Tut tut! Tutton our Moron Liberal Troll can't keep from humiliating himself

(In advance, I apologize to my friend Don Luskin for shamelessly using his writing style. You'll see.)

"Moron liberal" seems awfully redundant. In any case, last night Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll e-mailed me a bit of an accusation that I'm unable to respond to his previous e-mail. Click here to see the full history of how I've been verbally abusing him. As I always say, liberals deserve no mercy, on here as well as other blogs.

Despite Tutton's paranoia mixed with delusions of grandeur, I simply haven't had the chance to get around to his e-mail. I've bought a couple of new computers, not to mention booking plane tickets and finalizing other itineraries for an upcoming tropical vacation with a beautiful woman. So Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll had better think otherwise if he thinks he's a priority to me.

Subject: Sifflez tandis que vous travaillez!

I thought you were going to post my e-mail (a couple of weeks ago)? But it's OK; I'm sure every one of your 10 readers has figured out that it must have answered your uninformed insults in a manner too embarassing for your ego to bear, n'est-ce pas vrai?

Can't you whistle?

Considering Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll can't spell, he'd better cease trying to speak English. The subject, roughly translated, is "Whistle while you work." Before he fancied himself a German speaker, and now he thinks he can speak French. Who'd like to bet that he used Babelfish or the like, or maybe asked a friend? After all, as they say, hic puer est stultissimus omnium.

As a matter of fact, as I'm writing this paragraph, I still haven't read the e-mail to which he refers. Let's get to that now:

Since you call yourself "Der Eidelblogger", I assumed that you were a "wannabe Kraut", hence the sarcastic German comments.

This is the problem with moron liberals like Tutton. Their first error is to assume.

If you called yourself "Le Eidelbloggeur", I would have used sarcastic French.

A lingual absurdity, since my last name is German. Besides, I'd have shot myself before calling myself that. This blog has never refrained from France-bashing when possible.

Then again, absurdity is the norm from the liberal mind, especially from the mind of Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll.

Whatever the language, if you cannot see the difference between selling apples on the street corner and working in the mines, I am afraid you are hopeless. Saying "I make no value judgement" is the same as saying "It's OK by me".

Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll still doesn't understand the point. Will he ever understand that some societies are simply too poor for adults alone to feed the population, or is he too dulled by his 20th/21st century comfort?

Does Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll have such a problem with the English language that he didn't see how my father had a very real risk of starvation? My father missed meals more than once, because selling apples (and his mother's bathtub gin) went only so far. When he was old enough to work at a store, he labored every hour he could, for every dime he could earn. Now, if he had found an opportunity to work in a dangerous factory at the mere age of 11 years, you're damn right he'd have taken it. Those were desperate times, when a relatively rich nation found many of its people reduced to what we today would call Third World living -- a day-to-day struggle for the basic need of food, let alone shelter.

The liberals always like to say that they are personally against abortion, but they don't want to force their opinion on anyone.

No, that's not even a smidgen true. There are plenty of liberals who believe in the necessity of strict family planning, because they hold to this myth of planetary overpopulation. "Freedom of choice" is only their cover story, because such freedom never applies to your wallet, your house or with whom you transact commerce.

If everyone thought like that, slavery would still be legal in the US, and children would still be pulling carts in the tunnels.

Only a moron like Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll could mix a complete non-sequitur with absurd comparisons. The difference between slavery and child labor is simply that they are different: slavery is involuntary servitude, but child labor is voluntary, like it or not.

And for his information, slavery persisted in the United States because the federal government sanctioned it, ever since the Constitution was drafted in 1787. Let him mull that over a bit.

I pointed out,

And I'd like Tutton to point out anytime that children were doing such things. The sheer logic escapes him: a cart won't fit much at all if it must fit in a tunnel smaller than a grown man. A mine owner wasn't going to hire children when he needed the strength of grown men.

Well, Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll said,

I am happy now to point you to just a small portion of the massive amounts of documentation a person can find, if he cares to look.

And, yes, as I am sure you will note, Engels is quoted below. If the Brits and Americans had not addressed the most egregious forms of labor exploitation, the Communists would have taken over, but luckily good people saw the worst injustices and remedied them.

Good lord, for all the times that Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll claims he's not a liberal, he sounds like a Marxist. Just listen to him say it: "labor exploitation."

And he points to this, written by some liberal professor by the name of David Cody. The thing is, Cody hardly qualifies as an authority to cite, because he isn't a historian! He's a professor, but actually only an associate professor of American literature at Hartwick, a tiny liberal arts school in upstate New York.

So as the claptrap on this site goes:

That the shameful practice of child labor should have played an important role in the Industrial Revolution from its outset is not to be wondered at. The displaced working classes, from the seventeenth century on, took it for granted that a family would not be able to support itself if the children were not employed.

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, entire families toiled in the fields and woods, risking starvation if they couldn't produce enough. Is "Dr." Cody (who is not a trained economic historian) really as much of a moron as Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll to think that the pre-industrial, agrarian West allowed children to play happily?

When they were in elementary school, my sister and her friends wrote some ridiculous tune about "little pioneer children" singing happy songs. "Pioneer children," living with their families in mainly in pre-industrial conditions, had to labor as soon as they could walk. School was unheard-of, because young children were needed to help milk cows, pull crops, draw water, gather wood, etc.

On the other hand, what industrialization does for economies is that it stabilizes output, allowing people to produce excesses that they can save and reinvest into ever-advancing technology. The reality is that at first, children will still have to work as economic forces adjust. They have to work, just like they did before, until the economy becomes progressively wealthy: eventually only teenagers and adults will have to work, and eventually they'll need to work fewer and fewer hours to support their families. As I've pointed out, this kind of productivity increase is thanks to technology, not because government decided we shouldn't work more than 40 hours a week. Government can legislate and regulate all it wants, but it has no power to help people produce the same amount in less time. I would presume Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll has heard of the term "blood from a turnip."

In Defoe's day he thought it admirable that in the vicinity of Halifax scarcely anybody above the age of 4 was idle.

This is a logical fallacy called "appeal to authority." Just because Daniel Defoe wrote books doesn't make him a great economist. Now, we're assuming that "Dr." Cody (who is not a trained economic historian) is telling the truth here, but if that's what Defoe really believed, he sounds more Keynesian than anything.

The children of the poor were forced by economic conditions to work, as Dickens, with his family in debtor's prison, worked at age 12 in the Blacking Factory.

The stupidity of "Dr." Cody's argument is that it ignores the reality that the poor in non-industrialized societies are, imagine that, also "forced by economic conditions to work."

In 1840 perhaps only twenty percent of the children of London had any schooling, a number which had risen by 1860, when perhaps half of the children between 5 and 15 were in some sort of school, if only a day school (of the sort in which Dickens's Pip finds himself in Great Expectations) or a Sunday school; the others were working.

Again, the stupidity of "Dr." Cody (who is not a trained economic historian) is that he ignores the reality that hardly any children in pre-industrialized societies could go to any school at all. Twenty percent was unheard-of, because children were needed to work lest the families starve. Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll just can't understand that last part, that in poor economies, if the parents alone work, the entire family won't have enough to eat.

Many of the more fortunate found employment as apprentices to respectable trades (in the building trade workers put in 64 hours a week in summer and 52 in winter) or as general servants — there were over 120,000 domestic servants in London alone at mid-century, who worked 80 hour weeks for one halfpence per hour — but many more were not so lucky.

"Dr." Cody (who is not a trained economic historian) would rather have them working in the countryside, hoping to scrape together a few potatoes and a small chance of a goose at Christmastime? Instead of 64 hours per week, he thinks it's a better life that they toil 80+ in the fields, starting before dark?

While 120,000 domestic servants sounds like a lot, London did have a population of over two-and-a-half million by 1850. These were also steady jobs where, though they may not have lived in luxury, guaranteed housing and food for the servants, as opposed to the real risk of starvation in the countryside.

Most prostitutes (and there were thousands in London alone) were between 15 and 22 years of age.

This is no different than non-industrialized societies. What does "Dr." Cody (who is not a trained economic historian) expect, that prostitutes would be elderly spinsters?

Many children worked 16 hour days under atrocious conditions, as their elders did. Ineffective parliamentary acts to regulate the work of workhouse children in factories and cotton mills to 12 hours per day had been passed as early as 1802 and 1819.

Atrocious conditions? Of course, because they were factories. Conditions weren't made intentionally bad, they simply were because of the nature of the work. What does "Dr." Cody (who is not a trained economic historian) expect, gilded machinery, marble floors, and beluga with Bollinger Grand Année?

The problem with liberals is that they ascribe malicious intentions to everything about the free market. The real reason the laws were ineffective isn't because the employers were evil and forced children to work long hours, but because the families needed the children to work. "Dr." Cody is not a trained economic historian, nor is Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll (obviously!), but you shouldn't have to be one to understand the simple reality that when a child brings home 75% of a paycheck and the family needed 100%, the family will starve if they don't break the law.

...(children as young as 3 had been put to work previously).

Now think about it: at age 3, what can a child really do? With what strength? Again, it's this stupidity that Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll demonstrated before, claiming that young children were used to haul coal through tunnels too small for grown men. Hauling what, a few coals at a time? Business owners and managers aren't stupid: they know what's profitable, and a tiny tunnel would never yield enough profit to break even. Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll said I was wrong but offered a non-sequitur as his "proof": the reality still remains that when it comes to physical labor, one strong adult can do far more output over time than several small children.

This act applied only to the textile industry, where children were put to work at the age of 5, and not to a host of other industries and occupations.

Who, besides Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll, is idiotic enough to think that a 5-year-old should go to school and be more of a burden on his starving family, rather than pulling a few levers to help feed them? Pulling levers and low-torque crankwheels is about such a young kid can do, though Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll and "Dr." Cody (who is not a trained economic historian) would have you think they were pushing huge carts and hauling large bales of cloth.

Iron and coal mines (where children, again, both boys and girls, began work at age 5, and generally died before they were 25)

Someone who is 25 years old is not a child, so it's a ludicrous implication that children were being sent to death sentences. The fact is that mines have always been dangerous work, but people have voluntarily done it to feed their families. Even today with all our safety equipment, we have miners who die in accidents when young.

