Socialists are also Greedy

Socialists often try to demean the people that oppose them by saying anyone who is on the Right is greedy. They are so successful with this argument that everyone is familiar with the details.  So, I won't rehash them here. They seem to feel that the only way anyone can be wealthy is by lieing, cheating and stealing and then using the money to bribe politicians. Socialists use this reasoning to justify using the power of government to take wealth from the people on the Right and redistribute it to those they feel need it more. The Left wins many converts to its side in this way from among those who benefit from this way of thinking. It is very hard to resist free money. Most just think of it as coming from the government and not any one individual. Those who do think of where the money is coming from think that it is coming from rich people who don't work for it in the first place. In some way that I don't understand, this is supposed to make it OK. After all, leaving aside the issue of whether the rich work for their money or not, the people who are taking the hand out certainly didn't work for it.

What these people don't realize is that the government doesn't just tax the rich to get the money. They also borrow hundreds of billions of dollars from other countries each year. Chief among them is China. The Chinese government, like most governments, gets its money from its people. Now, add to this the fact that there is no way in Hell that we are ever going to be able to pay the money back without devaluing our currency and you will see that the leftists of this country are also stealing from the much, much poorer people in foreign lands to buy the loyalty of the poor in this country. I contend that, as a direct result, the poor in this country are far better off than the poor in any other country on Earth. In fact, they are even better off than the middle class in many third world nations. We have poor people that are far fatter than even the wealthy in many foreign countries. I have seen them myself. How's that for Greed?

Philosophers Think Too Much

I recently read a really good book called "The God That is There." It didn't really change any of my views on religion, but I learned quite a lot from it. One of the big things I learned was that philosophers think too much. They've been looking for the meaning of life since the beginning of humanity. Of course, they started out thinking that the meaning of life came from on high. Whether that be one God or many. That wasn't good enough for them so they rejected religion and started looking for some sort of hidden meaning that the universe inherently has. Artists picked up on this in the last century or so. That is why so much of modern art is abstract and random in appearance. They are hoping some sort of meaning will appear out of the chaos. Some have even committed suicide because they couldn't find the meaning they were looking for. They couldn't deal with the possibility that there was no meaning to life at all.

I think that one of the reasons that people have such a hard time with the meaning of life is that they don't realize that each person gets to pick the meaning for their own life. In fact, they are not even restricted to just one meaning. Some might say that religion is the meaning to their lives, for example. If pressed though most of the same people would say that family is a big part of their life. The meaning of your life is inherent in how you choose to spend it.

Religious people would say that their version of God is really the one and only source of purpose in the Universe. However, this neglects the fact that people are free to choose whether they will follow God or not. There is no need to talk of sin and redemption if you have no choice but to obey God. If you believe in God, you have to believe that free will exists. Free will implies choice. People who reject religion may be in error or they may not, but the choice is still theirs.

Let's End the Drug War

I think it is time to end this stupid drug war. Here's why:

1. It hasn't kept anyone who wants drugs from getting them any time they want. In all my life I've never seen or heard of anyone who wanted an illegal drug who couldn't get it easily. We are spending billions every year and the only thing that results is that the drugs are more expensive and more profitable for the criminals. Legalizing them would immediately bring the cost down and perhaps remove the incentive for people to cheat, steal and murder to get money for drugs. I don't think that drug use would make more than a temporary spike after legalization. Pretty much everyone that wants them is already using them.
2. Thousands of innocent people die every year because of drug related crimes. These people aren't involved in the drug trade at all and should not have to die just so we can continue to look righteous. If we only saved these lives, legalization would be more than worth it. Sure, drug users would continue to die. Let's face it though. They knew that drugs were dangerous when they decided to start using them.
3. No one should have the right to tell another person what they can and can't do with their own bodies as long as they aren't causing harm to others. The most important right that anyone has is the right to ownership of themselves. That ownership is infringed any time any one makes someone do something with their body that is against their will.
4. We would no longer feel compelled to interfere with the sovereignty of other nations. We are constantly meddling with the internal politics of other countries in our fruitless attempts to stop the flow of drugs. We have no right to interfere in the internal politics of any country. This also costs many extra billions each year in foreign aid.
   

What I Think About Health Care Reform

I don't think that health care is a right. The reason for this is simple. A thing cannot be a right if it grants favors to some at the expense of others. A simple example of this is slavery. A slave owner might misguidedly say that he has a right to property and slaves are his property so they shouldn't be taken from him. The problem with this is that the slaves have a right to liberty. That right belongs to them from birth and the owner's right to property cannot supersede it later.

People have a right to their property since all property a person earns ultimately comes from their rights to life and liberty. Basically, property is what they chose to spend their limited time on Earth producing. If someone removes that property from them against their will they are effectively subjugating the life and liberty that was used to create it. Slavery is the involuntary subjugation of a person to the will of another. Therefore, I think it is not unreasonable to claim that government sponsored health care, in which the property of some is seized forcibly to be given to others, is tantamount to slavery.

No Easy Answer

I don't think that there is an easy answer to the problem put forth in my previous post. So, I withdraw my claim that I have an answer. I think that the only thing that could be done is to alter people's fundamental nature to where they don't have the impulse to think they can run other people's lives. That would probably require both genetic and cultural alteration to a degree that would make us all guilty of the very thing we were trying to stamp out. The best we can do is to live our lives the best way we know how while allowing others to do the same as long as they cause no harm to others.