Cody O'Connor

Whether they know it or not, the left has a tendency of using "pretty words" to describe their positions. Their language can be deceptive, and sometimes make outright lies to convince people to support their beliefs. By using language as a mask, they have successfully managed to make their Big Government and Socialist agendas seem reasonable. I'm gonna try to go through all of them.

Let's start off with taxes. Ask a Liberal what taxes are and what will they say? "It's when the government asks people to give their fair share to society."

The first lie is that the government is asking, and you are giving, and the entire process is voluntary. That's not the case. Try not paying your taxes, what happens? Maybe you'll only get fined, but go on, keep avoiding taxes. It may take time, but eventually you'll see the gun in the room. At the end of the day, you either pay your taxes, or you spend time in the pokey.

What are taxes really? Theft, stealing, mugging, looting, need I go on? How can you compare taxes to anything other than being mugged? Some guy sticks a gun in your face and says "give me money or else," and it's considered stealing, but when the IRS sticks a gun in your face and says "give me your money or else," it's called taxes?! Give me a break!

But the left will always jump to say that you benefit from taxation. My first reaction, so what? If a mugger takes your money and buys you a Slurpee it's no longer stealing? And what if he got you a blueberry Slurpee, and you wanted a strawberry Slurpee? Shouldn't you have been left to decide what you wanted to get with your money? But worst of all, what if he took your money and got someone else a Slurpee?

Are you seeing the benefits here? I'm not. It seems to me that the government is taxing you because they think you can't be responsible with your money. No, if you want to buy a product or service, then you should choose to do so on your own account. Why does government think they have the right to do so for you? Do you even trust them with your money? I don't. They'll either get you an inefficient service, or an inefficient service for someone else entirely. Again, where are the benefits? How do I benefit from having half of the money I make taken from me? Don't you think if everyone was taxed less, we'd be better off?

Think about how much better things would be if people had more money. Companies could sell products for less, up their wages and hire more people. That means people will have more money, be able to afford the products or services they want and overall live a better life.

Oh, and isn't having more jobs a better solution to poverty than welfare? I should think so.

Back to that quote though from the beginning though.

The second myth is that you somehow owe something to society; some kind of a debt, and you must contribute your end. This insinuates that you didn't actually earn the money you have. You were just fortunate, or lucky (the liberal words for hardworking and successful). Isn't that insulting? You work, and work, and work, and as soon as you reap the benefits of it, the government thinks it's fair to take that from you. No, there is nothing fair about taking money from someone who worked for it, to give to someone who didn't. They didn't deserve that money. There's nothing fair about it. It's unfair.

Its punishing success, and rewarding failure. What do you think this does to people's drive to better their lives? You think they want to work hard now? Nah, they'll take the free ride. Who wouldn't take free money? Which is exactly what welfare is by the way.

Every time the government steals from you, they put some fancy smanchy word in front of it.

When you buy land, it's supposed to be yours right? Well, when the government makes you pay money to live there, or they seize the property, what do you call it? I call it renting property from the government. They call it property tax.

When you work and a portion of your salary goes to the government, what do you call that? I call it slavery. They call it the income tax.

When you die and 80 percent of your wealth goes to the government, what do you call that? I call it grave robbing. They call it the estate tax.

Why all of these taxes? Their answers are again pretty words to describe something that is very ugly. They say it is "pooling your resources to provide for the common good. It's cooperation over competition."

If you bug them enough about it, they'll admit that it's a Collectivist mindset, and if you didn't already know, Collectivist is the pretty word for Communist.

I apologize for the pun in advance, but "pooling your resources" means the fruits of every one’s labor are going into one big basket. Johnny Appleseed put in more fruits because he spent more time picking them, but everyone gets to take out the same amount. Do you think Johnny still has an incentive to pick so many fruits? No matter how many he picks, he still gets the same. Now, when everyone realizes this, what happens? No apples are picked, and everyone goes hungry because of this Communist mindset.

The fact is that Capitalism is what's best for the so-called common good, because more people are better off. Cooperation is just an excuse to place your burden on society, and when everyone does this, nothing gets done.

But the madness doesn't end here, I've got plenty more pretty words for you.

When the left calls for the nationalization of a service, or support an existing nationalized service, do you think they use the word "nationalize" on you? Bah, why do that when we've got pretty words, right? Public, free, universal, you've heard all of these before.

Public education is really government-run education. Universal health care is nationalized medicine. Public property is government owned property. Not so pretty any more, huh?

And stop telling me that these government services are free. They steal from you to pay for it. Once you get that through, then you may have opened your mind up to a free market solution, but the issue of efficiency is the final nail in the Socialist coffin.