...gas works, shipyards, construction, match factories, nail factories, and the business of chimney sweeping, for example (which Blake would use as an emblem of the destruction of the innocent), where the exploitation of child labor was more extensive, was to be enforced in all of England by a total of four inspectors. After further radical agitation, another act in 1847 limited both adults and children to ten hours of work daily.

There we go again, "exploitation." Who was being exploited? Families needed their children to work, bottom line.

Next, Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll pointed to an excerpt of The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. Here's how he quoted it to me in e-mail:

The transport of coal and iron-stone, on the other hand, is very hard labour, the stuff being shoved in large tubs
, without wheels, over the uneven floor of the mine; often over moist clay, or through water, and frequently up steep inclines and through paths so low-roofed that the workers are forced to creep on hands and knees. For this more wearing labour, therefore, older children and half-grown girls are employed. One man or two boys per tub are employed, according to circumstances; and, if two boys, one pushes and the other pulls. The loosening of the ore or coal, which is done by men or strong youths of sixteen years or more, is also very weary work. The usual working-day is eleven to twelve hours, often longer; in Scotland i t reaches fourteen hours, and double time is frequent, when all the employees are at work below ground twenty-four, and even thirty -six hours at a stretch. Set times for meals are almost unknown, so that these people eat when hunger and time permit.

Like other liberals, he resorted to the trick of selective quoting. His other mistake is to cite Engels' propaganda at all.

Now, Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll claimed previously that "Little children pulling carts through tunnels that grown men cannot fit through," but Engels himself said that the youngest children were manipulating doors for those doing the actual heavy work. Moreover, Engels contradicted himself in the same breath: "For this more wearing labour, therefore, older children and half-grown girls are employed. One man or two boys per tub are employed, according to circumstances; and, if two boys, one pushes and the other pulls." So which is it?

Note that even Engels admitted, "The standard of living of the miners is in general described as fairly good and their wages high in comparison with those of the agricultural labourers surrounding them (who, however, live at starvation rates), except in certain parts of Scotland and in the Irish mines, where great misery prevails." Nice, let Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll go right on proving my points for me! The point is that people will do what they must to survive.

Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll further blathered:

The 1842 Mines Act

No female was to be employed underground

No boy under 10 years old was to be employed underground.

Parish apprentices between the ages of 10 and 18 could continue to work in the mines.

There were no clauses relating to hours of work, and inspection could only take place on the basis of checking the 'condition of the workers'. Ironically, many women were annoyed that they could no longer earn the much needed money.

Exactly -- people were voluntarily working the hard, long hours, but the law forbade them. And God help a family if they happened to have all daughters, or a few sons early on when the husband and wife could barely support themselves.

So there we go. Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll proves he's as much of an economic and historical ignoramus as ever. At least he's also stopped claiming he's not a liberal, since his defense of government intervention has left no doubt that "nationalist" was merely a mask.

And by the way, Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll can leave comments here to continue the discussion. (Note I don't address him directly, as he's that much beneath us.) His e-mail address is now going into my spam filter, as I get too much e-mail already, and I have no more time to waste on him. I have one e-mail account with over 1000 unread messages, and another with over 1500 unread messages. I'm just really busy these days and don't have the time to answer all the messages I get, although Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll should feel honored that I deigned to pick on him so ruthlessly. I haven't really ripped on liberals in a long time, so this was more for the fun of it, and presenting real economic history, and not because I think Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll is worth the time to refute.

He can deride me for not having a lot of blog readers, but as anyone with a single working synapse can deduce, my low readership is because I no longer blog that often. Furthermore, let's see him show the stats of his own blog. Oh, that's right, he doesn't have one.

Are liberals like Joseph Tutton always so weak-minded?

My friend and blogfather Don Luskin forwarded me an e-mail from some Tutton guy whose e-mails to me kept getting bounced. I couldn't have remembered for the life of me who this Tutton guy is, but he e-mailed Don a while back, and Don and I separately countered his China-bashing.

My Dear Mr. Luskin:

I hate to ask a favor, but I will -- would you please forward this to Eidelblogger. Sending to his address listed on his web site has given me a Postmaster message that it is permantly disabled. The address I sent it to was eidelblog@gmail.com.

Since he gave me the extreme insult of calling me a "liberal", for God's sake, I thought I must respond. I sent a copy to you, but Postmaster said it wasn't delivered to him. So, if you can, send it to is new address, if you have it. And, if you can't find an address for the loser, I would ask you to think about posting this reply on your site, so he might read it.

Peace (through strength), Joseph Tutton

Ah, my fault there. When I redid some colors for my blog a while back, I created an image file with "eidelblog" rather than "eidelbus" as I should have. Seriously, are liberals like Tutton really that clueless that they think I did that deliberately, so I couldn't be e-mailed? The simple truth of the matter is, and I say this almost with a blush, I didn't notice my mistake until now. Even when my friend jk said his e-mail to me bounced, I thought he had mistyped the address. I use an image file, not text, and it's not "mailto:" hyperlinked, to prevent spam.

And if all else fails, which jk figured, leave a comment so I can initiate an e-mail conversation. I require registration for comments, however. which helps cut down on spamIt's mainly because of spammers, but also anonymous NYPD cowards who were inundating me with the most vulgar things you ever read.

On a side note, I never did register eidelblog@gmail.com, and I figured I had better in case someone decides to start impersonating me. Curiously enough, Google says that "eidelblog" is unavailable, and a message just now got bounced back. So the ID isn't in use, but it can't be used for a new account: it truly is disabled. That's a nice touch for which I'll give Google a lot of credit, preventing a certain ID from being registered on Gmail because it's presumably the same as an existing ID on Blogger.

Well, here's the e-mail that Ranting Liberal Tutton wanted to send me. I think he's been breathing too many coal mine fumes, don't you think?

Meiner Lieber Eidelblogger:

"I make no value judgment either way..."

I did not see your "enlightened" response to my e-mail to Don Luskin when it first came out. But let me now express my appreciation to you for articulating the ueber Kapitolistischer

Is he trying to impress me or something, throwing in German words just because I call myself "Eidelblogger"? I don't speak more than a few words of German, if you can call that speaking. My father may have been half-German, but he was raised by his French mother and aunt and thus learned a bit of their ancestral tongue.

Tutton really presumes too much. I used to call myself "The Eidelblogger" simply as an English neologism, until Jack Yoest referred to me as "Der Eidelblogger." I liked the sound of it and changed my blog's masthead as appropriate.

opinion that it is indeed, not only acceptible, but good, to have children working in coal mines and other dangerous manufacturing scenarios. Man, I could not have asked for a better response.

In fact, I never said any such thing, and I wonder if it's Tutton's rabid paranoia at being called a "liberal" that prompted him to put words into my mouth.

What I originally said was here, and I've also blogged about child labor. I was perfect correct, not to mention truthful, in saying I make no value judgments either way. What I do observe is that some societies are so poor that adults alone cannot produce sufficient economic output to feed the family, so there is no choice but to have children participate. Throughout human history, it's been everything from herding sheep to farm chores to digging. In some developing countries today, it's making clothes and semiconductors. Nobody wants to see children, because it's the ideal that they can go to school and grow up happy, but no matter how much Tutton sticks his head in the sand, we can't avoid the reality that certain poor societies just can't afford to have only adults working. When two parents can't grow enough crops by themselves, or tend enough animals by themselves, to support several children. Poorer families already tend to be larger, and consider that more children in the Third World are reaching adulthood thanks to vaccinations and sanitation.

My father, not even a teenager, could work to support his family during the Great Depression. How will Tutton explain that his beliefs applied in the 1930s would have condemned my father to literal starvation? It's just another way that modern liberalism insists on saving you from saving yourself, even if it kills you.

It wasn't government that stopped child labor. No matter what people want government to do, government cannot make people produce more than they are already capable, no more than it can decree water to be less wet. The reason, the only reason, that the United States and developed countries don't have child labor is that we don't need it, thanks to technology. Parents in the United States generally can earn enough to feed their families. Parents in Zimbabwe generally cannot, and if a child has an opportunity to work somewhere to earn money so the family can afford to eat, the logical choice is not to send the child to school.

But, you were mistaken in saying that I am a "Liberal". I was cured of that disease a long time ago. I am a Nationalist. But, Gott sei' dank', I am not a Socialist.

Is he capitalizing words, thinking he's speaking German? Regardless, one can be a nationalist (big or small N) and still a liberal. Larouchers are liberal, but they're as "nationalist" as any classic fascist. On the other end of the political spectrum, one can be a nationalist and still a socialist, just like Lenin and all his successors.

Liberals believe in government control of the economy, but maybe Tutton really isn't. I'm starting to wonder, especially with all the German words he's throwing around and now his self-professed "nationalist" ideology, if he's a modern Nazi a la Pat Buchanan.

What is your excuse for wanting children in the mines? Whose kinder, sag' mir?

Once more, I never said I wanted children in the mines. In an ideal world, not even adults would have to work in such dangerous places.

In Tennessee, as well as Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania, und alles, the whites from Scotland and Germany, Czech und Poland worked along side the black Schwarzeneggers in the god-awful hells of the coal mines of Appalachia. East Tennessee fought for the Union of this Country. Not for any goddamned union organization. If you had any idea of how many people died for indiv idual freedom, you would be slower to accuse someone of being a "liberal" because they oppose slave labor in China. But thanks for expressing the slave-owner mentality so well. N'mie wieder, liebchen. Versteche'?

Talk about your non sequiturs! Two different ethnic groups worked together, half of Tennessee aligned with the North during the Civil War instead of fighting for unions, people died for what they mistakenly thought was "individual freedom" (the Civil War was not fought over freedom, but over the federal government's authority), and ergo, Tutton says, I'm like a slave owner because I recognize some societies are really poor and need children to pitch in.

Tutton has a warped notion of "individual freedom," which he tacitly defines as what meets the limits of his acceptance. True "individual freedom" is my right to transact peacefully with another willing party, harming no others, no matter what Tutton or others say. This is whether I'm running an energy company that ships coal from Tennessee to Tallahassee, or buying goods that were made in a factory in Shanghai. Don has always been right to emphasize that we can't defend the ideals of liberty by pointing out that they're more economically efficient: our defense must be on the grounds that they are the moral choice.

Liberals would say that "moral" is to have laws preventing children from working. No, that's fantasy. "Moral" is not preventing children from picking up a shovel or scythe to help feed their families.

