Life, liberty, and the pursuit of property
Tao Te Ching, Verse 44. excerpt
If your happiness depends on money,
you will never be happy with yourself.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.
Tell it to the unemployed.
No matter how much lip service we give to the Sermon on the Mount or verse 44 of the Tao Te Ching, happiness in America means being able to buy things. Just ask any kid at Christmas. He wants stuff.
Buying your happiness is as American as huckleberry pie. It’s a concept built right into the Declaration of Independence. (See below.)
But, at the same time, it doesn’t seem to be a universal truth. Not all countries drill this ideological mindset into their babies from birth. France, as one example, has universal health care, weeks and weeks of mandatory vacation time, meals that last for hours, wine, and the average person sleeps nine hours a night.
Lately, I can’t turn around without hearing about Bhutan. I’m reading The Geography of Bliss, where grumpy author Eric Weiner travels to Bhutan, the world center of happiness. Bhutan officially measures the country’s Gross National Happiness, rather than a Gross National Product. And last week there was Michael J. Fox on a television special, visiting Bhutan, recounting the same anecdotes, sleeping in huts, alleviating his Parkinson’s symptoms, and being the all-around cup-half-full kind of guy.
Maybe I’d be happy too if I could trek off to the Himalayas and observe the sunrise from the back of a yak.
I missed the movie about the homeless stripper at Ebertfest, but I did mange to finally catch up with Wendy and Lucy, the film by Kelly Reichardt that the top film critics called the best movie of 2008 in Film Comment’s annual poll.
This neo-realist depiction of a homeless woman, played bravely by Michelle Williams, and her dog in the Pacific Northwest didn’t have the kind of budget or get the kind of audience that was enjoyed by last year’s movie starring Williams’ late boyfriend, Heath Ledger.
But it seems more relevant today than The Dark Knight. Wendy and Lucy pictures the stark effects of unemployment, a very tough look at hard times. In fact, what struck me most was how similar it is to William Wellman’s 1933 Depression movie, Wild Boys of the Road. Both movies show people riding rails and shoplifting and not knowing how they’re going to scrape by.
I’m agnostic about happiness myself. I can’t say I really believe in its existence one way or another. It’s like God. Whatever God is, it’s not something any two people can agree on by definition.
Scottish philosopher John Stuart Mill said if you ask yourself if you are happy, you cease to be so.
“Don’t I deserve to be happy?” a woman asked me years ago as she was deciding to leave her husband and batch of kids.
Had I known what to say, I’d have recommended Bhutan.
The phrase “the pursuit of happiness” originally was “property.” The 18th century English writer John Locke wrote in Two Treatises of Government about the inalienable rights of man being life, liberty, and possessions. Later, the Founding Fathers borrowed the phrase and somewhere along the way decided “the pursuit of happiness” sounded better than “commercial junk.”
I didn’t see Will Smith’s movie The Pursuit of Happyness because it seemed to have that very notion of materialism, his rise from homelessness to wealth on Wall Street. Happyness = property.
Small is Beautiful author E.F.Schumacher wrote that we often speak of countries that are underdeveloped, but we need countries willing to say, we have enough.
Unfortunately, from birth, we are put in a cage surrounded by advertisements for floral scented air freshener. The drone of capitalist hypnosis never ends. It doesn’t even matter what you spend your money on. It is the act of spending that matters, the pursuit of 30 day money back guarantee happiness.
If you listen to the people protesting at the Republican tea parties or the anti-immigrant zealots on TV, you know they are serious about getting and keeping property. A woman writing to the News-Gazette recently expressed that “some of us still believe in privatizing Social Security,” because – as she put it – she’s been paying into the system all these years and getting NOTHING from it.
Well, it was not exactly nothing, since it was helping other people.
But none of this socialistic sharing stuff for us. We’re Americans. We believe in the pursuit of property of us, by us, and for us.
A close and long-time friend – someone who would be embarrassed if I referred to him as a philosopher – told me years ago that he had never played the lottery.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Well,” he replied, and I’ve never forgotten, “I was afraid I might win.”
