Some Really Stupid Statements People Make

1 - Politics (I.E. laws and taxes) can make life better for most people (Spoken by politicians ad nauseum.)

Timothy Leary had it right when he said, "the function of government should be to put itself out of business." Unfortunately, most people who choose politics as a vocation do not see it this way. Nor, tragically, do the naive multitudes who continue to elect them. Prosperity cannot be legislated. Human beings cannot be engineered. These facts make most of what politicians do a waste of time and resources.

Not counting natural adversities such as famine, floods and earthquakes etc. politicians cause the majority of mankind's problems. Reducing the influence of politics on our lives would have enormous benefits for everyone.

2 - If you don't like it here, leave.

Often said in response to complaints of the folly cited in section 1 (above) this idiotic prescription takes into account only half of what is required to actually leave. Most governments do not have to erect walls to keep the populace trapped within because most of them already have walls keeping people out. Anyone wishing to leave one country must first obtain permission to enter another. Where such permission is not granted leaving is not an option. The person who says, "if you don't like it here then leave," is apparently ignorant of this simple detail and this is what makes the statement really stupid.

3 - If you don't vote you have no right to complain

You hear this little gem every time there is an election. Consider the recent provincial election in Ontario. There were three main parties in the running. There were the semi-socialist Conservatives under Ernie Eves, the semi-socialist-plus Liberals under Dalton what's his name, and the more radical socialist NDP party.

There were also several 'fringe' parties with no hope of getting elected such as the socialist Green party and the freedom oriented Libertarian and Freedom parties.

Personally, I find socialism to be utterly depraved. I would have voted for the Libertarian party or the Freedom party but neither had a candidate in my riding. The only real choice left to me therefore was to vote for some variant of socialism or to not vote at all.

Well, I didn't vote for any of the socialists in my riding therefore according to stupid things people say number 3, I have no right to complain.

My minority viewpoint is that the stupid oafs who continue to elect socialists ought to be the ones who have no right to complain when, as H.L. Mencken observed about democracy, everyone gets what the majority deserves.

4 - The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

This utter crock of shit is often spewed as some sage observation of the 'capitalist' system under which we mortals toil. Well first of all, no one alive today lives in a capitalist system. America and Canada have 'mixed' economies. People can and do get rich in mixed economies but not everyone goes about it the same way.

Long ago I read something by A.J. Nock wherein he made a distinction between political and economic means of satisfying one's economic wants.

In a mixed economy some businessmen pursue profit the "old fashioned" way.... by providing wanted goods and services efficiently and cheaply. These businessmen enrich themselves using economic means. But since they enrich themselves by serving their fellow citizens they simultaneously enrich all of us. Under a purely capitalist system this would be the only way to get rich.

Others do it quite another old fashioned way, not by providing goods and services but by using their influence and/or friends in legislatures to stifle competition, obtain subsidies and generally manipulate the law of the land or the 'rules of the game'. Pick up any newspaper and you will find plenty of examples of these sorts of businesses. Lately, for example, some Canadian steelmakers have been moaning about foreign competition. They want the government to use it's coercive power to interfere in the marketplace forcing everyone who purchases steel or steel products to pay more for those commodities in order to guarantee profits for themselves.

Hearing these representatives in the steel industry complaining about "dumping" gets really sickening after a while. Foriegn competitors allegedly sell steel at below market prices and this is called "dumping". The question is, without some kind of sleazy government intervention, how can anything be sold at below market price? What is market price anyway? Well, the steel company executives begging for state protection have an answer to that question don't they.... the market price is the price they would like to sell their steel for to guarantee their own profits and keep paying those high union wages.

How long has it been we have been hearing this same old song and dance? I think I have been hearing it for about thirty years now and it's probably been going on for a lot longer than that. If these foriegn competitors have been selling their steel for all this time at "below market prices" you have to seriously wonder how they have managed to stay in business for so long. Whatever their secret is I hope they keep on doing it. Unless I find myself earning some wildly inflated union wage in the future I would truly prefer to pay "below market prices" for absolutely everything I buy. If the best I can get is only to pay "below market prices" for anything I buy that contains steel I guess I can live with that.

Often the same businesses clamouring for government protection carry on their backs parasitic labour unions. Unlike their greedy cousins in the "public sector" (more accurately, the "coercive sector") private sector (or "voluntary sector") unions understand that if the company they hold hostage goes down, they go down. It is no surprise therefore to hear the representatives of these unions clamouring for the same kinds of government interference as their host companies want. Thus the poor sap working for ten bucks and hour in some non-union sweat shop may find he has to pay an extra few thousand dollars for an automobile so the guy doing similar work in a steel mill or on an auto assembly line can continue to take home some multiple of his meagre earnings.

Those who employ the political means enrich themselves by impoverishing their fellow citizens, I.E. through political means. Clearly, the latter are beneficiaries of the political side of our mixed economies. The relative numbers of these two very different kinds of businessmen will determine whether the rich do indeed get richer as the poor get poorer. Most businesses today are neither purely economic nor political in their means of seeking profit but employ some combination of means.

Using the legislature to obtain unearned benefits is nothing more than the modern way of doing the same thing thugs like Ghengis Khan did ages ago. Government specializes in the use of force. It is nothing more than institutionalized and systemized theft and coercion. Those who use government to enrich themselves merely delegate to the state what would otherwise be their own larcenous, anti-social and aggressive behaviour.

The person saying, "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer" usually says this while denouncing some aspect of market allocation of economic benefit. This person, like the vast majority of voters, is basically too stupid to understand or too corrupt to acknowledge the truly evil nature of politics and the political means of enrichment.

5 - There was a need for labour unions at one time

Labour unions are gangs that muscle their way into certain industries using various forms of violence and/or the threat of violence. The crudest form of violence is in the form of direct aggression against employers and other citizens. More sophisticated violence occurs when the legislature is co-opted into providing the muscle to legally accomplish the same ends.

There never was a 'need' for the type of thuggery that is the essense of labour unionism. To say there was a "need for labour unions at one time" has about as much validity as saying there once was a need for robbers, rapists and murderers.

Sure, working conditions in nineteenth century mines, railroads and steel mills etc. were abominable. The fact these industries had employees before the unions got hold of them indicates one very simple truth.... that wherever these employees came from, whatever they would have been doing if they had not gravitated to the industries mentioned must have been even more abominable and/or even lower paying or no one would have accepted these jobs in the first place. Again we see the same old principle at work. Workers organize themselves into coercive gangs driving up the price of the goods/services they provide. The people not working in those industries... I.E. the one's who stayed where the union members originated in addition to confronting conditions obviously more adverse than working in mines, steel mills and railroads etc. now had the additional burden of subsidizing union wages.

So if there was this need for labour unions at one time where did this need originate? Obviously those now forced to subsidize union wages didn't need this additional burden.

last modified:Wednesday,March 19, 2008 at 04:40