What hath the free market wrought?

(Don't miss my preceding entry, The rule of law, "overpriced," market clearing, and information in markets, which gives good background to this entry.) Reader Michael Bolig had sent me someone's false accusations against the free market. Actually I'd already seen them here, having noticed a little traffic coming from that site. Michael had posted the link to my entry last night, where part of my discussion was the superiority of the free market over central planning. Here's a line-by-line response:

The market is capable of generating an enormous amount of wealth, no doubt.

As opposed to the state-driven slavery and poverty of central planning? I'll take the free market any day.

But here are some things an unfettered, free market CANNOT or HAS NOT done:

* The market did not anticipate or resolve the use of child labor in this country and elsewhere. It created it.

This is complete ignorance of cause and effect, both in history and economics. Child labor existed has existed since the dawn of man for one reason: societies were so poor and could produce so little that parents needed their children to work. Modern history books omit that before factories and other manifestations of urbanization, children performed back-breaking labor on the family farms. In a recent e-mail to Don Boudreaux of Cafe Hayek (I originally said "told," but he's a much smarter man than I am, so I can't really "tell" him anything), of course no one wants children to work. If we had the power to create an ideal world, we would have no adults work, either. I will refrain from saying children should work or should be prohibited from working. Instead, I will recognize that some societies need their children to work. Do you want to eliminate child labor in the Third World? Then you will condemn families to starvation, or at least increased poverty, because the parents alone cannot earn enough income. Shall we then try to pay them higher, "fair" wages? That nonsensical approach ignores the reality of finite money. Because their buyers (including we Americans when we import) can purchase only so much, doubled wages mean that only half will remain employed. Tripled wages mean that only a third will remain employed. This is why the minimum wage does not work, because some will receive more money while others are left unemployed. There is no escaping the reality of finite money. In my mother's home country of the Philippines, one need not travel too far outside Makati (Manila's business and entertainment district, equivalent to Manhattan) to see cardboard cities, and the harsh reality that a lot of children must work so the families don't starve. It wasn't too long ago that American families faced the same thing. My father was only 11 when the Depression hit. Though he didn't have to work in a factory, at least that would have paid more than the often futile attempt to sell apples on Schenectady streetcorners.

* The market did not anticipate or resolve the demand for slavery. It demanded free labor and created it.

Clearly this person doesn't understand what the free market is. The free market prohibits the use of force, which is what slavery needs to exist. The free market requires individual freedom, property rights and purely voluntary transactions, so it in fact is completely opposed to slavery. As a matter of history, it has almost always been government that either began or supported slavery. In the West it was Spanish imperialism, because the conquistadores had no regard for indigenous people's rights. Since they were military agents of their country, it was government that began the practice of slavery. Then the British continued the practice, encouraged by their government's issuance of various charters and other incentives to do business in the American colonies. After the colonies gained independence, the U.S. federal government specifically blessed slavery, even long after it was abolished by every other Western nation, which all did so without bloodshed. Prof. Thomas DiLorenzo in his book The Real Lincoln pointed out that South American nations, which I describe as forged in the fire of Spanish slavery, still abolished slavery peacefully. Only the United States has had to fight a war to abolish what was federally blessed slavery, and why? Because government had given its blessing, making slavery such an established institution that the free market could not destroy it. Update: let me clarify, in case some of you might be wondering. I definitely know that the Civil War was not fought specifically to "free the slaves," but my phrasing is because the abolition of slavery was a result of the North's victory. If you're familiar with The Real Lincoln, you'd know one of DiLorenzo's themes is peaceful secession: the question was not just if states have the right to permit slavery within their borders, but whether they can leave the Union at will. And long before I read his book, "states' rights" was quite emphasized in the Utah public schools I attended. Yes, that's right: allowing the free market to work would have destroyed slavery. DiLorenzo explained the simple economics: slaves just aren't very good workers. Supposedly you only have to clothe them a little, feed them a little, and house them in the worst of conditions. However, you won't get a lot out of them. You'll incur greater costs hiring a free worker, but you'll get far more from him: it's spending a little more to get a lot more production. You won't have to waste time beating slaves or chasing after runaways. A private worker who doesn't work hard enough or doesn't show up at all, on the other hand, can be fired. Let's not forget that the slaves were typically sold by fellow Africans who had captured them. But they were not taken prisoner specifically to sell, but because they were captured in war. Again, that's not the nature of the free market.

* The market did not anticipate or resolve the polution and burning of Boston Bay or the creation of thousands of superfund sites. It created them.

No doubt this person also believes that guns kill people. Actually, people kill people, and it is people who create the pollution. Before Superfund sites, before our modern industry that gave us wonderful technology to improve our standard of living, we faced far greater pollution threats from our own sewage. Recall how Drew Barrymore was ecstatic at being able to "poop in the woods" or some such tripe, which continues today in places like India, where rivers are used for sewage, drinking water, bathing, and disposal of human ashes. Only a century ago, instead of worrying about pollution from automobile exhaust, we worried about diseases from horse dung. Nobody cleaned it up, so it typically stayed in the street, where it would dry into dust and be carried away by the wind. Humans have always had to worry about pollution, even in the most "natural" conditions that we idealistically liken to Eden. The Superfund sites themselves are very dangerous, but it's like the old joke: a man tells a doctor that it hurts when he does a certain action, so the doctor replies, "Then don't do that!" Very few people live near such dangerous sites, and because of the wonderful wealth that the free market created in the U.S., those affected were able to find other places to live.

* The market did not anticipate or resolve acid rain or the hole in the ozone layer. It created them.

As the years have shown, acid rain is far from the Armageddon that environmentalists predicted. Which is better, slightly more acidic rain that in reality affects relatively few people, or a lack of industry that results in a low standard of living, and thus highly polluted rivers because of a lack of sanitation? You can't have it both ways. That man has created the hole in the ozone layer is one of the great environmental myths. Just like global warming, it's been around long before heavy industrial activity. Hint: solar radiation, which, in conjunction with natural occurrences like volcanoes (Pinatubo is near my family's hometown), also causes more global warming than human activity.

* The market did not anticipate or resolve the Great Depression. It created it.

Completely untrue and just plain wrong. As Milton Friedman demonstrated decades ago, the Federal Reserve, whose very function is contrary to the free market, triggered the Great Depression by reducing the money supply (sometimes said to have been by a full third), after the Fed had spent much of the 1920s inflating the money supply to create an artificial boom. Then J.P. Morgan and other cohorts attempted to sustain the unsustainable by trying to save the stock market. Stocks should have been allowed to plummet so that they would reflect their true value, but the bankers refused to let the free market work. For further reading on what really happened before and during the Depression, see here, here, here and here.

* The market did not anticipate or create the 40-hour work week, the two-day weekend, safe working conditions, and employer-provided health care, pensions, or defined-benefit plans. It fought them.

Absurdities. The modern work week is the product of a society's wealth, not government. Government can mandate that, health care, pensions and all the safe working conditions it wants, but without technological advancement, it can issue regulations until every bureaucrat is blue in the face. And how do we achieve technological advancement? Not just the free market, but pure capitalismZ. Shorter work weeks, better working conditions, and benefits like health care, are in fact products of competition. So again, this person is completely wrong: the free market will produce benefits. Companies will offer greater incentives to attract the best people, so that they can maximize output, which allows them to offer even more to retain the best employees.

What resolved all of the terrible sins of an unfettered, free market? Government partnership with business and labor and the mixed economy they (we) created. Period.

What utter elephant dung! It has always been big government and its chartered "business allies" (which are not the free market) that tyrannize and enslave people, maintained a feudal system for centuries against free market principles, and make people unemployable with myriads of regulations.

Folks like Bolig either forget or choose to ignore the inherent pitfalls of extremism. His economic policies are just that, and they run counter to the economic practices that here to date have made our nation so strong.

I hate to break the news to this person, but it's the "unfettered free market" that is the sole reason for American prosperity, not government. But if he'd really like to extol the virtues of government, why doesn't he mention the homes that people are forbidden to build, just because of some small "endangered" animal that isn't even native to the area? What about the traffic congestion created by government, which forbids the construction of new roads? My friend Charlie told me that the "wetlands" controversy still continues in Utah after God knows how many years. This 120-mile highway would do wonders for people who must commute along I-15. But opponents criticize the plan as "cutting a terrible swath through world renowned wetlands and fertile farmlands, contributing to automobile-dependency and sprawl." World renowned? How many people outside Utah would consider the wetlands that, and how many people outside Utah even know there are any wetlands at all? In the six years since I left Utah, I myself had forgotten. And, Charlie reminded me, the wetlands were created by man; after all, Utah was principally a desert. How about the fertile farmlands? There's plenty elsewhere in the U.S., so much that we're the world's greatest food exporter. What the people of Utah need is more space to drive, not grow crops.

I wonder what names Bolig will resort to calling me now?

Worshipper of the state, as Bastiat put it, would be quite apt.

Any possible proceeds (and that's a big if) from ANWR won't come online for a good ten years. That doesn't help is this winter. It also doesn't help our air and water ten years from now.

Completely wrong. First, let's all be clear on the fact that the proposed drilling site is a very small part of ANWR. This area happens to be so barren that it's properly compared to the moon, and with no vegetation there, no animals live there. There are animals elsewhere in ANWR, just not where we're going to drill. To claim that wildlife will be affected is akin to opposing repavement of Central Park Drive because it will affect the wildlife at the Bronx Zoo. Second, the current price of anything is always a reflection of current and future supply. If people think future inventory will be limited, they will buy more today to stockpile. That's why the price of petroleum and gasoline rise the moment there's a hint of a supply shock. (Read this for more on how higher prices force people to conserve, and simultaneously encourage people to supply more). We don't even have to start drilling in ANWR: global crude prices will start falling once Congress merely approves the drilling. Prices won't come down by $20 per barrel, but they will drop because people will know we have a reliable future supply. To those who oppose drilling in ANWR but call Middle East oil "a threat to national security": you would put a few expendable reindeer above national security? I myself don't consider imported oil an inherently bad thing. I explained in this entry why "energy independence" is not a strictly desirable thing. If you're worried about Muslim nations getting more money to finance terrorists, fine, but in and of itself, there is nothing wrong with importing anything. Why make something yourself when you can buy it for a cheaper price? If we're truly worried about sending money to Saudi Arabia that gets diverted to terrorists, then ANWR's supply (about two full years for the U.S.) can replace about eight years' worth of imported Saudi Arabian oil. The Saudis, especially with how the royalty spend money like water, would likely be willing to negotiate certain reforms long before that time is up.