You might think he is anti-American. He may not be particularly happy. But he’s a man after my own heart.
52 comments
I’m with you on the lottery my friend.
Lamar
Hey, you didn’t mention anything about the psychological research that shows the poor correlation between money and happiness. Of course most of my psychologist friends really don’t believe the findings of their own research and the very people who told us about the poor correlation between money and happiness have designed studies to demonstrate how money can increase happiness. Good Americans, all. I don’t know if I would be more or less happy if I couldn’t have stopped to buy tea and coffee to and from work today. I would definately have been more thirsty.
Without any research to back it up, I would guess that wealth doesn’t necessarily result in happiness, but poverty does result in unhappiness. It’s hard to be happy about being cold and/or hungry.
pg springer
Friend of mine mailed me this comment. I don’t think he’d mind my posting it here:
“That the framers of the Declaration of Independence could substitute happiness as a synonym for possessions/property (and be perfectly understood) suggests how “Americanized” the colonies were already by this time.
Of course this attitude had existed in Europe for centuries, but was the exclusive domain of the European nobility. Mercantilism and capitalism eventually allowed snot-nosed industrialists and filthy rich New World trading families to shoe-horn their way into the kingdom of happiness. American ideology seems to have democratized this notion for everyone (potentially). Of course it wasn’t for everyone, but the have-nots have always imagined there is a reason to believe in the possibility. Consumerism perpetuates the illusion of penultimate happiness.
I’m not sure what puts the lie to this myth more convincingly - the unhappiness of the rich, or the poors’ desperate pursuit of stuff.”
<!—StartFragment—>
A demoralizing essay, it is fortunately wrong regarding the pursuit of happiness.<span> </span>
If grasping consumption is indeed bred in the bones of America, then what can one do except to get in line with the rest of the Jeremiahs and do some scolding, or offer up exotics like Bhutan or a fantastic France (Africans and those in the Paris suburbs have a less rosy view), even though one knows we can never be like that, so it’s really just part of the scold.
But there is no need for these exogenous solutions.<span> </span>There is something endogenous and retrievable in the notion of the pursuit of happiness that is not about consumption at all.<span> </span>Jefferson used happiness instead of property for a reason, and not as a synonym.<span> </span>In the sense used by Jefferson, happiness is not just the pursuit of private pleasure but has a civic and social aspect.<span> </span>A short provenance of the term is available here: http://hnn.us/articles/46460.html
What I would add is that for a significant time, many Americans took<span> </span>these civic and social aspects seriously, as well as the underlying belief in civic virtue.<span> </span>While over time it may have been more honored in the breach, one can look to the fashions and styles of the early republic (simplicity, frugality, classical), or to the notions of competency, not riches, as the goal of a virtuous artisan, mechanic or farmer, and other examples of the pre-consumptive era.<span> </span>How we went from a producer<span> </span>to a consumer society, both ideologically and materially, is of course a complex story of historical change over the centuries and one told in a variety of ways, but I would tell it as one of increasing alienation from our selves, our labor, nature, and life itself due to the demands of capitalism—which is distinct from the Declaration of Independence, which is a living statement, and not some “tradition of all dead generations (weighing( like an nightmare on the brains of the living,” although there might be some of that too.<span> </span>
The late great investigative journalist I.F. (Izzy) Stone used to refer to himself as a Jeffersonian Marxist (or maybe it was the other way around).<span> </span>A case can be made to put John Dewey and a few others in the same category.<span> </span>What is interesting about it is how both Marx and Jefferson are rooted in the materialist Epicurus, albeit in slightly different ways.<span> </span>As Jefferson said, “The earth belongs in usufruct to the living.” But, as Marx said, “The representation of private interests ... abolishes all natural and spiritual distinctions by enthroning in their stead the immoral, irrational and soulless abstraction of a particular material object and a particular consciousness which is slavishly subordinated to this object.”<span> </span><span> </span>But enough rambling for one day.
