IrishOutlaw : anarchy, socialism

We Need More Time - The Collectivist Battle Cry

IrishOutlaw — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 11:05:00 GMT

I have heard it over and over. Excuses about why a collectivist society has always failed miserably. I have heard it so often that I have named it the "We Need More Time" excuse. "That wasn't true communism/socialism. If (insert excuse here) than it would have been a utopia." Well guess what, it wasn't a utopia and its very nature is flawed. Any process aimed at removing individual ownership of property or self is destined to the same outcomes as Russia, East Germany, Cuba or China. Before any of you collectivists try to point to China as an example, you better think twice. China has been doing better (but they have a long way to go) since they have introduced more of a free market approach. The Chinese Communists have NEVER exercised much control over rural areas of the country, of which nearly the entire country is made up of. China as a whole has been redirecting their resources largely based on the success of Hong Kong, which we all know, was probably the greatest free-market society that existed in recent times. If you need more proof of China's changing attitudes, look no further than the visit last year of the President of China to the US. Did he seek out his counter-part in the US government upon his arrival? Hell no, he went to see Bill Gates first, one of the most successful CAPITALISTS of all time. China has learned a lesson that you other collectivists have seemed to miss, your ideas don't work. So, if you want to point to China, at least admit we know where you really stand.

So the battle cry of the collectivists is "We Need More Time." Well, times up. It has been tried. It is a failure. Get over it.

The basis for collectivism is the divestment of capitol. The collective ownership of property. The very thing that it seeks is its downfall. Capital consists of ALL RESOURCES. Think about the automobiles you see in collectivists society and use them as an example. Where are the new cars, the new designs, the improvements in their production? They don't exist. Some people might argue that they don't exist because they are an unnecessary commodity. Than why do they continue to produce them in collectivists societies (if those societies at any time were able to produce them. Cuba has a bunch of old American cars that they just keep working on.)? The reason is obvious to anyone that is able to offer an objective response. The need to move people from one area to another is necessary in any society. To do that efficiently, we use automobiles. They still exist in collectivists societies for that very reason. So why haven't they evolved from their pre-collectivist conditions? Because the process of building them, the machines used, are capital. When you have a business, the means of production represent capital in the business. If your philosophy eschews capital, than you don't give a *** about the means of production. The tools used in production are of no importance. As a matter of fact, you might pride yourself on having older tools and point to them as a sign of your disdain of capital (either consciously or unconsciously). And there is your downfall.

As society grows (as they are likely to do) the amount of capital remains static in a collectivist society. The need for production rises, but the means of production remains static. Add to that the (ever increasing) amount of resources necessary to maintain a government (which despite any claims otherwise can never evolve past state-capitalism, might as well admit it) and your left with a shrinking resource pool, better known as LESS CAPITAL. Without increasing wealth and developing capital, the needs of a non-static society can never be met. The idea of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" can never be reached. Eventually even the most basic of needs will not be able to be met by the quickly evaporating pool of capital.

So, yell from the rooftops that you need more time. I will laugh at your ignorance. You have had centuries to do it and it is an impossible fantasy. Some collectivists societies bite the dust quickly, others take more time, but in the end, the results are the same. Good luck with that.

The No Name Group Project

What About The Children?

IrishOutlaw — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 23:25:00 GMT

First Thoughts

OK, my first thought is, “Why do people keep bringing up the children?” Even though I would have to guess that it is because they represent something to most people. So what do they represent? I think it is a deep rooted psychological problem that people have. They don’t even seem to know it. First, they see children as helpless and in need of someone else to care for them. That is pretty obvious and I doubt that most people would put much effort into arguing about whether children need protection or not. But, that brings me to my next thought on why people bring it up so much. People are made to feel (and act) like the government is their parent. They seek their comfort and care from the government. Every problem they have, they look to the government to solve. Every dispute they have, they look for the government to settle for them. Every bump in the night sends them screaming and crying for the government to come to their rescue. So when someone asks about the “children”, I try to understand what their real fears might be. But what I am going to do is try and take a look at some of the most common cries on behalf of the “children” and see if I can make sense of them.

Poor kids couldn’t go to school.