I agree - I think tax breaks for anything is poor public policy and contributes to making our tax code incredibly arduous and untenable. If we decided we need something collectively, then we should raise the revenue up front and pay for it. If we (government) cannot afford it, we shouldn't buy it. The market rewards debt-free players. Clinton showed us that in the late 90s.

I explained a while ago why specific tax breaks ("incentives") are the wrong way to cut taxes. The economic growth in the 1990s had nothing to do with Clinton's "economic policies." It was the time of a great economic boom, spurred by leaps in productivity -- all factors far beyond Clinton's influence, let alone. The only two things Clinton did for the American economy were NAFTA and agreeing to the Republicans' 1997 tax cuts, which did help, but they enhanced the boom, not created it. Clinton's "economic policy" of balanced budgets is another economic myth: the federal budget was never balanced until the very late 1990s (and even then it needed Social Security revenues to mask its deficit), when our economic growth was unsustainable and we were headed for recession. The market rewards those who act prudently, including borrowing. Look at the American economy in the 1980s: huge budget deficits, but the low tax rates encouraged people to invest, and that grew the economy faster than the need to borrow. If you can borrow $1000 and turn it into $2000, are you going to refuse just because you must pay back a total of $1500? Why turn down $500?

And not only does it penalize a government in debt (us taxpayers are paying billions of dollars in interest now, folks, courtesy of Republican leadership), but it penalizes the everyman by way of increases in interest rates. The more money government borrows, the more expensive it is for everyone else to borrow it. Supply and demand applies to the dollar as well.

Part of the reason I am a supply-sider is that I believe it is permissible for a government to borrow for prudent things. As I explained here, government borrowing does not carry the disincentive of raising taxes. We may "burden" our children with repaying the money at interest, but our policies in the present time will grow the economy such that they can easily afford the debt service payments. Is it such a bad tradeoff that your children will pay back $5000 a year in principal and interest, when you've increased their salary from $50,000 a year to $70,000? The last two statements betray a lack of understanding of real-world economics. "Rubinomics," the notion that government borrowing "crowds out" private borrowers, does not exist in an open economy with any creditworthiness. Foreigners, mainly China, Japan and South Korea, are more than willing to sell us inexpensive goods, then lend us a good portion of what was once our money. It's not only U.S. creditworthiness, but because so many foreigners are competing with each other to buy U.S. Treasury bonds, that we're not really paying a lot of interest for the amounts borrowed. Take a look at current yields, and they're astonishing in the face of repeated Fed interest rate hikes.

What's worse - Democrats who pay their bills, or Republicans who borrow and spend?

By far, Democrats who insist on tax hikes to cover their profligate spending, which only stifles an economy while providing goods and services with wasteful efficiency. When a nation has the ability to borrow from people who are crawling all over each other to lend to you, it's stupidity not to take free money. However, I have assailed conservatives many times for unnecessary, unconstitutional spending.

Like father, like daughter -- and the Tuttons are both morons

There's a single fundamental problem with liberals: they breed. A second problem that some liberals have experienced: you may dare to make personal attacks against me, but rest assured, I will finish things.

Case in point: since Tutton our liberal "But I'm not a liberal!" troll couldn't face me any longer, so he had his inbred daughter bother me with the following ridiculous correspondence. She didn't even just e-mail me; she went through all the trouble to find me on Facebook and bother me there. I rarely log in there and frankly don't have the time, between old friends finding me and all the event invites, to keep repeating myself.

So she wrote:

I read your blog debate with my father... Joseph Tutton... Are you people kidding me??

I replied:

To whom do you refer by "people"? I presume you're pointing to me and others who believe as I do.

You're still young with many things to see, and many other situations to consider. For the last two weeks, I've been in the Third World, which I didn't need to understand certain things. If children here didn't work alongside their parents, if they didn't toil in the fields or try to sell worthless trinkets to tourists, they'd have a happy life of leisure that would be cut quite short by simple starvation. That's just the way poor societies are.

Child labor isn't desirable because we all want our children to be in the ideal state of playing, laughing and school lessons, but I merely point out that reality for some economies dictates otherwise. The West doesn't need child labor like poor countries, because Western economies can afford it. What governments dictate about child labor is meaningless, because legislation must always give way to economic reality. That's what your father has trouble comprehending.

Please feel free to continue the discussion on my blog.

And as if we needed more proof that liberals are inherently stupid, she replied:

I really don't care... maybe you should have stayed in the Third World and sold trinkets and helped their society instead of coming back here complaining about how the rest of American's suck. Instead you waste your time and others by spending hours on blogs and insulting others who you really know nothing about. What do you think it looks like when you go to Third World countries where people are starving to death and you are severely overweight? If you think I am even slightly interessted in commenting on your blog you are really out of your mind. I have no desire to give you anymore ammunition for your sad little life and your stupid little blog.
Kindess Regards...

That was from a week ago or so. As I said, I don't log in there that often.

My reply yesterday:

What a marvelously unintelligent response. I can see you have no concept of international trade, and it would do no good for me to explain that "the poor" cannot prosper by trading only with other poor. They prosper by trading with "the rich."

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, when a woman accused him of being drunk: "And you, madam, are ugly. But at least I can lose more weight." My fiancée is a more beautiful, kinder and more intelligent person than you could ever dream of being.

Feel free to continue on my blog. Please don't bother me anymore here, I'm really far too busy. But I know you're just a coward and fear defending yourself in public.

Regards to you and your idiot father. Like father, like daughter, eh?

As I wrote a long time ago, "A poor person does not prosper by trading only with other poor; a poor person prospers by continually creating things of value that "the rich" can buy, and then trading with other poor." In a later post I added,

Some new technology was created with the common man in mind, like Henry Ford's Model T, yet it's usually the case that the preceding technology, which led to if not facilitated building the new, required "catering to the rich" capitalism before it. And capitalism is based on free markets: the freedom of every producer and every consumer to engage, or elect not to engage, in peaceful and voluntary transactions with other peaceful individuals of their choosing. It's not just the freedom of "the rich" to spend their greater wealth. It's the freedom of everyone else to provide goods and services to "the rich" so they can earn higher incomes, and that won't happen if the rich are taxed down to everyone else's level.

So it's far better for me, for Filipinos, and for the global economy as a whole if I stay right here and earn many times more wealth for myself (which itself is a small fraction of the countless billions of dollars of new wealth, not transferred wealth, my employer creates as a whole) than your typical Filipino. The young and universally ignorant Adria probably won't understand that when she . No doubt she doesn't appreciate how her job as a clothing "sales rep" depends on global trade, and "the poor" of Third World countries making the textiles and sewing the fabrics.

I have no need to defend myself against her ludicrous personal attacks, as she has no basis to make them in the first place. Chalk it up to her cowardice in defending her undefendable arguments ("I have no desire to give you anymore ammunition"), and her likely jealousy of my incredibly beautiful fiancée. I know I'm a lucky guy, but I may live my whole life and never realize just how much, to be with someone so beautiful inside and outside.

On the other hand, the conversations with the Tuttons give me all I need to evaluate them and their rudimentary philosophies. I should consider myself doubly lucky, since I didn't wind up with some pasty-faced, redneck moron like Ms. Tutton, a self-described "conservative" who supports the flip-flopping GOP socialist Mitt Romney. Triply lucky? After looking at her picture and listening to her babble, is it any wonder her relationship status is "single"? Think about it, guys: not only would you have to kiss that, which you'd think evolution could have weeded out by now, but you'd have to listen to inane, Hillary Clinton-shrill pillow talk all night long! That's more frightening than the dream I had the other night, in which I couldn't find my fiancée, and I was subsequently arranged to marry some black girl whose butt was like two beach balls put together.

I should consider myself further lucky that I'm going to marry someone who understands real economics, including that some societies just cannot survive unless children work. Will the Tutton ignoramuses ever understand that recognizing that poor societies need children to help economically isn't saying children should work? For the millionth time, it's only saying that the parents alone aren't enough to feed the family. Somewhat similarly, St. Paul talked all the time about God's grace through Christ Jesus, but he was also careful to explain that it didn't mean the necessity of sin. It would be better if we didn't need God's grace, but the fact is that humans inevitably sin and thus make grace necessary.

Regarding my former status as overweight, and she's going by the months-old pictures I have on my Facebook profile, my larger body mass (particularly when relative to the typical Filipino) is simply a product of my relatively greater prosperity. That's all there is to it. Why should I feel bad that I'm doing better than the poor across the world? But like a good socialist, and like her father she is one though she'll deny that till Judgment Day, she thinks people should feel bad for having more than others. I hardly feel that way to have more than "poor" people, whether they're Filipinos or Africans or Americans, and I shouldn't. I work hard for what I have and shouldn't have any negative feelings whatsoever about it. However, after seeing how poor people live, I can feel more appreciative of what I have. Actually, I should say "what God lets me have," but I've already talked enough theology for today.

It was a sobering thing to see a man on a sidewalk of Cebu City, which we explored for a bit during a three-hour layover, as he scavenged larger pieces of cardboard (which here in the U.S. we wouldn't have a second thought about throwing away when we buy a new computer or home appliance). He looked anywhere from 30 to 40, probably closer to 30 with his skin weather-beaten from being in the sun all day, every day. His little girl, maybe 3 or 4 but possibly older and malnourished, was with him, jumping around and "playing" as he used a plastic cord to strap the cardboard to the back of his bicycle. It was a pitiable sight, but you know what? Reducing myself by moving there, to make a few hundred pesos a day myself, will not do a damn bit of good for him, for me or for the world economy. Foreign aid, by definition the redistribution of wealth from one government to another (and inevitably a transfer from one nation's poor to another nation's rich), likewise won't do him a bit of good. What will help, eventually, is international trade. I stay here in New York and keep producing as much as I can, economically speaking, and hopefully someday he can produce something that someone somewhere in the world will want. Then that person may produce something someone elsewhere in the world will want, and in time the chain will lead to me. That is how the world prospers, not by imposing our labor standards on the Third World. The Third World is too grounded in the economic reality of survival at any cost, because despite what its governments may decree, it still can't afford our enlightened ideals of "children shouldn't work" and "no one should have to work more than 40 hours a week."

