When will the voters learn?
When Will the Voters Learn?
Posted by Wilton Alston on October 19, 2012 03:53 PM
"Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." ~ Clay Shirky
You know the slavery Kool-Aid is working well when those who are oppressed petition their oppressors for more of that which helps keep them oppressed.
For instance, public education is a tool that was designed—specifically and directly—as a means of controlling the hoi polloi. The educational system of compulsory public education championed by Horace Mann, chock-full of multiple-choice testing perfected by Frederick J. Kelly, feeding into statistical models based upon the work of (eugenicist) Sir Francis Galton, was (and is) designed to fulfill the need for employees who are primed and ready to inhabit factories where efficiency can be measured in ways developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor. (The fact that so few of such factories currently exist in America should also be telling, but that's a different discussion.) Mann believed "universal public education was the best way to turn the nation's unruly children into disciplined, judicious republican citizens." The whole thing was designed to produce a seething throng of people ready to take orders, stand in line, ask few questions, and install bumpers all day—accepting the interminable boredom of such a life—while their over-lords made a ton of money. Free and compulsory public education was never intended to create inquisitive, risk-taking, leaders. Or entrepreneurs and/or business owners. Or frankly, owners of anything! Yet, people clamor that "education is a right" and "we need more funding for our schools" despite the inescapable fact that these same crap holes are doing their best at producing children incapable of independent thought and unable to read a book (or a blueprint), solve a simple mathematics problem, or devise a new strategy. It's damned sad, really.
A similar conclusion can be drawn regarding government job creation. Throughout the current election season, you'll hear people clamoring that Obama will do all he can to create jobs while Romney won't, or some such simplistic foolishness. Any president who claims to create jobs uses tax dollars and government debt to pay people wages that are too high, for work that otherwise likely would not be done. In other words, the money is wasted on boondoggles. This action has at least two negative side-effects. One, it takes money from those who produce it and gives it to someone else. (That's the taxation piece.) That might sound good to the recipient unless he realizes that he is only getting the proverbial fish that feeds him for a day, if that long. Secondly, this stolen—they call it stimulus nowadays—money results in those at the top having more real income than the supposed beneficiaries of those government-created jobs. (That's the inflation piece.) The people who think they benefit from the government-created-jobs are worse off in the long term, despite all appearances to the contrary in the short term. Ludwig von Mises spoke of this phenomenon in, "On Current Monetary Problems" with:
The advocates of annual increases in the quantity of money never mention the fact that for all those who do not get a share of the newly created additional quantity of money, the government's action means a drop in their purchasing power which forces them to restrict their consumption. It is ignorance of this fundamental fact that induces various authors of economic books and articles to suggest a yearly increase of money without realizing that such a measure necessarily brings about an undesirable impoverishment of a great part, even the majority, of the population.
An injection of money into the economy by the government generally results in a transfer of wealth towards the top—real income transferred from those who can least afford it to those who already have plenty. (I already noted some time ago that this phenomenon seemed to get rolling in 1980. The chart below is instructive.) One might even suppose this state-facilitated income transfer is the reason why statists in power so strongly support government control of the money supply, but that's another discussion. Bottom Line: Those who clamor for a president who cares about them get the same treatment and results as they would from some random bastard who openly scorned them. (No offense to the random bastard you support!)
And yet, here we are at election time, and the clarion calls continue to go up, from both sides of the ostensible aisle.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/alston/f...ease-wages.jpg
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Re: When will the voters learn?
"war is peace, ignorance is strength, slavery is freedom"...
Re: When will the voters learn?
As long as the two extremes fight it out, thinking their side is everything good and the other side is everything bad, slavery will indeed be freedom: free to be DUM...
From Bush to Obama, one extreme to another, both equally part of the problem, both owned by the same people who dont care how we are enslaved, whether by big government and big business, or by big debt, just as long as we keep ourselves enslaved by the status quo.
Interestingly enough we are now going to have something that vaguely resembles a moderate as president, and a Mormon at that. Mormons may have some strange beliefs and customs, but they operate by a unique set of rules and ethics, the likes of which we have havent seen in a President in a long, long time: mormons are compelled to play by the rules of the land when dealing with non-mormons. In other words they must be honest, and play fair, whether they like to or not. They will avoid talking about things, but they will not outright lie.
Explains all of Mitt's flip-flops: like most people he changes his mind, but unlike most people, he can't lie about it because it's politically expedient.
I was just thinking about the Mormon aspect of Mitt, and remembered thses things from my business and social dealings with them from when I lived in the Eastern Sierra. When it comes to business, they are truly excellent people to deal with. Their word is their bond to a degree that hasnt been common in most of this country in a century or more. Additionally, while they may disagree with things that modern society considers normal, they are not allowed to impose their social or religious will on non-Mormons (which is why I as a woman have no fear of Romney).
Things are going to be interesting these next four years, I think a lot of people on the two extremes (and most WACCO's fall into that category) are going to be in for some pleasant surprises...
