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]
|
In class today, the subject of the strength of man became a focus of discussion. Many in my class offered the theory that all people (can’t dare say man) are perfect and through societal reforms can become more perfect. I challenged this mind set as a bunch of baloney. Men, err people, are not angels! Men, argh people, are fundamentally egotistical and only improve their outcome and behavior, if not their interior character, so as to adhere to some incentive. (Thankfully a really hot girl in the class agreed with me, but that is another story…)
Eventually the teacher asked me (the hot chic too) if we had read too much Friedman or too much Ayn Rand. Once we said yes the teacher asked if we were Libertarians. I love listening to my profs on Libertarianism, here is why.
There are two main arguments they use against the fundamental principal of Libertarianism (as I define it, the ability of all people to act freely in the market to spontaneously create societal good [as luck would have it this is the same definition I discovered that this hot libertarian chic uses too]). First, Libertarianism is too simple for today’s complex world. Second, Libertarianism is now two centuries old; its glory days died with the Great Depression. Let me deal with these both in turn.
Libertarianism is too simple
Upon analyzing the way our society is, I have concluded that this complexity is a result of the elite wishing to keep it complex. The minute these elites say it is simple, they are no longer elite. It should come as no surprise that the tool of creating this complexity is the government.
So, to protect their elite-ness, they have made the world more complex, via laws and also via their discussion of “heady” issues. An example of these heady issues is their common cry that unless you understand that you can never really know anything, like natural rights as described by Locke, you can never really ever understand anything about the world, or, put differently, you cannot be elite until you understand this moral ambiguity. Well, I am in the top 8% of my class, apparently I know something – and I know enough to say %*** the &*** elites! Oh sorry, let me stop swearing.
The world is fundamentally simple, and operates better as such. If there are too many regulations, you just have trouble. Market forces are not allowed to work properly to solve social ills. Libertarianism does advocate this level of simplicity, and thus it works better than anything else.
It’s old and dead, bury it already
This argument cracks me up! Here is how it works: The 18th century saw the rise of Capitalism; the 19th century abused capitalism, and the 20th century saw why Capitalism does not work, and why we should ban it all together in the 21st century. Now I have a disagreement with their interpretation, as I think the 20th most clearly showed the strength of capitalism and the death of socialism. This is clearly defined in the Cold War; however, it can also be seen in the areas of society that innovated the most throughout the last century. Let me quickly examine as an example: education and technology. (To confess this example was originally offered in class by the loveliest Libertarian I have ever met, but I agree with it and am throwing in some of my own stuff.) Education saw little to no innovation in how it was taught; it saw innovation (if you can call it that) in the administrative process of education. There are more education regulations, but quality is dropping. Technology saw great innovation, not in the administration but in how it works. Computers are faster now than ever before. The quality has improved. I care a lot more about quality of the product over the administration of the development of the administration for the product. In other words, capitalism still works to this day and is not dead. (However, it is because of this professor that I have found at least one reason to support the Drug War.)
(P.S. – Although this may be a really interesting discussion, I must admit that I was struggling to prevent drooling while listening to the hot Libertarian chic, and therefore did not do the argument justice in class, hence my posting it here, after allowing time to regain some composure)
(P.P.S. – Point of clarification about my last post. It was not intended to defend sales taxes. They are wrong, evil, and nasty stuff for more reasons than what I mentioned.)
Another report from the front lines of socialist-land from the student hiding behind the “pixilated burqa of on-line anonymity”
I love the “logic” of the majority of my fellow students. They “hate” taxes and love big government programs. Hypocritical? Yes, but it gets so much better than it might appear at first glance.
One tax they hate the most is the sales tax on text books. Now a 3.7%+ tax can add a bit to the bill when an average bill is over $200. While understandable, the student legislature has a weird solution to this problem: ban sales taxes on campus.
Now while I love the thought of banning taxes all together (I am a Libertarian after all), I find it hypocritical that they also call for big government. If they (the supporters of this big government) don’t pay for it, then who do they think will? The hypocrisy is unbelievable. You pay for what you advocate.
