The question is, how do we get to that perfect world?
Socialism will result in the absence of resources, due not only to a lack of incentive to produce those resources, but an artificial demand for those resources. Dictatorships result in the supply of those resources only to the ruling class (except in a "benign dictatorship", a difficult concept on its own to sustain). Capitalism, on the other hand, results in the distribution of those resources to the achievers.
Here is how these systems affect the needy: Socialism eventually can't provide resources to the actual needy because they are being used by those who don't need them, but who have been convinced they must have them and only the government can provide them fairly. Dictatorships could provide the resources, but the resources are in the hands of a select few who hold on to power by denying it to others - not exactly an environment that fosters charity. Capitalism makes resources available to those who can earn them, and because those resources are in the most hands possible, there is a greatly increased chance that one of those people with more resources will feel charitable and help those who do not have them. Capitalism also has the side benefit of reducing the number of needy without resources (though elimination of the needy would require global capitalism).
I am going to trust that you understand capitalism is incentives based: you do more, you get more. On the contrary, socialism (a mild form of communism which leads to that end) has no incentives: do more or do less, you get the same. Dictatorships sound as though they should be the least sustainable: do what you are told and get what you are given.
Here's the basic problem that makes socialism the least sustainable of those options. Socialism provides the illusion of freedom and the realities of dictatorships. It plays to the absolute laziest elements in human nature. While there is enough capitalism left in socialism that someone who tries to get ahead can actually have some things that others don't (rich people with nice cars, etc.) the process is so much more difficult, and such a larger piece of the hard-worker's profits are taken away, that hard-workers and achievers are severely discouraged. Instead of offering incentives to those people to achieve, discover, expand, and do great things, it becomes easier to live a smaller, easier, hand-fed life.
In socialism, the leaders must still be elected, and the products must still come from the willing. If the leaders are no longer "fairly" elected, and the people are forced to produce, socialism becomes dictatorship (and dictatorships are ultimately unsustainable - witness the vast change in global politics since the 1700s - though the dictatorship model lasted far longer than socialism has to this point).
If, therefore socialist leaders are going to remain in power and not become dictators (who have a habit of dying horrible deaths at the hands of other wannabe dictators, in coups, or in revolutions) they must continue to keep the populace happy. Unfortunately, as life becomes boring, or as people look around and see that other people have things they don't (government leaders with private jets flying all over the world, going on cruises, eating expensive food, driving nice cars or being driven in them) people start to want to have those things too. Socialism goes from offering the needy something they really need to offering what people want to people who don't really need it, to inventing things people "need" (but don't) in order to provide them.
This causes a massive, out of control spiral of resource consumption. If everyone can have free medicine, where is that medicine going to come from? Who is going to make it, and at what price? Most important of all: who is going to pay for it?
In the original model, the "first hand-out" of socialism - someone who desperately needs assistance is given something they couldn't have otherwise afforded. The rest of us split the cost, and the cost is minimal. One person requiring $100,000 of surgery split 300,000,000 ways does not cost much. However, if everyone needs $500 worth of prescription drugs, everyone has to come up with $500 to pay for them. Meaning, if ten people are covering the cost for ten people's worth of drugs, it comes out to the same as one person covering the cost of one person's worth of drugs.
Where does the fairness stop? Should everyone have life-improving drugs? How about life-improving transportation? What about life-giving food and water? How about life-improving internet connectivity? In today's society, couldn't you make an argument that cell phones can save a lot of lives - being able to contact police or medical services in an emergency? Do we move on from there into laptops? Should it be one per household? One per adult? One per person?
Where are all of these products going to come from? If there are only a limited number of drugs to be had - only so much of the chemicals to go around, who decides who gets what is available? What happens when enough people are expecting their drugs but don't get them because there is a shortage? In that case, they don't have the option of selling their house and living in their basement for treatment because MONEY CAN'T BUY IT. Not even a sad, sob-story case where we all cringe and wish we could help because it truly is awful. NOTHING we do could help it, because the resources simply aren't available at any price.
In that case, the populace begins to rise, to throw out the politicians (by electoral process or military) who got them there, or the populace is repressed. The very fact that the people feel some entitlement (which is the name of most of these social programs) entices them to, at last, take some action. Unlike in a dictatorship where they are already living in physical and political fear and are easier, therefore to control. In a socialist government, enforcement (internal as well as external) consists of the very citizens who are starting to feel cheated. In a dictatorship, enforcement consists of those people who are where they are because the dictator compensates them and improves their lives over those of the other subjects.
In a perfect world, all people who need help would get it. The question is, how do we get to that perfect world?
Socialism will result in the absence of resources, due not only to a lack of incentive to produce those resources, but an artificial demand for those resources. Dictatorships result in the supply of those resources only to the ruling class (except in a "benign dictatorship", a difficult concept on its own to sustain). Capitalism, on the other hand, results in the distribution of those resources to the achievers.
Here is how these systems affect the needy: Socialism eventually can't provide resources to the actual needy because they are being used by those who don't need them, but who have been convinced they must have them and only the government can provide them fairly. Dictatorships could provide the resources, but the resources are in the hands of a select few who hold on to power by denying it to others - not exactly an environment that fosters charity. Capitalism makes resources available to those who can earn them, and because those resources are in the most hands possible, there is a greatly increased chance that one of those people with more resources will feel charitable and help those who do not have them. Capitalism also has the side benefit of reducing the number of needy without resources (though elimination of the needy would require global capitalism).
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