Yes. This is like giving methadone to a heroin addict. Something that can reduce the pain and unpleasantness of the withdrawal symptoms. Obviously, if you weren't addicted in the first place, no one would suggest taking methadone. But that's not where we are. However, as Hazlitt finally (after about 30 years) pointed out, the methadone has its own problems.
It took him
30 years to figure this out?
If I am walking by a pier in a raging storm and I observe a man whom I know jump into the waters, I have choices to make. I can jump in after him at great peril to myself or I can leave him to drown. Ignoring the hows but assuming that I know this man jumped in for reasons that no rational man would find valid, but only stupid, I will choose to leave him to his devices.
People addicted to drugs, whether heroin or welfare, merit no help. They chose their lots and as far as I am concerned they may reap what they sow. I have no desire for conflict, but my desire to be pillaged is even smaller. I make no war on my fellows, but if he comes to my door with war, I will return it in kind. If we yank the welfare rug from beneath the feet of the parasites and they riot, I see no moral issue with putting them down by whatever means become necessary, even if that means killing them to the man.
Enough is enough already. I am fed up with equivocating and making excuses for the rank failure of others to respect the rights of those around them as they wail and shriek about the non-existent claims they assert to be fundamental. "We need our WEAVES!" Yeah,
muh weeves...
Like I said, I don't support the idea, but I am informed about it and understand why many libertarian economists do.
The reason being that they prove themselves to be less than libertarian. Walking away from the basis of one's purported personal philosophy because he wishes to avoid the ugly conflicts that arise on the path from where one stands to the place he intends on going will not lead one to that place, but rather will cause him to walk about in circles as a man wandering thus in a barren and life-consuming desert.
This is pure and thinly veiled cowardice. It is nothing nobler.
In A Conflict of Visions, Sowell wrote about the "constrained" and "unconstrained" visions. The constrained vision sees the world as it is,
Famous last words. Perception is a
very tricky thing, and
VERY powerful. As convinced as you or I may be about the world as it is (or should be), so is the jihadist who runs about hither-thither sawing off the heads of people. At some point, if you and I wish to survive we will be required by cold hard reality to make the choice to physically kill those with whom the conflict has arisen... let us call him Johnny Jihad just for conversation's sake. The conflict at hand is one of an irreconcilable nature. Johnny is
not going to be persuaded to cease and desist with logic, reason, or appeals to mercy, justice, or simple charity. He is going to hunt us and he is going to saw off our heads. That is, unless we stop him without equivocation, which of course means killing him.
Oh yes, we could black-bag him to some desert island in the middle of the South Pacific, but that is an insufficient solution. Firstly, he remains alive and with him his intentions, perceptions, objectives, and so on. Secondly, there are millions like him - capturing each is rife with risk in itself. Then there is the practical problem of storage space for such people, not to mention the risks posed by large gatherings of such people, even on desert islands. And the list goes on, the point being that not only from the standpoint of principle, but of pragmatics, the only real solution is to kill him. That puts you and me behind the 8-ball of having to make a choice that we don't want to make, but must in any event if we wish to keep our heads.
So it is with the welfare state. At some point all the bullshit and excuses are going to have to go by the wayside if we are not to be bled dry, the vestigial threads of our prosperity flushed down the drain of some housing project in Chicago.
whereas the unconstrained vision sees the world as the way they want it to be.
Are you implying that there is no place for the normative?
When using the unconstrained vision and a libertarian mindset, this idea looks bad.
Because it IS bad. Very bad. Worse than those with other normative visions are apparently willing to admit. And here we see that those who claim the "constrained" vision are actually naught more than those of the bunnies-and-light
unconstrained variety, masquerading as realists. "Oooo look at us... we see things as they
are... That makes us credible and truthful, and therefore you have to listen to and do as we say..." It is precisely the goal of the vigorously masturbating progressive (or other fantasizer) to peddle his bullshit normative views as those of hard and unassailable reality. I have borne witness to this phenomenon countless tens of thousands of times and I see it made manifest daily.
But when using the constrained vision and a libertarian mindset, this idea seems like a reasonable trade-off which could actually create societal benefits and would wean dependency. Most successful economists employ the constrained vision since it relies on empirical evidence.
"Seems" My penis "seems" like it goes on forever, or so I am told by my stable.
It may "seem" reasonable, but I am here to destroy that failed perception. Temporary shit has the worst habit of becoming permanent. Evading the ugly bumps in the road that
we have put there in order to avoid jostling the feelings of some is no solution... recall wandering in circles in hot places that kill you without mercy.
At the end of the day, there is no soft, cuddly, warm and fuzzy solution to getting us out of the corner into which we have painted ourselves with paint that is not only instantly fatal on contact, but never dries. We are in shit up to our eyeballs. The brand of thinking that you are describing (not meaning to say it is YOUR thinking, mind you) completely ignores and discounts this reality in favor of bunnies and light and unicorn poo. There will be no gentle transition out of this - not because it is absolutely impossible, but because it is virtually so due to the nature of the human animal.
We have thousands of years of the same old shit as examples of what we are and how we behave. What there leads anyone to conclude that all of a sudden we are going to act differently this
time? This is the classic mistake we make over and over again. Is it not time we cut the shit and get down to some sense about this sort of thing? Our refusal to do so says both bad and good things about us - the good being that nobody wants to be the bad guy such that others are hurt. Fair enough and in fact commendable. The bad there, however, being that we get ourselves into shit in the first place precisely because of the aforementioned good, we fail to learn from our mistakes, and we would often rather flirt with our own destruction than come to reality's sense and do what must be done in order to preserve ourselves.
Am I obliged to live as a rape victim in order to spare the delicate feelings of others? Where does one draw that line?
The fact is that if we want to be free people, and that "if" stands in deep question at this point, some very ugly shit is going to be the price we will have to pay to get it. That probably means lots of dead bodies. If that price is too high, then I say to the wad who claim to want liberty:
SHUT THE FUCK UP, GO HOME, SETTLE WITH YOUR STATUS AS A SLAVE, AND STOP BOTHERING YOURSELVES AND THE REST OF US WITH YOUR HALF-BAKED, COWARDLY SOLUTIONS.
It really is as simple as that. We are deep in the feces and some of us will not make it out of the septic tank, if even any will... unless of course you think that someone is likely to invent the anti-gravity suit with nothing more than floaters. tampons, and spent condoms as resource materials.
How can giving everyone a guaranteed basic income wean anyone from dependency? Indeed, how can it serve to do anything other than "universalize" dependency to the greatest extent possible?