<!—EndFragment—>
pg springer
Interesting, Stuart Tarr, especially since your comments confirm the thesis, not negate it. Things may have been idealistic and pure during the founding, but I think the Africans and women and natives probably wouldn’t have agreed with the founders ideas of happiness at that time.
If I had to choose today, you’d still find me in Provence over Peoria.
Your final quote by Marx is quite fine; maybe it’s a little more wordy, but something that would fit right up there with the original quotes attributed to Jesus or Lao-Tse. When you focus on money, you have lost your focus.
c huson
Nowadays it is rare for anyone to recall that the word “property” is short for “... the means of acquiring and possessing property.” (George Mason, the Virginia Declaration of Rights.) Which are you against, the right to acquire property or the right to keep or dispose of it as you see fit? Or both? (Notice it doesn’t say anything about buying lots of stuff, only that you have the right to make your own decisions.)
pg springer
I’m not against anything. I’m just observing. And I would like to take literally the quote from the Tao Te Ching at the top of the column. The Bible says the same thing—don’t worry about accumulating wealth and “all these things will be added unto you.” It’s almost impossible to escape from the trap of consumer capitalism. I don’t trust people to do the right thing. Again and again, greed wins out. That doesn’t mean I think the government should dictate either, because both capitalism and communism have shown themselves to gravitate quickly to greed. We’re pretty much doomed to drown in our own excesses.
stuart
If the thesis is “We’re pretty much doomed to drown in our own excesses,” then it probably needs negating because, as I said, it’s demoralizing. What do you have after that, beyond a “chiliasm of despair,” in the immortal words of EP Thompson.
But my point was not negation so much as to argue that a retreivable “local” tradition exists, and that the simple replacement of happiness for property misreads “the pursuit of happiness” phrase in a way that echoes the catachisms of the market idolaters. Happiness is a public, social, civic good, not the simple pursuit of private pleasure, and thus calls for that hoary old concept of civic virtue, not insatiable grasping. The downstream actions deriving from this are considerable.
The experiences of Africans etc., are indeed worthy of note (referenced by my comment of republican principles being honored in the breach), but let’s also note the appropriation of these very principles in liberation struggles. The history is complex, contradictory and contested, and can barely touched on here, but is worthy of recovery.
We might also recover some French history (a nasty business, too), which could explain a preference for Provence over Peoria, beyond climate. Personally, I don’t get it. They don’t even have minor league baseball in Provence.
As for Marx being wordy, well yes. He wrote in what Mark Twain hilariously skewered in “the Awful German language.” Would I have a similar excuse. Out for now.
pg springer
Au contraire, mon frere. Although I am tempted to run out to Chilli’s and gorge myself in an excess of bacon-wrapped mozzarella chicken and have myself a chiliasm right there in public, I will reply. Your comments are pertinent, no doubt. Personally, having experienced both situations at some length, I will still take the sun-drenched landscapes surrounding Cannes over the currently simply drenched flatscape of central Illinois. But the reasons for my dreams of expatriatism—which extend southerly as well as to the east—are complex, linguistic, and not germane to the topic.
Your point about happiness being a civic virtue and responsibility is precisely correct, and it is something that I have observed in less affluent cultures and that I have observed here in certain (usually religious) communities as well. I also occasionally perceive it in the goals and direction provided by the current White House, and the shock of that is still too new to process.
But, I don’t believe what I wrote was or should have been demoralizing. There is no doubt, the culture at large is excessive and unsustainable.
But I watch Lost. I believe in coterminous realities. Quoting Whitman, I am large and contain multitudes and contradict myself without embarrassment.