Contrary to popular belief, in competition people win. Companies compete for your money. How do you become the company that gets to sell the product? By producing a product that is of good quality and low price. In competition, the consumer always wins, plus, the company that loses isn't necessarily out of the game (unless they really suck). Now they have an incentive to work harder to please the consumer.

When the government owns industries, things don't work this way. The government is the one and only option, it is the monopoly. It doesn't have to compete for your money; in fact they force you to buy their product. Do you think the government has a motivation to grow if people will always buy their product? Of course not. This is why government bureaucrats get lazy. Their job is secure, they don't have their assess on the line like private workers do. They can expect their paycheck no matter what, so why work? What's the point? You're always going to get that paycheck. This is the reason why the nationalization of industries reeks in inefficiency.

Ah, but the left will go even further and say you have a right to these so called free services. Umm, no. You have the rights to life, liberty, and property. You don't have the right to free housing, food, and medicine. Why? Because these liberties are at someone else's expense. Someone else is paying for that free sandwich you hold in your hands, and my guess is that they didn't choose to do so voluntarily.

The intentions for helping the poor are great, don't get me wrong, but this is not what helps the poor. Again, if people are taxed less for this free money, companies could afford to open new jobs and hire more people. Now the poor have a way of escaping poverty. Living off the government just keeps them alive; it doesn't throw them into the middle class or something because they're not working.

Last but not least is their use of the word Democracy, which is mob rule. Hey, power to the people sounds great, but what powers are you talking about? They believe the majority can enforce any policy, no matter how wrong it is. They believe the majority has the right to vote for laws that restrict your natural rights to life, liberty, and property.

This is why we have a Constitution, and this is why we should have a stronger Constitution. The people should never have the right to vote away your freedom. Remember, what's popular isn't always what's right. Think about it this way, if we were a Democracy during the Civil War we'd still have slaves. Just because slavery was popular, doesn't mean it was right.

So the next time you talk to your Liberal buddy, make sure you listen to the language he uses, and tell him what the reality is of what he's saying. Sure, accuse him of using pretty words, and he'll accuse you of using ugly words. But here's the thing, you're looking at reality, and reality is pretty ugly.

Labels: Reality

Society. It's you, it's me, it's everyone. And all people have a different perception on how the people in their society behave. Some people say that life is nasty, brutish, and short if we don't surrender ourselves to the leviathan called the government. Others believe that people are generally good, and they will contribute to society if given the chance. I happen to agree with the latter. Generally, people are compassionate.

Every day in life we hear people say. "Oh, the pollution! Oh, the poverty! It must be stopped!"

Have you ever met a single person who likes pollution or poverty? No, people care! They want to see the problems in our society be fixed. But there's one question that must be asked. How? How do we fix these problems?

Well, there's a government solution, and then there's a free market solution. So, which one works? And which one is unnecessary?

It's unequivocally clear that it's the government solution that is unnecessary. Why? Because people don't need to be forced to care. They will choose to care.

Now, I already have a moral problem with the government stealing, ahem, taxing you for services that can be handled by the free market. But instead of philosophy, let's look at this in a pragmatist manner.

Why would one propose the government tax you to help people in bad situations? It's quite simple, really. They think you're a slime ball! They think you don't care about the sick, or the poor! They think you wouldn't donate a cent to save your mother's life! Not to mention they actually think the government is efficient compared to the free market.

This notion is wrong, though. Remember the hurricane Katrina aftermath? While the Statist Liberals were too busy defending Ray Nagin, they missed out on a few important lessons. One, people care. Voluntary donations for hurricane victims were endless. Two, the free market is more efficient than the government. Which was more helpful? FEMA, Nagin, and Bush? Or the Red Cross and Salvation Army?

And it's not like people only give during a national crisis, however. People decide to give every day. You could argue that people aren't giving enough, but why could that be? A lack of compassion? On the contrary, people aren't more charitable because about half of their income is taken by the government in one way or another. Some people can't afford to donate if they're already being forced to.

But if you're not seeing a difference between donation and taxation, then you're forgetting the issue of efficiency. Private organizations have to persuade you to become a customer. The government forces you to be a customer. Because of this, the government doesn't have to compete and is therefore less efficient.

So, why is it unnecessary to enforce this coercive compassion? Because if given the chance, people will choose to be charitable. People care.

Why steal if people are willing to give?

Labels: Government/Free Market

I should probably tell you that I'm back now. I've been back for a while, but the blog has been neglected. Ah, oh well, go check out the podcast. http://codyoconnor.podhoster.com.

Labels: Podcast