Oh, and tell me how I felt about my appearance when walking around Philippine malls, garnering a lot of attention from all the pretty Filipinas. My mother and aunt told me I'd stand out as a "gwapo," solidly built guy, especially with my lighter complexion and walking with an American swagger. Pretty uncomfortable, actually, considering I was always with my fiancée. Urp. One afternoon I was going to wear just jeans and a long-sleeved striped sport shirt, and she wanted me to change my shirt to a plain polo so I wouldn't look "too nice" -- for an obvious reason. But I don't mind, because there's only one girl for me now. Actually, there's always been only one; it just took me a number of years to find her.

Analysis of the socialist mindset

Previous:
The intellectual bankruptcy of the left, part IV
Rumors of Wal-Mart's demise are greatly exaggerated

My analysis:

I'm continually amazed that middle class, educated, young people who, on the face of it, are among the most privileged on the planet develop such jealousy of others' wealth.

Was there some personal tragedy in their lives that colored their outlook? Or had they truly been brought up in an intellectually bankrupt environment and thus just repeat the prejudices instilled in them by their elders? Or do they have a personality which requires a pat "Let the government fix it!" answer to complex social issues and thus latch onto the first authority figure that they come across that provides this?

These days many have chosen Franklin Delano Roosevelt as the model for social and economic organization. Others have chosen Keynes to provide their moral framework, while others have picked Krugman to provide the foreign policy framework.

Clearly it is a result of having passed through the school system, which is a period where critical thinking is never taught. Whatever the reason, the results are predictable and tiresome. Thoughtless arguments, catch phrases in place of opinions, ad hominem attacks and stereotyping.

This is too bad, because these people are in charge of society, and their superficial understanding of how the world should work doesn't inspire hope that intelligent solutions will be forthcoming to society's continual problems.

"Tax the rich" is borne of nothing more than jealousy; it is pointless and thoughtless. Rather than blathering on like this, take some time and learn about the real world. Read some history and see how the themes of today have recurred many times in the past and that the only times the people (that means you, me and everyone else) came out ahead was when government was quashed.

Try the books of Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand for a start.

I have to admit something: every last italicized word was utterly vacuous tripe. So, it's a good thing that all I did was take what our socialist visitor posted the other day and replace a few words. If you look closely, you'll see that I also corrected verb conjugations and added a few necessary punctuation marks. In his meretricious claim to seek honest discussion, he demonstrated a less-than-complete command of the English language.

It's a testament to the intellectual bankruptcy of the left that their arguments are so generic, so vapid, that you need only change a few words to change their position completely. Remember Bill Clinton's cameo in "Contact"? That only demonstrated that the president can say anything, and it's so fundamentally meaningless that you can take a piece and apply it to whatever you want.

What single word in any of Bobby's arguments at all refuted what I had said? I'm still waiting for his proof that Wall Street is abandoning Wal-Mart, let alone his ridiculous notion that "traders and hedge funds" are the ones who control stock markets' direction. And like most other socialists, when persistently rebutted with actual fact, he said he's "done" with my blog after his rhetoric proved inadequate. Boo hoo, he's taking his marbles and going home. Hear that? That is the sound of the door hitting him on the way out.

"Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." Rejoin socialists' claims with sound logic, and they will flee. My warmest thanks to Billy, Mike and Shamus: when the day comes, I look forward to standing with you.

Why do socialists believe the way they do? It's an irrelevant question: for whatever reason, they've come to depend on and extol government as the solution. It comes down to the expression that "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Government is the socialists' hammer: they cannot conceive of any solutions to society other a new government policy or program. Ironically, they claim believers in the free market, like me, give simplistic solutions, when as Don Boudreaux explained, "To recommend the market, in fact, is to recommend letting millions of creative people, each with different perspectives and different bits of knowledge and insights, each voluntarily contribute his own ideas and efforts toward dealing with the problem."

I critique the efficacy of government because if we, imperfect as individuals, cannot make the proper and best decisions for ourselves, then how can government be any more competent, discerning and successful, since it is comprised of us? There's nothing magical about going into public service that suddenly makes a person always seek the best for "the public good" (a concept I don't believe exists at all). James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock's contributions to public choice theory were especially important for revealing politicians and bureaucrats as self-interested when it comes to public policy as they were in the private sector.

I don't believe in Wal-Mart, or any business. I do believe in capitalism, which is predicated on the free market. The free market is simply where people are be free to reach their own agreements with each other, where no one has the right to force either party against their will. Liberals, though, believe that people are too stupid to make their own decisions, insisting that we need a government to "coordinate" our efforts, determine what is "fair," and keep us "safe." Again, though, government is comprised of people who are still imperfect beings.

Why should I defer my own decisions to another imperfect person who cannot possibly be more aware of my personal circumstances than I? Why should I trust someone who, as history proves time and time again, is hardly going to look out for me any more than he'll look out for himself and special interest groups? "Oh," the socialists counter, "but he is less imperfect than you. Elections are about determining who are the best among us, so that they may guide our collective efforts." Is that so? One look at Ted Kennedy makes me wonder just how imperfect every Massachusetts voter must be, and I don't know too many Utahns from my 14 years there who'd be much worse than Orrin Hatch.

As Bastiat, my patron saint, declared in The Law, "God has given to men all that is necessary for them to accomplish their destinies." The same God who gave us the unalienable rights to life, liberty and property also gave us sufficient faculties to recognize and use them at our own discretion. Bastiat declared at the end of The Law that "liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works," therefore you are denying God's wisdom if you give up your liberty so that others may govern your life. I, for one, would rather make my own mistakes instead of someone making potentially worse mistakes for me. And if I harm no one but myself, then like Christ's reply when Peter asked if John really wasn't going to die, "What is that to thee?"

But socialists like Bobby, as bastiat explained, want to play God with society: they form an idea of how things ought to be, then set about reforming society. They justify their intentions by pointing to the past and claiming their "liberal" policies have bettered society. Nothing could be further from the truth. Some time ago, I asked and answered the question, "What hath the free market wrought?" Well, what has it? Nothing that liberals accuse of it, i.e. child labor, slavery, pollution, the Great Depression. I will be charitable and excuse any liberal for ignorantly believing that the free market at all influenced the first three. However, I will forever say that any liberal is a damned fool if he believes the free market had anything to do with the Great Depression.

Just as the free market is not guilty of these accusations, "progressive" government policies are hardly responsible for any disappearances of child labor (which occurs only when societies prosper beyond a point where they starve if children don't help), the emergence of the 40-hour work week (again the natural result of a prosperous society that no longer must toil from sunrise to sunset), and things like insurance (partly because of how firms compete for employees, and partly because of government tax policies that make it cheaper to offer $5000 worth of insurance than another $5000 in pay). Liberals, though, are confused by the logical fallacy called cum hoc ergo propter hoc: they assume that because these things occured during the expansion of "progressive" government, these things occurred during that expansion. In fact, like the government-borne economic woes in South America that Paul Krugman foolishly blamed on the free market, these things occurred despite anything government did.

What about my job in corporate compliance? Am I not receiving pretty good pay only because government has reined in big business, requiring them to be responsible to their clients? Actually, think of how compliance analysts like me, or accountants, or lawyers, would have better jobs if the firm didn't have to employ so many of us in capacities that generate no revenue. My job would probably still exist in the same way, I think, since my firm prides itself on having the toughest ethics standards (far beyond what the SEC requires). Regardless, the firm's managers (and their subordinates) are more than capable of determining on their own, without a government body telling them, whether or not they need me. They can make determinations based not so much on what the owners (shareholders) say, but what our clients say. Or do, if they bring new business to us, or take their business elsewhere.

Similarly, I need no government to create a job for me, to determine what my "fair" wage is, to determine what is the most optimally nutritious food for me to eat, or anything else that involves me and just me. Do you?

Look at the entire world. Which countries contain the most peaceful, the most moral, and the happiest people? Those people are found in the countries where the law least interferes with private affairs; where government is least felt; where the individual has the greatest scope, and free opinion the greatest influence; where administrative powers are fewest and simplest; where taxes are lightest and most nearly equal, and popular discontent the least excited and the least justifiable; where individuals and groups most actively assume their responsibilities, and, consequently, where the morals of admittedly imperfect human beings are constantly improving; where trade, assemblies, and associations are the least restricted; where labor, capital, and populations suffer the fewest forced displacements; where mankind most nearly follows its own natural inclinations; where the inventions of men are most nearly in harmony with the laws of God; in short, the happiest, most moral, and most peaceful people are those who most nearly follow this principle: Although mankind is not perfect, still, all hope rests upon the free and voluntary actions of persons within the limits of right; law or force is to be used for nothing except the administration of universal justice.

What Bastiat wrote still holds true 156 years later, yet despite the decades of evidence of tyranny and fallen empires, many still cling to the idea that government can create prosperity by interference.

As union leaders bash Wal-Mart, many union workers shop there

I've said before and at least one other time that polls have little value compared to actual sales figure. People can tell a pollster just about anything. Very little thought, including consideration of the answer's consequences, is required. On the other hand, voting with your pocketbook is far more meaningful, because your money and time are at stake.

So when Marshall Manson, who I should acknowledge does PR work for Wal-Mart, pointed me to this at the Working Families for Wal-Mart website, I wasn't surprised. Of the "1,000 adults nationwide with an oversample of 330 union households," 64% of union households shop at Wal-Mart at least occasionally, and 32% of union households shop there regularly. Using my own critical standards of polls, I have to say it's a very small sample. However, the poll fits with what we know is a fact: most Americans, including union workers, shop at Wal-Mart. Over 138 million Americans shop at Wal-Mart each week. It's an economic axiom that people seek to maximize their happiness for the least cost, and Wal-Mart excels at enabling people to do that. Other highlights from the poll:

• 71 percent of Americans believe Wal-Mart is good for consumers while 63 percent of union households hold the same belief;
  
  
• 58 percent of Americans and 54 percent of union households believe union leaders should make protecting union jobs a higher priority than attacking Wal-Mart;
  
  
• 60 percent of Americans say the campaign against Wal-Mart is not a good use of union dues and 44 percent of union households agree;
  
  
• 54 percent of Americans and 42 percent of union households believe the campaign against Wal-Mart makes labor union leaders less relevant to solving the economic challenges facing working families today.

