14 October 2010

New series to open eyes and minds

Today initiates a new series of postings designed at opening the eyes, and more importantly minds, of anyone who reads it. Through a similar strategy to what Andrew Wilkow uses on his radio show, I am going to take popular progressive liberal strategies to their logical conclusion. Many thanks and much appreciation to Andrew for what he does.
Let's start with redistribution of income; notice that the word of choice is income and not wealth, I will get back to that shortly. The justification for income redistribution is the classic "who will help the children, widows, helpless, etc." strategy for guilting individuals for being "greedy". This is backwards and counterproductive to society at large. The needy will be assisted by charity which people give to voluntarily and yes, some will not get assistance due to refusal of assistance from either party (by the way, the recipient who would refuse voluntary charity typically will not go to the government for assistance either). The charity organization can rightfully place conditions on receipt of assistance, attending a church service, assisting other families, whatever they believe is required to insure that the assistance is a hand up and not a hand out.
The current target for the government redistribution group are those that make over $250,000 per year. Regardless of what those particular individuals do, like create jobs by starting businesses, what is the likely outcome? People will quit striving to increase their income beyond that threshold. As individuals realize that they will get screwed out of their money beyond a certain point, they will quit exceeding it. This will force the government to lower the threshold, which results in more individuals stopping short of the new bar. Eventually, the most productive members of society quit producing as they know that they will be punished for their productivity.
I said that I would get back to income versus wealth, notice that the target is the individuals who are productive (income is money received for work). Redistributing wealth would expose what people refer to as "limousine liberals" to their own ideals. Wealth is "an abundance of valuable possessions or money" which is very different from income. If we move into the realm of redistributing wealth instead of income, now your retirement investments are at risk of being given to someone "in need", your savings account is now fair game, the second car, a second home, all of it is now targeted for confiscation at the point of a gun.
It is not your "duty" as a citizen of the United States of America to work every day for the benefit of others. Your duties are first to yourself and your family both near and long term (investing for the future). If you have income left after that to assist others of your choosing, then you are free to do so. Government confiscation of your income is a violation of the Constitution; the Bill of Attainder clause in Article 1 Section 9 as well as the involuntary servitude clause in the 13th Amendment. Unless, of course, productivity and the right to the fruits of one's own labor is deemed to be criminal.

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