We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Teaching Junior that coercion works I was mildly amused to see that there is a book published in the USA called ‘Why mommy is a democrat’.
Presumably it teaches children that just as ‘Mommy’ looks after Junior and makes him share his toys with the kid next door, if the kid next door refuses to share his toys with Junior, Junior should threaten to lock him in the attic and take the toys he wants by force… just like the nice Democrats use the threat of jail for people who do not ‘share their toys’ like they are told.
Just a guess.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
You would think that if leftists actually had any confidence in their ideology, they wouldn’t feel the need to propagandize to ridiculously young children.
I mean, if you are a good goose-stepping leftist, shouldn’t your kid grow up to think the correct thoughts too? Why the worry and need to get them thinking correctly while they’re still more concerned with cooties and tying their own shoelaces?
Well, you can’t say the author of the book isn’t being honest about the role Democrats want government to play. While children might like the idea of mommy always being there to take care of them and make the other kids share, actual grown-ups should be annoyed at the prospect of being mothered, especially by the government.
Republicans do the same, of course. Different brand, same product.
Of course coercion works. It has worked for untold millenia, from desert to jungle, from cave to igloo, from the plains and mountains of North America to the steppes of Russia. Violence, in any and all of its myriad forms, is an extremely effective way of controlling people.
The problem, of course, is that rewarding the use of coercion, like any other form of operant conditioning, increases and expands the range and virulence of the problem.
I remember a film from many years ago I saw in a psychology class. It was of one of Skinner’s famous pigeon experiments, in which a pigeon is put in a box with a food dispenser.
In this particular case, instead of getting a food pellet when it pecked at a certain spot, an observer dispensed a pellet whenever the bird turned its head to the left. By the end of the day, the bird was rotating around like a top, as it was led to turn a little bit more each time in order to get a pellet.
The usual analysis of violence and coercion is that it is wrong and pointless because of the devastating effects on its victims, and this analysis is certainly not incorrect.
But what must also be considered is its effects on those who employ it. Those who truly enjoy the use of force against others are gratified and encouraged by its powerful effects on those they wish to intimidate and control.
The more they are rewarded by money and power, the further they spin out of control, until no lunacy, no gruesome viciousness, is beyond their indugence.
But, of course, this nice little mommy is not Nero, eating dinner by the light of burning corpses. She only wants good things— compassion and justice and equality. Surely such good intentions, such good ends, can justify a little legal compulsion from time to time.
After all, isn’t “We meant well” the all inclusive exonerator, the trump card? Don’t the ends, if they’re good enough, ever justify the means?
Indeed, but the book I happened across was ‘Why mommy is a Democrat’ not ‘Why mommy is a Republican’, or I else would be making nasty remarks about Junior using eminent domain to take the kid next door’s sand box so he can build a playground on it for himself just like the SCOTUS, with its majority of Republican appointed judges, said property developers can do 🙂
Sadly true. It’s worth noting that the most conservative justices were the ones dissenting from the Kelo opinion though.
Right.
If there were a Republican version of this book it would say things like “Republicans keep us safe from drugs, just like Mommy does” and “Republicans make us go to church, just like Mommy does.”
Children also don’t realize that Mommy has to work to get the money to buy their toys, etc. This book is the perfect encapsulation of Socialist philosophy, which, if I may paraphrase Marx, is “someone else will pay for my free stuff.”
Really? I slept in last Sunday (and every other Sunday). Don’t tell the local religious police.
And if Mommy was free of the evil machinations of the statist Dems and Repubicans, she’d soon ally herself with a bunch of other like-minded mothers, get lawyers, guns and money, and set about beating up on anyone who disagrees with her.
People aren’t angels. Individuals aren’t capable of defending themselves against the inevitable attack by organized groups of other people. We don’t get to choose perfect freedom. We only get to choose which group we join.
Sure, but what is your point?
Mommy can afford to be a Democrat because Republican Dad earns enough for her to be frivolous.
‘Twas ever thus.
“Because mommy is a schoolteacher in a government school and teacher’s union member and I have to vote for the party that will give me pay raises, job security regardless of performance, and no competitive threat from school choice supported by vouchers. You gotta vote for your own pocketbook’s wellbeing, kid.”
“Because mommy is on welfare and the Democrats are much more generous with welfare programs. Every election, Democrat canvassers tell me I’ll lose my check unless I go out and vote Democrat. Then they give me a ride to the polls, $100 and a carton of cigarettes. You gotta vote to keep your welfare check, kid.”
“Because mommy has intentionally kept you from learning how to read, so she can have you declared learning disabled and we can get a SSI disability check for you. Yeah, I know we’ll lose the check when you turn 18, but hey, you’ll still have it. It’s even more generous than welfare. Democrats are generous with SSI disability for dubious disabilities…so we gotta vote Democrat or we’ll lose our check. By the way…didn’t I tell you NOT to go to the school library or the public library? You checked out this book and read it? I’m going to tan yo’ hide, chile, if they know you can read we’ll lose our check! Don’t go to the library! Gimme that book!”
The government is not my mother – nor should it be.
How many of you actually read the book? I’m currently working my way through it, I’ll let you know how it turns out.