Perhaps the world is not doomed. Anything could happen. I anticipate a real chiliasm of ecstasy. I intend to use and want less stuff. I think it will make me more happy. I’m going for a walk. I’m going to read more Walt Whitman this year. I’ve always admired his America and the love and the kind of truth he perceives in the faces of the people. I need to work on that kind of optimism.
stuart
I’m currently in the NJ exurbs of NYC, which I believe is somewhere between the fifth and sixth circles of hell. “Excessive and unsustainable” doesn’t begin to capture it. Satan is driving a large black Lexus SUV, and very badly, I might add. The proles are in bumper to bumper I-80 traffic all the way to their homes in Pennsylvania. It’s a long way home. The odds are bad. To paraphrase the late UI dean of communications James Carey, we’re in a rushing torrent, with nothing to hold on to but a slender reed of a public, civic democracy. It’s not much, but it’s all we’ve got.
That’s right, Stu. Hence my call for civility.
L. Simon
If you listen to the people protesting at the Republican tea parties or the anti-immigrant zealots on TV, you know they are serious about getting and keeping property. A woman writing to the News-Gazette recently expressed that “some of us still believe in privatizing Social Security,” because – as she put it – she’s been paying into the system all these years and getting NOTHING from it.
Well, it was not exactly nothing, since it was helping other people.
First - the tea parties are not a “Republican” movement, they are a libertarian conservative movement. You’ll be hardpressed to find someone at a tea party who thinks McCain was the right person for the ticket.
Second - if the woman in your example had given to charity, and others were helped, she would have benefitted. But you seem to not allow for the concept that people are resentful when you take their personal property by force. It is not yours to take.
Keep your hands off my stuff. When you forcibly prevent me from acquiring goods, ultimately, you are taxing my income. Taxing a person’s income is requiring them to work for the benefit of someone else - whether that “someone else” is some amorphous concept of the “greater good”, or a man with a whip, it is still slavery. There is no middle ground. Either I own myself, and therefore my labor, or you do.
But that’s the problem with “compassionate conservativism” and “trickle-down” and other hard-core conservative theories—greed wins. Greed won in communism and greed wins in hands-off free market capitalism. “Keep your hands off my stuff,” you write. That’s not a world I want to live in. Taxation is not slavery; it’s the way civilization works. Maybe you’re not a Christian, and no matter, but even Jesus said it well—“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.” And Alan Watts, speaking from the Eastern tradition, pretty much said the same thing, that we confuse money with wealth. Real wealth isn’s measured in dollars and cents. And while we’re at it, that’s why our health care is such a mess, because it is a profit system, not a system of care.
I was not aware that so many people in our society were raised by wolves, nor how much wolves appear to like tea. Where does this notion of operating in a vacuum come from? We are the products of the labor of those who came before us and our labor enables the next generation. Acquire all the goods you want L. Simon. Just hope they hold their value as the world crumbles around you.
L. Simon
You say that as if greed is a destructive force - it is most emphatically not. It is a creative force. Neoliberals seem to confuse the desire to posess (greed) with the desire to posess by illicit means (corruption) - they are not the same thing.
Health care is such a mess because of government intervention. We have created a system where just over 25% of people don’t pay for their medical expenses, even indirectly. For those 25%, the governments set reimbursement rates for doctors - there is no incentive for these consumers to compare prices. For the rest of us, the cost is passed on, which means our own healthcare costs more to make up for the above. It has increased so much, medical insurance - which was designed to cover catastrophic medical issues, not doctor’s visits - has become a necessity for basic care.
Ultimately, I am not responsible for your health, nor are you responsible for mine.
Finally, in a single-payer system - and if you deny that this will be the result of mandatory naitonal healthcare, we can discuss that as well - what incentive will there be for doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals? If I were a doctor, why would I come in to work every day if someone else was deciding how much my labor was worth? You cannot compel someone to work because you believe it is right - people work hard to benefit themselves and their families. In the end, “society’s” state is nothing more than the sum total of every individual’s prosperity. Take away the means of achieving individual prosperity, and society as a whole will degrade as well.
