no third solution

Blogging about liberty, anarchy, economics and politics

There’s No Such Thing as Free Obamacare

September 12th, 2012

A friend of a friend who’s a hardcore Obama supporter through thick & thin and also a stay-at-home mom opines, “I like Obamacare because it means I’ll get free vaccines for my son.”

Oh. You wanted a lesson in life? Here goes:

For starters, no it’s not fucking free. You personally might not have to pay for it but that does not make it “free”. Everything has a cost, and the failure to grasp this concept is failure to grasp the fundamental laws of reality.

Now that we’ve gotten today’s lesson in metaphysics out of the way and we can agree that it’s not “free”, you have some explaining to do. 

You have to explain why someone else has to pay for the things you want, for instance explain why my wife and I (who both work) should be forced to pay to support your choice to not work? You would never dream of holding me as your slave and forcing me to provide for you, yet the policies you favor, and more specifically the political means by which you seek to effect your desired outcomes, are essentially just that.

And don’t give me any crap about the people who “can’t afford it” because:

  1. You’re not in that class and it’s an insult to anyone who is if you’re insinuating that, and 
  2. By and large people can or could afford things but they are prevented or otherwise forcibly deprived means of doing so (cf., Scratching by: How Government Creates Poverty as We Know It, On Breaking Your Legs and Giving You Crutches: A Response To A Liberal) and/or 
  3. They just choose not to because they’ve been conned in to believing, just like you, that these things are “free” and that they are entitled to them without providing for them.

Also, you need to explain why this mentality of yours isn’t exactly the same as the “selfishness” you abhor when a libertarian wants to keep the whole of her own earnings in order to provide for her own family, well-being, needs, etc.

But I’m pretty sure what I’m hearing right now is the sound of deaf ears not listening.

Why Don’t You Move to Somalia?

April 26th, 2011

This is just another way for the authoritarian to say: “You need us to protect you from us.”

Let that sink in for a minute.

What’s implied of course, is “You can’t stay here if you don’t want our services,”  and also, “Try to stay here, and we will evict you, imprison you, beat you, and steal from you until you cave-in.”

And then, since domestic industries have been gutted by inflation, corruption, crony-capitalism, etc., this “protection” also includes blowing up a bunch of brown foreign people, bribing their governments, expropriating their farms and then mass-producing a bunch of cheap consumer goods abroad which, since they have been greatly subsidized, will be imported (and undercut any uppity domestic manufacturer) in order to sell you the illusion of prosperity and happiness.

Somali Neighborhood Welcoming Committee: "If you don't like it in Mogadishu, move somewhere worse!"

The difference between our goons and their goons is that theirs dress more utilitarian, and ours have a tendency to wear wingtips and ties.

Confessions of an Economic Hitman

May 2nd, 2010

Confessions of an Economic Hit ManI finished John Perkins’ Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, as well as some lighter reading, on the way to and from London a few weeks ago. To be quite honest, once I started reading it I couldn’t put it down. If you haven’t read it, I definitely recommend it.

If you were ever curious about how global empire is maintained in the 20th and in to the 21st centuries, this book will probably tie up a lot of loose ends for you. If you were ever curious about why people all over the globe hate the American government, this book will make sense of it all.

It’s the type of stories you hear from conspiracy theorists and categorically reject as crazy and implausible, like how the World Bank and the IMF, in collusion with big businesses, conspire to keep the third world poor, to exploit their human and natural resources for profit, and suppress any popular dissent.

Here’s Anti-flag song of the same name, inspired by Perkins’ book.

…Abrenz, Mossadeq, Allende
Roldos, Torrijos, Aristide
Elected democratically,
All snuffed out by the CIA
The truth will cause your heart to seize,
Shed light on the true enemies…

no third solution

Blogging about liberty, anarchy, economics and politics