These student bureaucrats, oh I am sorry student legislators, apparently have some problem with sales taxes. I hardly doubt that it is the same problem I have. My problem is that it takes money from people and spends it on horrid and wasteful government programs that violate the very nature of the US Constitution. (This is true with me of all taxes.) Unlike me, their problem is that sales taxes are more visible to them than payroll taxes and income taxes (they’re wards of Mummy and Pappy and don’t need jobs). In my opinion, sales taxes are the best of all the evil taxes available. As sales taxes are the least unfair because it is harder for the politicians to politicize them. With income taxes they can change the rates so that the rich get screwed and the poor get helped. That is exactly what we have right now in America (the majority of taxpayers are rich paying for the poor – the minority of people paying for the majority of people because of the tax structure). The student legislatures (who really dislike me, by the way) really do not care about the payroll taxes or other forms of income taxes that their fellow working students (the minority of students need you be told) have to pay
Let us pretend for a minute that I am mistaken: they just dislike all taxes, not just the visible ones. Assuming that this is true, and it is not, they are clearly fighting the wrong battle. Want to reduce taxes? First reduce the government, then taxes will follow as spending will decrease then all politicians will have nothing left to do with the money except return it. However, I highly doubt that this is what they think, as they suffer from the liberal’s contagious cancer that encourages a pro-tax bias. There are two other reasons why I know this is not the case. First, they want to eradicate taxes in just the bookstore, not in nearby restaurants and stores. Dare I say that this may be, in some twisted way, a political move of these future bureaucrats?
I also know this because they like to see the government doing things: education, health care, energy, environmental protection, euro-creation, food distribution, retirement provisions, and whatever else. In other words, they have no problem with people paying 100% taxes, if that is what it takes to have these utopia-based government programs. Furthermore, they dislike any mention of broad scoping tax cuts, even the petty cuts proposed by the president and the governor of whatever state I happen to be in.
The idea of anti-taxes is not bad, but that is clearly not what they really believe. They just want to save their political hides by not having on campus taxes. Like all politicians, these student politicians also see the need to eradicate visible taxes from those they represent. At least if their hearts were really against taxes I may not be so displeased with their decision, but as it stands, these politicians are operating at the same level of intelligence as Tom Daschle and Karl Marx.
Our new mystery contributor is actually a well known blogger in his own right by the name of… well, that would be telling.
For reasons that will probably become apparent after he has posted more of his frustrations of being a libertarian and critical thinker in an environment which encourages neither, he wishes to remain behind the pixilated burqa of on-line anonymity.
Ah yes, the glory days of school have begun again. I always love to return to school after the winter break. The crisp chill in the air fits with new smell of text books always gets me excited to learn again.
However, this bliss fades as soon as I encounter that which really irks me: the whining and moaning of the first week back. “I can’t find my class room”, “I didn’t want to buy my text books, they’re too expensive”, “I don’t want to do this”, “I don’t want this homework”, “I don’t know the answer to that question”. How nice: people trying to find other people to take care of their problems. If others fail to take care of their problems, they let you know that too. What this comes down to is an inability to handle their own affairs, or in other words a level of dependency that grows worse daily.
Now I sympathize with them, because finding the classroom can be hard, after all you may have to look at one of the 50 maps located in the classroom building. Throwing over $500 for textbooks is not easy, but you obviously want to go to school, so you do it. Students need to learn that level of biting the bullet and not sharing their problems. In other words, reach a level of independency; take care of your own problems. College is a darn good time to start that.
But most students fail to learn that lesson, instead they continue to want more dependency, more help, and in short, they cry “I want my Mommy”. So each time I return to school I am tortured by the same question: Why are they so dependent?
After two years of college, I think I figured it out: the professors want it this way. Not just the college professors but also the high school teachers. In high school, I was yelled at for being too judgmental; they wanted people to consider all options and not to make any decisions or conclusions. There is no right and wrong – people who think so (like T. Jefferson?) are full of bunk. They encouraged mental dependence: encourage explaining other people’s thoughts, but do not dare to express your thoughts. Mental independence, don’t dare – how nice.
Getting so used to this in high school, it followed most students to college. When asked a question, most students answer it with “well these people say x and these people say y”. If the professor even dares to ask “Which one do you agree with?” the student is left floundering and sputters out “well x is good for a, b, c and y is good for d, e, f.” Because of this lack of requirement for judgmental thoughts, students are unable to think independently. They cannot even tell you what they think because they get trapped in telling you what others think. This lack of mental independence has spread like a cancer to all of their other activities, including finding class rooms and purchasing textbooks. Why does it stay this way? It is in the teacher’s best interest to keep their student’s mind dependent, that way they seem really smart. However this only leads to ruin and distress in the futures of those students. Boy I love returning to school…
|
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.
|
