Why are the looters so much more ambitious than the looted?
Political ·Tuesday November 10, 2009 @ 20:16 EST (link)
NS phrased this question: "Why are the looters so much more ambitious than the the looted? The government takes your money (and mine) and just gives it away! Doesn't that [upset you]?"
My answer to the first question is that groups that receive entitlements (redistribution, takings, other people's money), after a while, start to believe that they deserve them. They even believe things like their benefits are coming from the government (rather than their fellow citizens). That, dammit, society owes it (welfare, social security, farming subsidies, health care, etc.) to them! It's their right! (No, it's not: educate yourself about positive and negative rights; there are no rights that involve coercing someone else to do something for you).
But these special interest groups are well-funded. They have your money, after all. And they (usually an lobbying organization created for the group, like AARP, or La Raza, or the AMA) have one primary goal: increase their entitlements. And it's very easy for them to manipulate "their" people by saying their entitlements will go away. Scared people are one-issue voters, special-interest voters, one-dimensional voters. But then voting for a representative that will be empowered to take and spend your money is a one-dimensional—and Hobson's—choice anyway.
There are many such groups, all of which can be scared into voting for whoever promises (depending on the choices) to maintain or increase their entitlement.
The union of these one-issue voters that want handouts will vote for whoever promises them the most (see: Tytler).
The remainder—the few people that think theft is wrong, that voluntary trade is only moral economic interaction in a civilized society—isn't a majority so continues to get robbed.
As to the second question, of course it upsets me—robbery is initiation of aggression, which should not be countenanced. That's why I'm libertarian.
DVDs finished: The Dark Knight, Duplicity.