This is usually an argument put up by people that have never really seen any poor kids or been to any poor countries. I can assure you though that if you go somewhere with REAL poverty, the kids are in school. Education is an investment that most parents don’t mind making. As a matter of fact, it is an investment in society that most people, whether they are parents or not, don’t mind making. The idea that education would be less important if there were no government is just a knee jerk reaction to government indoctrination on the subject.

Early supporters of a government education system (by early I mean, directly after the American Revolution), felt that the best way to “indoctrinate” citizens to their views would be to start teaching them to the children at an early age. They wanted to pass on THEIR belief system and morals, because they felt that they were the most enlightened and that people should strive to be “just like them”. Most people that make the argument for government schooling today think the exact same thing. They all have certain goals and standards they want to pass on to the children. Never mind that in the US we spend the second most money of any country in the world on education and rank near the bottom as far as results go, it is more important that the kids learn to be “good citizens” that learn to bow before the authority of the state at an early age. It is more important that they learn tolerance than learn how to use critical thinking.

So the argument to me doesn’t seem to be so much, “Poor kids won’t go to school” as, “Poor kids won’t act the way we want them to act.” The two major political parties in the US seem to be like two divorced parents. Both of them using the “children” to try and get at the other one. In a world with no government parents, REAL parents will be able to pass on the type of education they want to their children on their own. It doesn’t matter who has money and who doesn’t, education is important enough that there will always be people willing to teach and children willing to learn.

Poor kids wouldn’t have health care.

Poor kids don’t really have health care now. But that has not much to do with the government paying for it, it has to do with the government being all up in the middle of it. It literally takes an act of congress to get the poor kids into the doctor. Than the doctor has a pile of red tape to go through to get paid. Book keeping takes up more of the doctors’ time than actually seeing the patients. And who requires the paperwork? You guessed it, the government does. All this extra work has to be paid by someone. When people are getting the government to pay for it, we all pay for it. On top of that, it helps the doctors set their prices on what they charge for their services. So on top of paying for it in taxes, when someone goes to the doctor they are paying for a service that is priced basically by the governments willingness to pay for the service. As the cost of doing business with the government (and conversely what the government will pay for the service) rises, so does the price for everyone else, even those paying for the service out of their own pocket. This is precisely one of those areas that the government has done incredible amounts of damage to the market by interfering in it.

Today we see lots of clinics opening up. There have been medical and dental clinics all across the US that have operated on a free or sliding scale basis, but they are making a comeback. Doctors have figured out that the best way to offer their services is to take the government out of the equation. It lowers their cost of doing business and it increases the number of people they can see. In the case of seeing people for free, they are usually compensated through donations. But the impersonal treatment “medical farms” give to their patients is giving way to a more personal approach. This is very attractive to most people. Lets face it, even with a government, lots of people (not just kids) don’t have the insurance or money to pay for medical services at the rate they are charged now. And despite the pessimistic outlook people have of doctors being in it for the money (although I am sure there are plenty), most of them got into the field because they wanted to help people. The absence of government will not change the desire of a certain group of people that want to help others out.

What about child abuse?

I could break this down into its many, many different categories. Sexual, physical, mental, or just plain neglect, but there really is no reason to do that. Abuse is abuse. It happens with a government and it is likely to happen without one. The argument is that without a government, no one will step in to help the children. They say that private security agencies won’t have a motivation to intervene on their behalf. All I can say is, BULLSHIT. If I know about abuse of a child, I am motivated to step in on the children’s behalf NOW. What would change just because there is no government?

For something to be done about abuse in our current system, the reported abuse must come to light first. The same would have to happen under a stateless society. Right now the government sends people over to investigate the allegations. In a stateless society the abuse would be investigated by a private security agency. How do I know this? Because I for one (and I am sure most others would also) would only do business with a PDA that included that service. And if it wasn’t an included service of anyone of them, I would hire one of them to do it anyway.

The idea that the children won’t be cared for is just insane. I don’t even know where people come up with that idea. Well, really I do know where they come up with it, it is the load of propaganda they have been fed.

Kids would be doing drugs.

