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Collectivism is anti-individual rights. Whether voluntary collectivism or forced collectivism, the hatred for the individual is ever prevalent.
Voluntaryism is a popular ideology amongst people who like Anarchism but recoil at its leftist implications. By adopting the simple principle, “whatever is voluntary is ethical,” they believe that they have found the high ground, the ruler with which all other ideologies must be evaluated.
Some openly advocate a “rule by landlords,” a sort of extra-small minarchism where whoever owns the land can impose whatever laws he wishes on anyone who works or lives within his land. This is the “ultimate decision-making power” which defines the State: these landowners are effectively rulers over that land. Although they refuse to see this pretty direct deduction (but to be fair, even Rothbard was too blinded by his pro-property bias to see it), it is clear that the voluntaryists who hold to this ideology have nothing to do with Anarchism.
One famous example from the Mises forum is the question of whether we are justified in shaking off someone who is hanging for his life on a flagpole that we own. Many people there were of the opinion that “property rights” alone justified an act which is, to be clear, nothing more than murder.
Most voluntaryists recoil at the idea that their ideology might justify this sort of baseless murder, and as such adopt a “softer” position. They then try to draw a line, beyond which their belief in “property rights” becomes harmless and does not affect other people’s rights. But as I have pointed out in my past exposé of “anarcho-capitalism,” there is no line beyond which voluntaryism, in its support of “property rights,” does not suffer from this sort of contradiction, because “property rights” are by their very nature an obstacle to all other, real human rights.-Check Your Premises: The voluntaryist delusion.
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Among the three groups I am discussing, there is one that I hold no contempt for, but some sympathy. This group is the producer class and they are a rapidly dwindling class in the United States.
The producers are people who view their own rational self-interest above the needs of others and seek to fulfill them on their own terms without committing crimes against their fellow men. In essence, they work for what they have and they do seek to take or beg from others. If they reach a limitation, they will either seek to overcome it, find a way around it, or simply accept it and move on. They will not complain about it, demand compensation because of it, or blame others for it.
However, even the producers can be driven to their limits and can move to one of the other classes on occasion. Even if we divide people into the various classes that I am describing, people can still move from one class to another. Of the three classes, the producer class is the one that is highly volatile and a person can easily be a producer one day and a moocher the next. It is very difficult for a moocher or a looter to become a producer, the former because he is addicted to his own victimhood or entitlement, the latter because he is addicted to his own power.
The producers need not be producing something of monetary value to be a producer. A housewife, for example, produces no tangible monetary value but does provide a service to her husband that is nearly priceless. And yet the housewife is a producer as long as she is a housewife voluntarily and strives to keep the home in order.
A producer need not be some corporate head. A producer can easily be a worker who is employed by another producer. Again, it all has to do with the attitude. A producer’s attitude toward his employment is that the job he has is not his job, but his employer’s job. He tends to view that job as a contract between him and his employer where he does a task over a specified amount of time in exchange for some monetary benefit.
Remember, these class divides have nothing to do with economic status, but with attitudes toward other people. A producer will not demand anything from anyone else, unless such a thing is due to him because of an agreement of some kind or a crime perpetrated against him.
The producers, however, tend to have a fatal flaw that often times brings about their own complacence and, sometimes, ultimate downfall. They tend to buy into the rhetoric of the moochers and the looters and this often causes them to behave in a manner that is detrimental to their own well-being. They will feel sorry for the moochers, because they do have sob stories to tell, and as such will be accepting of their fate of having to pay for them. Often times, this is facilitated by the looters, as will be described in a later post.
The moment that the producers overlook their own rational self-interest in favor of others, they begin the process of unraveling the benefits of their work and attitudes. This begins a great unraveling of society and the more parasitic elements begin to take control. However, unlike most good parasites who understand that the host needs to live, these have little regard for others and somehow lack the sense to see the damage they are doing.
In the United States, the productive class has been marginalized, its voice is not heard largely because the producers are out producing. Politicians will only listen to those who vote and the moocher class also happens to be the largest group of voters in this country. As such, the State ceases to look out for the interests of the producers and instead looks out for the needs of the producers. And this is when the third class comes into play.
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I firmly believe that your class in the United States is not the result of income or wealth, but of attitude. The amount you make in life or the stuff you’ve obtained is largely tied to your own choices and attitudes rather than some external source. Granted, there are things that can happen which will be detrimental to your financial condition, but how you deal with those situations is where it truly counts.
I have come to classify people into three distinct classes, based on my various readings and observations: moochers, looters, and producers. While the political ideology among the three can be similar, their primary motivations are based on their outlooks and attitudes in life, which allow them to be classified as such. There are plenty of reasons that back these attitudes, so I will focus on one class at a time in what will hopefully be a series of posts.
First of all, there is the moocher class. A moocher is someone who believes that they are entitled to something in exchange for nothing. This something may be money, but it could also be services or some kind of relational benefit. They firmly believe that they are entitled to whatever that thing is for various reasons.
As near as I can tell, at least 35% of Americans are essentially moochers. The only measure I have is how many people are accepting government payouts of some kind. These payouts include things like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Unemployment “Insurance”. In these cases, these individuals believe that for some reason or another, they deserve this money.