L. Simon
@Anna - Respectfully, you’re absolutely incorrect. I am the product of my own decisions. My life is totally and completely under my control. To quote, “where laws are tolerable, I tolerate them. Where they are intolerable, I break them. I am free because I understand that I alone am responsible for my actions…”
Saying that you are the product of the people that came before you is a convenient way of makign yourself feel better for giving up. Push yourself, be a better and more productive person - you will be happier. No one can provide for your happiness but you.
“why would I come in to work every day if someone else was deciding how much my labor was worth”
Um, is there some economic system I missed in the textbooks where workers get to decide how much they make? It sounds like the opposite of Capitalism to me.
L. Simon
The whole point of Capitalism is that you get to charge what the market will bear. If you don’t think your employer is paying you enough, you’re free to go work for someone else, or start your own business.
Dan, you took the words out of my mouth. The line about “who owns my labor?” could well have been written my Marx himself, railing against the capitalists.
As for health care, there are many possibilities to this thorny issue. One I have heard recently is to provide doctors with salaries instead of letting them get “commissions” for every highly profitable MRI, PSA test, etc. that gets prescribed. People still have incentive to work for salaries, don’t they? As it is, health care run by the insurance companies (for profit) seems a much less equitable system than letting a government agency do it, as seems to have worked well enough for the military, for Congress, and with Medicare. I’m just five years from Medicare anyway, so I hardly have a horse in this race. But my children do.
Simon, where have you been lately? “You are free to go work for someone else?” Have you been job hunting lately? How about if you are 60 years old? And the unregulated free market system has just crashed and burned. Maybe you haven’t noticed.
Umm, when I credit the people before me, I actually AM acknowledging their contributions. My parents despite being sharecroppers and having no high school diplomas, put five children through public schools and universities that their tax dollars and their neighbors’ tax dollars paid for. But, Simon, I will let you continue in your mistaken belief that you somehow are a product of spontaneous generation.
L. Simon
So your argument is that the world owes you a certain level of compensation, without regard to you own contribution?
Since when do we have an “unregulated free market system”? Our economy has been increasingly regulated since the 1920s, with a major increase in regulations in the 60s, and again in the 90s.
Why is it that when your solution to a problem fails, your answer is always “There wasn’t enough of it!”? Legislation caused the collapse you see today - a truly free market would never have allowed entire industries to be so far out of line with the demands of the market. Periods of moderate growth and periods of moderate decline are normal in a free system. The cycle of boom and bust are caused solely by legislators attempting to affect the balance of the market.
Jobs are not impossible to get now, and there is nothing stopping you from starting your own business. Your employer does not owe you anything beyond what you agreed to by contract. If you don’t have a contract with your employer, they owe you nothing at all.
L. Simon
@Anna - I never said that forcing other people to work for you doesn’t benefit you. Taxing your parents’ neighbors’ to put you through school certainly did not benefit them.
Perhaps if you parents had not themselves been taxed so heavily, they could have afforded to help you get your education, instead of allowing a federal government to force me to do it.
God, you’re mean. How old are you anyway? I don’t really care to argue economic theory with you. I can read Paul Krugman twice a week in the Times. He seems pretty smart. Let me try to put it another way. A friend of mine, a school teacher who retired in Mexico, uses a phrase that I really like: gentle poverty. I aspire to that. Call me a fool. I guess I could always start my own business, as you suggest, but I wouldn’t be interested in just anything for a buck. I prefer a life where meaning is not dependent upon how much property one owns, which I hope takes us back full circle to the title of this column. And I ask you, if acquiring property is all one lives for, can one ever find satisfaction? Do you ever have enough? Do you only feel comtempt for those who don’t have the same goals? I think you actually can’t comprehend that some people may not have the goals of money that you do.
What, actually, are you arguing about, since everything you stand for already exists for you? Are you just trying to protect what you have (even if only potentially) against others who might try to win some of it from you by taking your job, or making a better product, or taxing what you own, or asking you for more in order to help others with social security? Is that what you’re all about, kicking others who happen to be below you on the ladder? Lighten up on the Ayn Rand already.