So 64% of union households shopped at Wal-Mart at least once in the last year, and 63% of union households think Wal-Mart is good for consumers. That's a strange 1% of the surveyed union households, don't you think? At least once within the last year, they shopped at a store they think is bad for consumers.

Curiously, a little over half of union households think their union leaders should focus on protecting jobs than going after Wal-Mart, and four-ninths of union households think the attacks on Wal-Mart are not a good use of their dues. The leaders, however, are trying to save union jobs -- at least when they're not giving away chunks of union money to causes that have nothing to do with protecting union workers. That the causes (including Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition and Amnesty International) are ultra-liberal is irrelevant, really. The fact is that the donation recipients are completely unaffiliated with the union, proving, and this should not surprise us, that union leaders' primary concern is advancing their personal agendas, not the workers'.

Like I've said about the New York City transit union, union bosses want to increase membershipsimply so they can get more money flowing into the union. So union dues to expand membership is good for the union and could be considered an investment. Actually, "investment" is a bad word to use. True "investment" creates new wealth without taking wealth away from anyone else. Union dues to increase union membership is necessarily at everyone else's expense.

A few weeks ago, Marshall had pointed me this Pew Research poll, which revealed, "Nearly every American lives near enough a Wal-Mart to shop there, and 84% say they have done so in the past year. Praise for the retailer's low prices, wide selection and convenience flow freely, and 81% of those with a Wal-Mart nearby say it is a good place to shop." The same poll found, "Despite strong criticism of the retail giant by labor unions, there is no significant difference between union and non-union members in their propensity to shop at Wal-Mart." It seems that Wal-Mart is good enough that 79% of the surveyed union workers shopped there at least once in the last year, and 39% of them do so regularly. While this poll is not precisely indicative of overall American shopping patterns, at least it doesn't ask opinion, but what people do. People also have no reason to lie about shopping or not shopping at Wal-Mart.

Contrast this with the anti-Wal-Mart forces who evidently want the working poor to suffer higher prices elsewhere. Chief among these forces are unions representing grocery workers, who can no longer hold poor people hostage to high prices, and who cannot compete against Wal-Mart's dedication to low prices and efficient operations. Since the Wal-Mart bashers cannot compete, they get nasty. Some of you may have heard about this. I apologize for not getting around to it; I've been so remiss in blogging about certain subjects.

In mid-December, a group from "Wake Up Wal-Mart" dressed up as elves and entered the Wal-Mart in North Lauderdale, Florida. As part of their campaign to get better health care for Wal-Mart workers, they handed out some gift boxes to some children -- empty boxes, which people reported made some children cry. "Wake Up Wal-Mart" says that Wal-Mart is lying about the children crying, and they claim the police were "racist" to arrest two black women for shoving Wal-Mart employees. The two women claimed they weren't even in the store. The group claims that "all who witnessed the event, including a Reverend and professor," back its story. A Reverend and professor? Those professions hardly mean someone is completely truthful. Look at "Reverend" Al Sharpton and "Professor" Ward Churchill.

Even if no children cried, that was an incredibly mean-spirited thing to do. For crying out loud, they're just children. At that time of the year, presents from Santa's helpers have a special meaning, and even the most spoiled child doesn't deserve that kind of trick. One has to be a real skunk to drag kids into a political fight that way. Then we have Wal-Mart, and other discount retailers too, which make Christmas possible for families of limited means. Wal-Mart's "everyday low prices" means that parents can actually give something more than empty boxes.

How to talk to socialists

Previous:
Analysis of the socialist mindset
The intellectual bankruptcy of the left, part IV
Rumors of Wal-Mart's demise are greatly exaggerated

Well, our socialist visitor is back, though he said he was never coming back -- just like all those Hollywood liberals said they were leaving the U.S. if Bush were re-elected, but didn't.

He said:

External circumstances led me to look at your site again.
I see you have misrepresented all my points, set up a straw man, called me a socialist and then satisfied yourself that you have won the argument.

Translation: someone told him he was getting his ass flamed, and being a glutton for punishment, he just couldn't resist how bad.

My oh my, Bobby is a fine one to accuse others of misrepresentation and using straw men. It was his favorite anti-Wal-Mart blog that made a personal attack on me all that time ago, and it's Bobby who misrepresents himself by denying his socialism.

On a personal note, I never feel a need to "satisf[y] [my]self that [I] have won the argument" -- I let my words stand on their own merit. I will add, however, that it's not hard to defeat socialists, particularly ones like Bobby who repeat the same propaganda and can never refute your points.

I've never said anything about socialism, by which most people mean state ownership of the means of production. Government regulation of industry is not socialism. Collecting taxes is not socialism. Representative government is not socialism.

But Bobby doesn't want to stop at collecting taxes. He wants a government to make decisions for people. That's socialism: government having massive economic control. In its final, pure form, socialism is full state control over the means of production (I wonder if he had to look that up when I called him a socialist), but socialists are more than content to "creep" toward the goal.

Representative government can very well be socialism. When government taxes Peter to give to Paul, that's the redistribution of wealth. In other words, socialism. Moreover, democracy itself is completely undesirable, as the Founding Fathers often warned about. They called it "mobocracy" for a damned good reason: there's no protection for the individual rights to life, liberty and property. Woe unto you should you be one of the 49 in a population of 100, when the other 51 vote to take away your property. And if you're in the top 1% of income earners, the other 99% won't hesitate to seize a chunk of your wealth.

But wait a minute: "Government regulation of industry is not socialism"? I realize that most political science taught today is complete crap, but how damned stupid must someone be to think that regulation is not socialism? Marx discussed such socialism in his Communist Manifesto, actually criticizing it for not going far enough. But he still didn't deny that those who supported the regulation of industry, as part of achieving "egalitarian" social reformation, are socialists.

While you pray to your god Bastiat, it is worth noting that he is a marginal figure in the world of economics. In addition none of the ideas that you extol, such as the "free market" and laissez faire treatement of business has ever been put in place anywhere in the world.

Clearly Bobby has no idea what he's talking about, particularly since I most certainly don't pray to Bastiat, but I guess he thinks "economics" is the baloney that Krugman and DeLong throw out. Krugman doesn't have much support these days, anyway, as Don Luskin recently noted, and this is a guy who supposedly will win the Nobel Prize someday.

Economics isn't about trade flows, inflation and employment statistics. Real economics is fundamentally the science of human choice and its consequences, and Bastiat's astute insights are so legendary that I do not need to defend him as a great pioneer. The difference between Bastiat and Krugman is that had the Nobel Prize been around in Bastiat's time, he'd have won it repeatedly, but it would be like when Phil Collins won his Oscar: their brilliant accomplishments transcended any need for a mere award. So many of Bastiat's principles seem evident today, but do we think condescendingly of pre-medieval Arab mathematicians because their algebra is old hat to us? As Don Luskin once told me when we met for drinks, even Krugman wouldn't dare contradict the "broken window" fallacy.

Now, Bobby thinks that laissez-faire has never been put in place anywhere in the world. What parallel Earth does he live on? Whatever it is, it must be the most impoverished piece of cosmic rock ever imaginable. Even Bastiat in 1850 noted that the most prosperous societies are those where government stayed the most out of commerce. Look at the United States. Look at France and Germany. The U.S. prospers despite all the hindrances and obstacles government creates. France and Germany can't prosper no matter what the governments do.

As I've pointed out, we have had four supply-sider presidents: Calvin Coolidge, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Coolidge was especially known for a belief that government should not interfere with business, save when it commits force or fraud. That's not laissez-faire? Reagan made Goldwater's 1964 platform a reality and started us down the road of government deregulation (until Democrats and then Republicans brought us back up). Reagan wasn't following laissez-faire? Bush is only somewhat laissez-faire

How about laissez-faire with international trade? Hawley-Smoot Tariff of 1930, world trade collapses, and the Great Depression spreads globally. Free trade agreements (better than nothing) starting in the last part of the 20th century, and everybody prospers (especially poor countries who now can earn money from wealthier countries).

And what has Ireland been doing, but following laissez-faire policies? And what has it reaped, besides immense prosperity that places it at the head of Europe?

If your hope is that such a society can be achieved then you have proved my point about being hopeless utopians.

I never claimed to want a Utopia. I just want people to be free to make their own decisions, and let them determine their own destinies. You, on the other hand, are promoting more Utopian ideals by extolling the fallacial virtues of government deciding what's "best" for the people.

You don't appear to be a very well-educated person, because if you were, you'd know that "utopia" is the least appropriate word to apply to free marketers' belief of how the world should be.

PS. Just for the record I've probably made more money in the stock market that your entire clique combined, so I'm hardly a socialist.

What a laughable boast. I'd put money down and call for his 1099s, but I'd first bet he doesn't even know what those are. When I regularly played Ultima Online, I routinely met other players who claimed to be 6'2", 220 pounds in real life, bench-press 350, blah blah.

Talk is cheap. Staying true to your principles is not. Ask Nathan Hale in the afterlife: sometimes staying true to your principles is extremely expensive.

There's no reason socialists can't profit off a capitalist system, anyway. Socialists can be just as hypocritical as anyone, using tools that they themselves claim to loathe. Look at George Soros, who doesn't dare advocate actual socialism, but he promotes "interventionism," which is still socialism. Soros doesn't believe people can be left completely free to their peaceful, voluntary transactions, because too much "self-interest" causes problems. Yet it's his own self-interest that allowed him to earn billions. That's just like socialists: they'll use whatever they can to get to the front, and once they do, then they start talking about redistribution.

By the way you failed to respond to my questions about why you are so angry and have such a need to deny reality. Sorry, you failed to address any of my issues.

Socialists just don't understand that people don't like being stolen from. They just don't understand that people tend to have a sense of property, but the socialist few among us who want to feed off others' labor. The socialists know they can't achieve full-blown socialism, so instead they creep: Teddy Roosevelt's "progressivism," FDR's "New Deal" politics (including trying to stuff the Supreme Court), Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" and "War on Poverty" (which made society less great and more impoverished), GWB's "No Child Left Behind" and prescription drug bill, and 21st century Democrats' push for universal health care. Very few Americans would have supported universal health care 50 years ago, because they still had some sense of pulling your own weight. However, socialists condition each generation by telling 1000 truths and 1 lie, then 999 truths and 2 lies...