A common reason that comes from the elderly, even among the conservative elderly, is that Social Security and Medicare are entitled to them because they spent all their lives paying into the “system”. While there is no disputing that they paid into the system all their working lives, nor can I deny that these programs have provided people with short-term benefits, the truth is that when they paid into the system, that money went directly to the existing recipients. So while they can argue that it was a kind of savings plan, in truth it was really just a giant Ponzi scheme.
Another reason is usually because they’ve lost their job. OK, I can see how losing your job is a huge financial detriment, but why do you deserve money just because of your poor financial planning? Seriously, don’t you know that most sensible people save in times of plenty so that when times of famine hit, they are prepared for it? Apparently, there are a lot of people who do not plan beyond their first paycheck and even then they do not plan the best way to spend that money for them.
Digging deeper, however, you can usually identify the moochers by how they relate to others. Often times, they can be needy and, in extreme cases, narcissistic when dealing with those around them. Instead of listening, they will talk. Instead of visiting, they will insist of others visiting them. Instead of respecting the boundaries, both physical and emotional, of others, they will cross them. When confronted, they will play the victim or redirect the conservation to the bad behavior of others in order to justify their own.
In other words, the moocher class is nothing more than a bunch of children. Never mind that they may be older than you or even smarter than you, at the end of the day, they lack the maturity of a fully functioning adult. As such, they tend to have the same attitudes of children and are often too foolish to recognize it. For them, life is about what they can get, not what they can do. If things do not go their way, they will behave like children with the full force an adult can provide. If you have ever seen the aftermath of a moocher protest of any kind, you are bound to see a lot of broken property and trash.
Personally, I do hold sympathy, but also no small amount of contempt for the moocher class. Having dealt with some family members who are moochers and knowing that they are capable of so much more, it merely frustrates me. Cutting them off as much as possible, though painful, has proved to be more beneficial to me.
Moochers, however, will always be with us. Depending on how a society treats its moochers, their numbers will vary, but you are always guaranteed more moochers in a society such as ours. Seeing as how people who make less money than us tend to have more disposable income, why wouldn’t someone become a moocher?
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The U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary means of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness... [Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow]...challenges the civil rights community—and all of us—to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.
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Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com
Dear Mr Skeptical,
I wish your column was every Friday
signed
Can't Get Enough
Dear Mister Skepticals
My Grandma died and I will see here again someday, won't I?
signed,
Missing Grandma
Dear Mr. Skeptical
Can you tell the time by looking at the moon?
signed,
Watchless
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So, how’s it going Bret?
Not too bad. I’ve been keeping busy since I got kicked off of Skeptical Eye for making death threats and being an overall jackass.
Fucking Jews.
I’m pretty sure no one at SE is Jewish, but thanks for the sympathy.
But dude, you’re missing the bigger picture. You defeated those earthworms with your words, imagine what you would have done with your fire-breathing fists.
My fists don’t do that, but I’m not a warlock like you.
Don’t worry, bro, they’ll offer your old job back. They always do. They can’t process you with a normal brain. You’re like me, tired of pretending you aren’t special. We are bitchin’ rock stars from Mars. We have tiger’s blood and Adonis DNA.
Well… that’s sweet of you to say, but that’s not really what I’m about.
We’ve got 10,000 year old brains and the boogers of a seven year old.
That doesn’t even make sense.
Do you like Huey Lewis and the News?
Holy shit, who invited Batman?
It’s Bateman, actually.
Do you guys ever wonder why Americans have a soft spot for sociopaths?
Jealousy, my friend. It’s just pure jealousy. Everyone wants a piece of you when you’re an F-18, shooting them out of the sky and deploying your ordinance to the ground.
You don’t think the attention is reminiscent of slowing down as you pass a car accident?
Hmm, interesting…
Jesus Charlie, what are you doing?
Duh, winning. Drug tests don’t lie. Scoreboard.
Well, it’s not like saying offensive things always works out. Look at Mel, he’s as untouchable as Hitler.
Whoa whoa whoa… don’t go comparing me to Hitler. He was the master. I’ve just made movies, I’m more like Goebbels.
Well, I don’t think you guys will be much help to me, because you were all famous before people knew you were psychotic.
Perhaps I can be of some assistance.
Don’t listen to that nigger, Bret. They aren’t to be trusted.
Shut up Mel. I’m going to at least hear him out.
You have to keep it all bottled up, be real nice and polite, then when you have the world on a string, you can cut the cord and watch all the little people fall at your feet.
I agree. If they never see you coming, it’s just a lot easier.
Listen to Batman.
IT’S BATEMAN!
My mistake. Just cool it, and remain calm when speaking to the public. When you’re behind closed doors, you can order unmanned predator drone attacks or cruise missile strikes, but it’s best if people know you for talking about peace. No one cares what you actually do, just sound civil.
So I can still be a raging maniacal narcissist, so long as I keep it under wraps?
Now you got it. Besides, you aren’t narcissistic, you wanna see narcissistic?
Yeah bitch, look into the camera.
Feeling a little uncomfortable…
Trust me, Bret. Just ignore the detractors and get your message out there, and this could be you: