Compassion Versus Reality
MFOgilvie
By Walter E. Williams
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Dr. Thomas Sowell, a distinguished economist and longtime friend and
colleague, recently wrote a series of columns under the title "A War
of Words." He pointed out that liberals succeed in duping the public
because they are so clever with words that they give the appearance of
compassion. Liberals talk about the need for "affordable" housing and
health care. They tarnish their enemies with terms such as "price-
gouging" and "corporate greed." Uninformed and unthinking Americans
fall easy prey to this demagoguery.
Politicians exploit public demands that government ought to do
something about this or that problem by taking measures giving them
greater control over our lives. For the most part, whatever
politicians do, whether it's rent controls to produce "affordable"
housing, or price controls to eliminate "price-gouging," the result is
a calamity worse than the original problem. For example, two of the
most costly housing markets are the rent-controlled cities of San
Francisco and New York. If you're over 40, you'll remember the chaos
produced by the gasoline price controls of the 1970s. Socialist
agendas have considerable appeal, but they produce disaster, and the
more socialist they are, the greater the disaster.
Liberals often denounce free markets as immoral. The reality is
exactly the opposite. Free markets, characterized by peaceable,
voluntary exchange, with respect for property rights and the rule of
law, are more moral than any other system of resource allocation.
Let's examine just one reason for the superior morality of free
markets.
Say that I mow your lawn and you pay me $30, which we might think of
as certificates of performance. Having mowed your lawn, I visit my
grocer and demand that my fellow men serve me by giving me 3 pounds of
steak and a six-pack of beer. In effect, the grocer asks, "Williams,
you're demanding that your fellow man, as ranchers and brewers, serve
you; what did you do to serve your fellow man?" I say, "I mowed his
lawn." The grocer says, "Prove it!" That's when I hand over my
certificates of performance -- the $30.
Look at the morality of a resource allocation method that requires
that I serve my fellow man in order to have a claim on what he
produces and contrast it with government resource allocation. The
government can say, "Williams, you don't have to serve your fellow
man; through our tax code, we'll take what he produces and give it to
you." Of course, if I were to privately take what my fellow man
produced, we'd call it theft. The only difference is when the
government does it, that theft is legal but nonetheless theft -- the
taking of one person's rightful property to give to another.
Liberals love to talk about this or that human right, such as a right
to health care, food or housing. That's a perverse usage of the term
"right." A right, such as a right to free speech, imposes no
obligation on another, except that of non-interference. The so-called
right to health care, food or housing, whether a person can afford it
or not, is something entirely different; it does impose an obligation
on another. If one person has a right to something he didn't produce,
simultaneously and of necessity it means that some other person does
not have right to something he did produce. That's because, since
there's no Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy, in order for government to give
one American a dollar, it must, through intimidation, threats and
coercion, confiscate that dollar from some other American. I'd like to
hear the moral argument for taking what belongs to one person to give
to another person.
There are people in need of help. Charity is one of the nobler human
motivations. The act of reaching into one's own pockets to help a
fellow man in need is praiseworthy and laudable. Reaching into someone
else's pocket is despicable and worthy of condemnation.
MFOgilvie
> On Wed, 06 Jun 2007 04:46:22 -0700, MFOgilvie
>
> <matthew.f.ogil...@lmco.com> wrote:
> >Compassion Versus Reality
> >By Walter E. Williams
> >Wednesday, June 6, 2007
>
> >Dr. Thomas Sowell, a distinguished economist and longtime friend and
> >colleague, recently wrote a series of columns
>
Just like Paul Begala, what's your point?
>
> He is a paid black idiot shilling for white wealth.
He tells the truth, and you can't stand it.
>
> Both are traitors to their race
And you can take that traitor shit and shove it up your ass. Anyone
who calls Sowell a traitor needs to be killed.
MFOgilvie
M_P
> On Wed, 06 Jun 2007 04:46:22 -0700, MFOgilvie
> <matthew.f.ogil...@lmco.com> wrote:
> >Compassion Versus Reality
> >By Walter E. Williams
> >Wednesday, June 6, 2007
>
> >Dr. Thomas Sowell, a distinguished economist and longtime friend and
> >colleague, recently wrote a series of columns
>
> He writes columns because he's PAID to "write columns"
Working for money sounds fishy to LIEberals, who prefer to have
government steal it from taxpayers and hand it to them.
> He is a paid black idiot shilling for white wealth.
You can't rebut his arguments so you snip them ... typical LIEberal
coward.
> Both are traitors to their race
Antirational posts like yours make you are a traitor to the human race.