And isn't it amazing when you take socialists' stupidity apart, sentence by sentence, and they ignore that, fail to answer a single thing you said, then claim "you failed to address any of my issues"?

Note to Bobby: "issues" is a malapropos word. Try something better suited like "points" or even "assertions." Do yourself a favor and try to stop sounding eloquent; your command of the language isn't that hot. Maybe you're using Roget's, but next time, I recommend a decent copy, not a fake from the dollar store.

Caught between Scylla and Charybdis

(Oops! I changed the time but forgot to change it to PM, and I didn't change the date either. Writing about the SOTU at 2 p.m. on Tuesday? Call me psychic.)

Transcript: President Bush's 2006 State of the Union Address

Transcript: Gov. Tom Kaine delivering the Democratic response

President Bush said some good things tonight in his State of the Union speech, but some bad things too. And as I fully expected, the Democratic response, instead of challenging President Bush on the actual Constitutional limits on the federal government, relied on partisan politics and new myths like "energy independence" and that the federal government should "serve us."

As I'm writing this up from my quickly typed notes, Fox News showed a clip that I didn't notice before. John Kerry turned to his left and said something to Dianne Feinstein. The side of his face was toward the camera, but Feinstein was facing it, and it wasn't hard to read her lips. She replied, "I know." Maybe he said something like, "That should be I up there!"

The President began well with a good indirect jab at the Democrats, criticizing the partisanship in Washington. The Democrats' behavior throughout Justice Alito's confirmation hearings was so disgusting that even Robert Byrd said, "The people of West Viriginia in no uncertain terms were, frankly, appalled by the Alito hearings." Byrd could have been stronger and said he was pointing fingers at unnamed members, but what would you expect from a partisan Democrat? Byrd could have a very tough campaign this time, so he needs to sound less extreme and more centrist. He's probably taking lessons from Hillary.

"We will choose to build our prosperity by leading the world economy or shut ourselves off from trade and opportunity. In a complex and challenging time, the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting, yet it ends in danger and decline." Take that, John Kerry. Wide and straight is the road of protectionist economics, and it leads only to impoverished economies.

"There is no peace in retreat, and there is no honor in retreat.... But our enemies and our friends can be certain: The United States will not retreat from the world, and we will never surrender to evil." As one who supported invading Iraq to topple Saddam and turn the most willing Iraqi people into friends, I'm naturally biased, but I rather liked that. Contrast Bush's refusal to surrender with the anti-war left who want to cut and run, come what may to Iraqis, and not because they have a sincere desire, but because it's to take the opposite position.

I was watching the speech on Fox News, which then cut to Charlie Rangel. He looked like he didn't particularly give a damn. Cut to John Kerry, whose countenance screamed, "Damn it, I should have been giving the speech tonight!"

"In less than three years, the nation has gone from dictatorship, to liberation, to sovereignty, to a constitution, to national elections." As I wrote last March, even the United States, after declaring independence in 1776 and formally gaining it in 1783, had much civil unrest (to the extent that George Washington thought a civil war was imminent) and an ineffective federal government until 1788. With our help, Iraqis have accomplished so much and so fast that it borders on miraculous.

"Fellow citizens, we are in this fight to win, and we are winning. The road of victory is the road that will take our troops home. As we make progress on the ground and Iraqi forces increasingly take the lead, we should be able to further decrease our troop levels. But those decisions will be made by our military commanders, not by politicians in Washington, D.C." Very good: peace through victory.

"...there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy." Another good jab at the anti-war Democrats. God knows we've made tactical errors in Iraq, but that is the nature of war. My father reminded me more than once how we bombed our own troops in Italy during World War II. It's one thing to examine mistakes and try to improve our military -- it's another to say that because we made mistakes and will inevitably make mistakes, we should never go to war and simply surrender.

"...the leaders of Hamas must recognize Israel, disarm, reject terrorism and work for lasting peace." I fear that's just a pipe dream. Hamas is all about working toward the destruction of Israel, using terrorism against innocent civilians.

"Liberty is the right and hope of all humanity." A bit of a platitude, but good to inject.

"...Iran, a nation now held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating and repressing its people. The regime in that country sponsors terrorists in the Palestinian territories and in Lebanon, and that must come to an end." With all the focus on Iran's attempt to develop nuclear weapons, I'm glad Bush reminded us that Iran's very government has long since been a major sponsor of global terrorism.

"I urge members of Congress to serve the interests of America by showing the compassion of America." I sighed here, because this compassion is the false notion of government charity, which of course is paid for by other people.

"So to prevent another attack -- based on authority given to me by the Constitution and by statute -- I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program to aggressively pursue the international communications of suspected Al Qaida operatives and affiliates to and from America." I more than sighed here, because not only does the Constitution of the United States not give such powers to the executive branch, the Fourth Amendment requires warrants. In these days of instant digital communications, obtaining a warrant within minutes should not be difficult.

Gathering intelligence on terrorists is certainly essential. I and other libertarians (currently derided by many conservatives as "civil liberties Chicken Littles") do not oppose the intelligence gathering, but the methods. As someone recently asked me rhetorically, why won't the administration submit requests to FISA? Are there so many terrorist-connected calls coming out of America that it would overwhelm the system? Is the administration is trying to save taxpayer dollars by cutting down on paper usage? Or are they not wiretapping who they say they are, so no court (even FISA) would actually grant such warrants? I'll also add, in all fairness, the possibility of an overzealous and misguided attempt to protect Americans.

The camera cut to Hillary Clinton, the queen of state-worshippers, who was smiling insincerely and slightly shaking her head.

"Our own generation is in a long war against a determined enemy, a war that will be fought by presidents of both parties who will need steady bipartisan support from the Congress. And tonight I ask for yours. Together, let us protect our country, support the men and women who defend us, and lead this world toward freedom." The camera cut to Hillary again, who was no longer smiling and clapping just halfheartedly.

"In the last two-and-a-half years, America has created 4.6 million new jobs -- more than Japan and the European Union combined." That was a sobering statistic illustrating Japan's travails (and not from a lack of effort) and the EU's stagnation (which is from a lack of real effort in reforming their tax policies and welfare states).

"In a dynamic world economy, we are seeing new competitors like China and India. And this creates uncertainty, which makes it easier to feed people's fears. So we're seeing some old temptations return. Protectionists want to escape competition, pretending that we can keep our high standard of living while walling off our economy." I very much liked this. Bush can talk like a real free-trader when he wants, but he's disappointed me a few times with things like steel tariffs.

"We hear claims that immigrants are somehow bad for the economy, even though this economy could not function without them." Though our welfare state attracts many immigrants who want a free ride, that is all too true. Many illegal immigrants really do do the jobs that Americans won't, and they're people who simply want to come to this country peacefully and work hard.

"All these are forms of economic retreat, and they lead in the same direction: toward a stagnant and second-rate economy." The road goes in only two directions, and the other way is toward prosperity.

Bush touted his tax cuts, as he should have. "In the last five years, the tax relief you passed has left $880 billion in the hands of American workers, investors, small businesses and families. And they have used it to help produce more than four years of uninterrupted economic growth." That's $880 billion spent by people on what they judged was necessary and efficient, not politicians' latest projects.

I still maintain that the timing of Bush's tax cuts was a stroke of luck, otherwise our very mild recession (unemployment not even at 7%, when "normal" unemployment in a stagnant but "happy" economy like France's is 10%!) would have been much worse. Bush added, "I urge the Congress to act responsibly and make the tax cuts permanent."

I would like to add that I urge Congress and the President "to act responsibly" and cut federal spending -- by a lot. When Bush spoke of "another $14 billion next year," I could only laugh bitterly and say, "Big deal!" That drop in the bucket will make no difference in the deficit, let alone halving it by 2009.

Once Bush mentioned the word "earmarks," McCain vigorously applauded. Bush then called upon Congress to give him the line-item veto, which Clinton briefly had. I fear that, even with a Republican Congress, President Bush expressed the same hopeless desire that his father did.

Bush then turned to massive growth in "entitlements" (how I hate that term, because it implies obligation on government's part). By 2030, nearly 60% of the federal budget will be on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. To put it in perspective, our current entitlement spending is about $1 trillion out of a $2.5 trillion federal budget, and at 60% it would be an even more staggering $1.5 trillion. If you follow that link, one error I'd like to note in the newspaper article is that the $2.2 trillion figure is budgeted federal spending, but actual federal spending in 2005 was $2.47 trillion.

"Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security, yet the rising cost of entitlements is a problem that is not going away. And with every year we fail to act, the situation gets worse." Good, very good. Emphasize that the longer we delay, the more wealth we lose and the more painful we make reform.

Then Bush said, "So tonight I ask you to join me in creating a commission to examine the full impact of baby boom retirements on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid." Oh, for the love of heaven, we already know the full impact! Numerous thinktanks of all political persuasions have all done projections and arrived at more or less the same figures about how many elderly will be retiring and how many workers will be supporting them. Where they differ is how to deal with it.

"One out of every five factory jobs in America is related to global trade, and we want people everywhere to buy American." It's a good statistic to show the regular American how free trade may send some of our jobs overseas, but we create new jobs to make things for our new trading partners.

But it really scares me Bush talks about "a level playing field." Is that a sly reference to China's alleged currency manipulation, which GM and Ford have recently used as an excuse for their failures?

Bush then got to the meat of his "compassionate conservatism": "Keeping America competitive requires affordable health care," and "Government has the responsibility to provide health care for the poor and the elderly." I again was reminded that he might sound Reagan-like in promoting tax cuts, but Bush is still a big government conservative.

"We will make wider use of health information technology to help control costs and reduce dangerous medical errors." If private companies could already use the technology to control costs, though, they already would have. Companies would jump at the chance because they could continue to charge the same prices, increasing their profits...at least until one company charged less to get more customers, and others followed suit.

He promoted "health savings accounts" as he did during the 2004 campaign, and that they should be "portable." But such accounts wouldn't be necessary if we didn't tax savings -- if we had a more sensible tax system that didn't discourage savings (which fuel investment), people could simply save that money without the need for more government regulations.