Once again, kids do drugs now. Having a state or not doesn’t change the fact. Some people think that MORE kids would do drugs than do now. That could be, I don’t have a crystal ball to say one way or the other. I do believe that only a certain number of people do drugs, it doesn’t matter if they are legal or illegal. If the prohibition of alcohol in the US is any indicator, we can pretty much assume that MORE people do things when it is illegal than when it is legal. But regardless, there is no reason to just assume that there would be more kids doing drugs then there is now.

What about the kids that no body wants?

I don’t know that there are any kids that people don’t want NOW. There are plenty of kids that are in foster homes or state custody, but that doesn’t mean no one wants them, only that for whatever reason the state has taken them from their parents. But, many of them seem to stay in the system now. Most of the ones in the system end up turning 19 or 21 or whatever arbitrary age the government says they can’t stay anymore and THEN they are turned out on the streets. With no support system, no family to turn to, no religious affiliation to lean on, nothing. Where do a lot of this kids end up? Back in the system, but this time they are locked in cages to be kept away from the rest of us.

Lots of these kids are kept from going to loving caring families for whatever reason the government comes up with. In some places, if you smoke you can’t take them in, if you are gay you can’t take them in, and on and on. Without those kinds of draconian prohibitions against caring and loving for a child, I don’t foresee any more children being homeless and alone, than we do now. More than likely those kids would find a loving home and someone else will provide the service that gets them together with that new family.

Something about a stateless society that sounds barbaric when you just hear it is this; in a stateless society, people will be able to sell their children. That sounds awful, but is it really? Think about it. NOW, if someone has a child they don’t want, can’t handle or can no longer care for, that child goes to the state. The chances of the parent ever getting them back are not very good and many parents don’t even want them back. It is a sad fact of life that there are unwanted children sometimes. But IF the parents can sell the children they will have an incentive to provide them for sell in the best possible shape. They will be motivated to make sure they are well fed, without disease and definitely not beaten and bloody. And since most people want babies or young children, they will be motivated to get rid of them as soon as possible, therefore removing the children from a bad situation even sooner.

Conclusion

One of those things that make people uncomfortable about a stateless society is their perception of how children will be treated. Whether that is a true belief that children will be mistreated or a deeper fear that they themselves will feel insecure without the government is hard to see on the face of the issues. I would be willing to say that it is a combination of both of those things. I don’t think the whole argument is about the children, but there are things involving children that I myself think should be addressed. Sometimes people are at different points on their journey to a stateless society and this is one of those issues that will continually come up.

The No Name Group Project

Quit Saying Public Please

IrishOutlaw — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 06:38:00 GMT

It is interesting how much power is in that one little word, “Public”. From where I am sitting, it is the word used to commit all kinds of atrocities in the US. The idea that there is some kind of collective greater good that can be imposed on people against their will is implied in the word. Private property is subjected to the whims of special interest group’s because of that word. Education and discipline are taken from the hands of the parents because of that word. A feeling of subjugation is implied in that word. What I want to do is take a closer look at “public”.

Public Schools

The idea sounds good on the face of it. But what it really means is “funded by everyone”. They really aren’t public. You can’t go down to you local elementary school in your bathrobe and go check out a book from the library. If you don’t have kids in the school you may get to vote for school board members, but you have little to no say in anything else that has to do with the system. Even if you do have kids in the school system you have very little say. This is the local level, the place were you should be able to exert the greatest control. But instead we see schools that run from the top of government down. And we get government results out of our school systems. We spend the second highest amount on education in the world, but rank consistently low on all scales that measure education.

We continually hear about how the “public” doesn’t get involved with education. How they need more money, more teachers, more everything, but truthfully, your input is not really all that welcome. We hear about our school system failing and our future falling further and further into doubt. The answer? More money, more teachers, more schools. If you have pile of crap in your front yard, does it make it less of a problem if you pile more crap onto it? That just doesn’t make sense to me.

There are some good and interesting programs around that are making a difference and doing things that seem to offer a ray of hope for education in this country, but they are not coming from the government and they never will. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation comes straight to mind. They have been able to go into some places were drop out rates are high, reading and comprehension are low and a myriad of other problems are evident in the system and to turn it all around. And, they end up doing it for less than the government spends.