L. Simon
Well, first, I’m not mean. “Gentle poverty”, as you describe it, takes away the incentive for those people to work their way out of poverty. If I get three solid meals a day, a nice place to sleep, a cell phone, and I can go down the library and get online all day - why would I ever get a job?
I must be off, as I have a client to attend to - I’ll come back later tonight and finish this thought.
I don’t mean to be offensive, and if you will notice, I am not the one in this thread making ad hominem attacks - but if you do not want public discourse on your opinion, perhaps you should rethink posting them on a public forum.
You wrote: “Taxing your parents’ neighbors’ to put you through school certainly did not benefit them. “
That’s just rude. There are benefits other than money. Remember? There is community, for one thing.
I think you PERFECTLY espouse what America is all about: getting it for one’s self. You’ve already said greed was good.
You should spend some time with a family in a developing country some time. You could learn a thing or two about life.
Why should one ever get a job? Is the point of being an artist, a doctor, an investigative journalist, a subsistence farmer, a novelist, a librarian, a pastor, a school teacher to have a job? You seem to think the only incentive in the world is money.
For most people, you are probably right. It is what is called the lowest common denominator.
Not something I would aspire to.
But you are free to. Go right ahead. And laugh at those doctors and nuns and teachers and servants working for some other satisfaction wholly outside your comprehension.
I don’t think you are going to convince me that they’re oppressing you if they get support from taxes. Maybe you think you stand to benefit NOTHING from their labors. But that’s your problem.
I agree with everything written since my last comment. Weird but true. And I could even explain my reasons.
Well, Rob, I kind of disagree with something I said. I want to take back calling Simon (Does the L stand for LeGree?) “mean.” With unemployment reaching 20% in some corners of the country, for him to say people can find jobs if they try isn’t mean, it is delusional.
But that is par for the course. People with health care don’t understand why people without it just can’t go get some. Barbara Bush told those who had lost their homes, camping in the Astrodome that they were “better off,” because they were impoverished anyway. And George Bush went to a pastor for help because he could not comprehend poor people.
It’s this sense of entitlement that is sad. And topping it off is the way the conservatives, so focused on money, even tried to discredit the very word “empathy” as a bad thing.
OK, time for some musical theater. For those who only can appreciate a Broadway musical by how much their ticket cost, it’s time for A Chorus Line. And five, six, seven, eight… (Cue the gold top hat dancers…)
“Kiss today goodbye
And point me t’ward tomorrow
We did what we had to do
Won’t forget, can’t regret
What I did for love,
What I did for love.”
And, the marischino cherry on top, none other than a reading from the Sermon on the Mount:
Matthew 6:19-21 (New International Version)
Treasures in Heaven
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Gentle poverty.
My parents’ taxes and our neigbhors’ taxes paid for the institutions that my classmates and I attended. They got a hell of a return for their dollars. They got teachers, professional baseball players, computer and manufacturing engineers, social workers, web developers, nurses—you name it. My own education was paid for with scholarships I earned, not your tax dollars BTW.
My father died when I was in college which provided the greatest education of all. He had very few possessions, but he had friends lined around the block at his funeral. They harvested his final crop and wouldn’t take a dime. Six months later during a recession I took a job, the only job I was offered despite graduating in the top of my program. I helped sell the same pesticides that cut 20 years off my father’s life. The money was great and I was promoted within six months. I left after 14 months because I couldn’t stand the fact that I helping to slowly kill these same people.
Today I make far less, and in my spare time, with the community’s support, helped a small family farm stay afloat and bring in the next generation—something that my brother and everyone I grew up with never had the chance to do back in the 80s. You seem to blame government for a lot. And, you think that anyone who disagrees with you automatically thinks that more government is the answer. There was no government involvement in this project. There were only people who valued each other more than posessions.
Don’t sweat it G. You said “God, you’re mean,” which is true. Especially in the Old Testament. Vindictive bastard, that god.
As for LeGree, he was a bastard too. But it seems like Tom is the one who always gets fingered these days.