Medical liability reform is a must, but I have no confidence in this being passed anytime soon. It's been proposed for years, and nobody does anything significant.

What is significant is Bush's attempt to brag that, "Since 2001, we have spent nearly $10 billion to develop cleaner, cheaper and more reliable alternative energy sources." In other words, we've spent $10 billion so that we can use more expensive forms of energy, like wind, solar and water. If these were more efficient and cheaper than fossil fuels, then we'd already have been using them. The President sadly does not understand this aspect of the free market, because he continued in proposing his "Advanced Energy Initiative -- a 22 percent increase in clean-energy research at the Department of Energy to push for breakthroughs in two vital areas."

How much more of our money can the federal government spend so that we can use more expensive, less efficient ethanol? How much must we spend so we can use hybrid, electic and hydrogen-fueled automobiles, which, as our friend TKC pointed out, don't really save money overall?

Federal subsidies for ethanol are something I've criticized several times. When President Bush proposed federal funding for "additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips and stalks or switch grass," to "make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years," I wanted to tear my hair out.

What he said next sounds like a good idea, "to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025," but as I pointed out here, it's not a bad thing to import something for cheaper than you can make it yourself. We could ban all imports of Middle East oil, but at what price? "By applying the talent and technology of America, this country can dramatically improve our environment, move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past." Again, at what price? When we've made oil so expensive with bad supply-limiting policies that we stifle our economy?

Next, the proposal of the "American Competitiveness Initiative," i.e. another big government program to skew the labor markets. "I propose to double the federal commitment to the most critical basic research programs in the physical sciences over the next 10 years." In other words, double the spending, but what exactly are the "most critical" programs? Who will determine them, business investors who carefully weigh what they're pouring their money into, or government bureaucrats who dole out other people's money while under the influence of industry lobbyists?

The "research and development tax credit" is a good start toward real tax reform, because it sounds general enough. Specific tax incentives are bad policy, simply because they skew markets by favoring one industry (or company) over another. What I want to see is a full repeal of all taxes on businesses, because they do not pay taxes. I explained toward the end of this entry that businesses merely pass taxes onto consumers, which requires overhead, so it's actually better to have individuals bear the full tax burden.

"We made a good start in the early grades with the No Child Left Behind Act, which is raising standards and lifting test scores across our country." Even conservatives like Michelle Malkin are more than dismayed at the huge mess and boondoggle of NCLB. With all those billions wasted, and schools in fact rarely left better off, how can we trust the federal government, as Bush called for tonight, "to train 70,000 high school teachers to lead advanced placement courses in math and science, bring 30,000 math and science professionals to teach in classrooms, and give early help to students who struggle with math so they have a better chance at good, high-wage jobs"? As I discussed here, schools cannot attract professionals who can make much more in the private sector, and many school districts are like NYC's, unable to pay those salaries because they're too busy paying so many bad teachers.

"I ask Congress to reform and reauthorize the Ryan White Act and provide new funding to states so we end the waiting lists for AIDS medicines in America." This is fundamentally redistribution of wealth, and it is self-defeating. Giving more money to states will encourage greater supply of the medicines, it is true, but it will divert pharmaceutical companies' efforts from other ventures that they'd have undertaken. They will make less medicine for influenza, less insulin, etc., so this is another example of government skewing the free market's determination of what is most important to people.

"Each of us has made a pledge to be worthy of public responsibility, and that is a pledge we must never forget, never dismiss and never betray." Actually, I thought he and Congress made pledges "to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States."

And now for the Democratic response:

I was immediately suspicious when Tom Kaine began by mentioning his missionary experience. It's just like liberals to blur the important distinction between individual charity and government powers. Indeed, he wasted no time: "Our faith and values teach us that there's no higher calling than serving others. Our federal government should serve the American people."

Could there be any bigger poppycock in the world than liberals' belief in the nanny state?

"As Americans, we do great things when we work together." Perhaps he should ask, oh, Ted Kennedy, Chuck Schumer and most of the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committe, who disgraced themselves at Justice Alito's confirmation hearings.

"When there is a natural disaster, you expect a well managed response." A nice generality, but the federal government has no Constitutional authority to do what it has for Louisiana and Missippippi in Katrina's aftermath.

"...you have a right to expect government to be fiscally responsible, pay the bills and live within its means. Tonight we heard the president again call to make his tax policies permanent, despite his administration's failure to manage our staggering national debt...huge surpluses to huge deficits..." Again I ask, where was the Democrats' "fiscal austerity" were in the 1980s when they were refusing to go along with Reagan and cut non-military spending, when Democrats controlled Congress and produced several budget deficits higher than today (as a percentage of the economy)? Moreover, not only were Clinton's two "surplus" years achieved in teamwork with a Republican Congress, the surpluses were not that large as a percentage of the budget or the economy.

In fact, federal debt has increased but is not as bad many think. Forget the absolute numbers and look at Steve Conover's January calculations. U.S. federal debt as a percentage of GDP is quite favorable compared to other nations, especially those in our range but whose economies are performing dismally. I'll post more on this another time, but federal debt is actually quite manageable right now. How many people do you know have a high debt ratio, but also get consistent pay raises of nearly 4% a year, pay between just 4% and 5% interest on their loans, and can borrow all the money they want because there are so many who are offering to lend money?

Kaine's nonsense about the United States' "credit rating" reflects either his ignorance or his partisanship: a country's credit rating is reflected in the interest rates it pays on its government bonds. The still-low interest rates on Treasury bonds are why paying interest on the national debt no longer consumes a quarter of the federal budget, unlike in the early 1990s. Foreigners have become so eager to save their money by buying our bonds, and they earned the dollars by selling goods and services to us.

"Congressional Democrats have a plan to educate 100,000 new engineers, scientists and mathematicians in the next four years." Ah, Bush proposed 30,000, so the Dems will more than triple that to prove that they're still the premier party of big government!

"The White House has made efforts to cut Medicaid funds for our most vulnerable citizens. Our seniors were promised that the new federal Medicare drug plan would make it easier and cheaper to obtain their medication." The Medicare prescription drug plan was bad, but Democrats don't see why it really is. To them, it's bad because they were beaten to it by a Republican President and Republican-controlled Congress. In reality, it's bad because the drug plan, and in fact Medicare/Medicaid, are not part of the federal government's constitutional powers.

"In Virginia, we've worked to provide health insurance coverage for nearly 140,000 children who weren't covered four years ago." But the age-old question: at what cost? Who's paying for it, and what are the taxed people not buying (meaning jobs are destroyed all over, little by little) because they are paying for others' health care?

"...Republicans and Democrats alike have come together to fight the administration's efforts to slash Medicaid and push more costs onto the states." And that is why both parties can be so wrong. The federal government under the real U.S. Constitution, not Robert Byrd's revised edition that allows spending on whatever they damn well please, is one of specific, limited powers. The Tenth Amendment clearly states that everything else is reserved to the states or to the people.

Kaine drudged up the old "inaccurate information" accusation, a nicer way than some Democrats' claim that the President deliberately misled the American people, when Democrats (among whom were Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy) since the late 1990s warned that Saddam was still pursuing WMD programs and couldn't be trusted. I look at the War on Terror this way: the Taliban are gone, a regime that harbored al Qaeda. Saddam has been toppled, a dictator who permitted al Qaeda and other terrorists to operate training camps in Iraq. Saddam also harbored Abu Nidal and gave money to Palestinian suicide bombers' families. Instead of two countries whose governments call for our destruction, Afghanistan and Iraq's governments are now friendly to the U.S., with about 50 million people now able to determine their own destiny. That sounds like pretty good success to me within four years.

What will be curious in the next while is the verifying of an Iraqi general's claims that Saddam sent chemical weapons to Syria on stripped-down civilian planes.

"Working together, we have to give our troops the tools they need to win the war on terror." Is that why John Kerry voted for the $87 billion before he voted against it?

"Last summer, I joined Democrats in Washington and in other states and called on oil companies to share in our sacrifice and return some of their record-breaking excess profits." The Democrats ignore the fact that if oil prices hadn't gone so high, oil companies and oil-producing nations wouldn't be working so furiously to develop new oil fields so that we don't run out of oil. For more on the Democrats' myth of energy independence, click here. For the reason that Hillary and other Dems' desire to tax oil companies to hell will backfire by causing even higher prices for consumers, click here.

Beware: the Democrats' plan for energy independence will only make everything more expensive for us all by reducing our access to less expensive fossil fuels, by increasing our use of expensive alternative fuels.

"But at the same time, we have to ensure that our homeland defense efforts begin with consistent federal action to protect our borders." After how many years, Democrats are starting to talk like Republicans on immigration.

"The administration is falling behind in other critical areas: preserving the environment, keeping our workplaces safe, protecting family farms, keeping jobs in America." The environment is doing quite well. Because of technological advancement that allows us to do more with less land, as well as conservation spurred by the free market, we don't need to cut down as many trees, and we thus have more forest today than at any time since the 1940s. How are workplaces not safe, other than post offices that seem to produce a lot of lunatics? "Family farms" tend to be old-fashioned and inefficient, and they should be allowed to go under or be bought out. And "keeping jobs in America" is the tired old Kerry line from the debates, which is ignorant economics.

When Kaine talked about "rights endowed by our creator," is he talking about what liberals claim as rights? The right to health care, i.e. getting medical care at others' coerced expense? The right to work, i.e. the right to force a business to continue your employment no matter how unfit you are? What liberals' "rights" come down to is using the government to help yourself to others' pockets.

If Kaine and other Democrats really do want to "replace the division that's been gripping our nation's capital," then absolutely "we need a change." But in no way, after watching their shameless antics since President Bush nominated Miguel Estrada, are "Democrats are leading that reform effort" like Kaine claimed. If Democrats are serious about eliminating the partisanship, then their leadership can start by obtaining Congressional resignations from, in no special order, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Dick Durbin and Byron Dorgan (I include Dorgan for his belief in taxing oil company profits above $40 a barrel).

"...working to restore honesty and openness to our government, working to replace a culture of partisanship and cronyism with an ethic of service and results."

Before telling others to take the specks out of their eyes, Democrats would do well to remember names like Henry Cisneros, Ron Brown, Susan McDougal and Marc Rich.