We spend an average of about $7000 a year per student in the US. Private school tuition averages about $3500 a year. And just look at test scores and overall student performance between “public” schools and private schools and you wonder why we don’t just send all the kids to private schools, save about half the money and get better results. I know I wonder why.

Well, really, I don’t wonder why. The school system is run by the government. It is really set up less to educate students than it is to turn out “good citizens” who are used to bowing to government authority figures. The schools are more concerned with instilling what students will accept over what they know. One of these days I am going to write more on this issue, but for now lets move on.

Public Funds

When people talk about public funds or public funding, they are usually referring to a pool of resources gathered at the expense of tax payers. Lots of people pay taxes against their will and don’t agree with the programs they go to sponsor. That is the first three strikes against public funds and I haven’t even gotten into the concept of them yet. Of course, unless it is against citizens, the government has no idea that after three strikes your out.

So what about this pool of appropriated resources? Is it really public? That should be easy to find out. When is the last time you paid your bar tab with them? Never has happened has it?

Funds taken from the people are not public. Quite the contrary, they are more private than your own bank account. When you get taxed, the money is no longer yours. The goods or services the money goes to are not yours either. The people that pay for goods and services are the owners of those goods and services. When you buy goods or services, they become yours to use of and dispense of as you wish. The money you used to pay for those things was yours and you can logically claim a right of ownership over not only the funds, but the property you acquire with those funds.

This is not how public funds work. From a local perspective you can influence more control over were those funds go and how much goes to what project, but the further up the chain you go, the further away from the funds you get. And when you get all the way to the top you hit another obstacle. Just because you voted or were involved in saying where those funds would go and how much would be spent on the local level, the federal level imposes all kinds of restrictions on what you can do with them. Really, it is quite a racket the federal government has been able to pull off. First, they take your money. They promise or guarantee certain things in return. Then they take part of that money and keep it for themselves. Then they give a portion of the remaining money back and tell you how you can spend it. Its nothing more than a scam, plain and simple. Advocates of states rights, though they are booed down by the left as wanting to bring back slavery, are really upholding a higher standard of accountability to the government. The US government isn’t supposed to work from the top down, but from the bottom up.

Public Roads

I am going to go camping on Sixth Street. I will just put my tent up right in the center of the street. No one should care, they are public roads. Then I am going to start me a little campfire, make smores and sing Kumbaya. Ok, I am not really going to do that. It isn’t allowed. But maybe I will just sell the street in front of my house to someone else. Then they can own a larger part of the public roads. They will have a controlling interest in the road system, because they will own more of the public roads than anyone else. What? I can’t do that either? I thought I was part owner, that they were public and I am part of the public that paid for them. I must be crazy.

At least I have a say so over where they put the roads, that’s something, right. Oh wait, I don’t even get to say that. As a matter of fact, if the government decides they are going to put a road through my front yard, they will do that. If they decide they are going to put a sidewalk next to that road through my yard, they will do that too.

I like the idea and use of toll roads. Pretty soon, you won’t be able to come to Texas without paying for the roads you are using. To me that makes a lot of sense and I can’t believe anyone in the government went along with it. I am going to talk more about roads on a later date too, stay tuned.

Conclusion

I think it is imperative that we take the word PUBLIC and remove it from use anytime we are talking about government. Let’s call these things what they are, Government Schools, Government Funds and Government Roads. And lets continue that and apply it to everything that we have been thought to believe is public. Public lands aren’t really public lands, they are government lands. Public airwaves aren’t really public, they are government airwaves. Public buildings aren’t really public, they are government buildings. If we took the use of the word public out and replaced it with government, people would see how all intrusive the government has become. Of course, some people would champion that. Some people can’t seem to get enough government. They want it everywhere; even in the bedroom (unless they are having gay sex with underage kids, but that is another story). The left wants to work “for the greater good” and take my money to help out a very small portion of the population. The right wants to “protect my safety” by killing people I have no problem with and keeping people out of the country that I really like a lot. How about this, I will keep my money and if I see someone in need, I will help them out. Or better yet, I will give money to charities that help them out. And if I see someone with an AK47 trying to blow up my house, I will keep myself safe. I don’t need to give the government a portion of my money, so they can give me back less, to do things that I am perfectly capable of doing myself without them.

The No Name Group Project