L. Simon
You moral self-righteousness is showing, pg. You propose that people should be forced to work for free, and that they should enjoy it because it is your twisted notion of the “right thing”. We don’t all share your broken value system where everyone else’s happiness is more important than your own.
You speak as if I’ve been fed with a silver spoon. Just for background, I completely failed when I went to college on scholarship. I spent a year living out of my car and eventually, a run down apartment. I worked as a day laborer, as a dairy farm hand, as a stockboy, and as an unlicensed electrician. Through my own labor, I went from nothing more than I could fit into my vehicle to a stable lifestyle with a wife and child, and a good paying job. I did not take a dime in government subsidy.
That is what makes America great. Not because our poor people are obese and have flatscreen TVs in their government housing, but because there is nothing stopping you from becoming whatever you want to be, based on your own contributions.
You say that conservatives have tried to denigrate the word “empathy” - that is simply not the case. Neoliberals like yourself have attempted to change the meaning, either through misunderstanding or malice. Taking from one person to give to another is not “empathy” for the poorer of the two, it is the firm belief that you know better than the person you’re taking form. To compound your error, you’ve made it far less attractive for the poorer one to improve themselves.
Empathy is an admirable quality in an individual. I donate my money and my time to charity on a regular basis - but I am willing and able to fight to keep you from deciding that for me. Its easy to be charitable when you’re giving someone else’s money.
A great example of this is our recent “bailout” - our federal government has spent $2.5 trillion in the past two years. $2.5 TRILLION DOLLARS. That number is so large, it has no context - so let me provide some for you. The average lifetime income for an American today, with a Bachelor’s degree, is $2.1 million dollars. In the past two years, we have spent the entire lifetime earnings of the equivalent of 1,190,000 people. That’s about the same number of people as live in San Deigo, California. You could literally build a wall around that city, force every person there to work the rest of their lives without pay, and the principal on that debt would not be paid off.
If we lived in a world where the biggest problems we faced was a reasonable level of tax to provide for the truly destitute, you would not see this level of debate - but we live in a world where 50% of people have decided that it’s OK to spend their grandchildren’s money.
It is not okay.
Whatever. Almost none of your assumptions (about me or about poor people, in particular) are true and many are offensive.
I believe in work. I like work. I don’t intend to retire, ever, if I can help it, and I probably won’t have the option anyway (although I may move to Mexico).
It think the three examples I gave (about people with health insurance, about Barbara Bush, and about George Bush) are very good examples of lack of empathy. Empathy came into the conversation when Obama used it, not to take money from one person to give to another but in reference to Sotomayor’s qualities of understanding for the situation of others unlike themselves. He has used the word empathy several times, but only people like yourself see in that a threat to your money.
Ultimately, I have no idea what you stand for, other than making the most money possible for yourself. I guess you don’t think there should be government changes to help people. You distrust that. You want Obama to fail—like Rush and other people, in what is the most unpatriotic and selfish position imaginable—because you want to ensure that no one interferes with your plans for yourself. You want the Bush-era status quo, despite the catastrophes that went along with it. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Self-righteous? PG isn’t claiming our poor are all obese and sitting at home with flat screen TVs in government housing while patting himself on the back for climbing out of a self-made hole. It’s one thing to put yourself into poverty, it’s a very different thing to be born there. And speaking of regulation, if the SEC hadn’t been gutted like a fish under Reagan, it would have had the ability to shut down system-wide problems like derivatives and mortgage swaps instead of being reduced to going after the occasional rogue trader, and we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.
Against my better judgment, I’m going to add yet another comment. Anybody who has had to go through the bureaucratic nightmare actually to receive some public assistance deserves every penny he or she gets, in my opinion. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. And it’s a rare person who wouldn’t prefer to work for a fare wage.
Health care is a different situation, because we are all suffering under the current system. I was refused insurance years ago because of a test my doctor performed (without my knowledge during a routine physical) and, although the results turned out to be 100% false many years later, I could not get coverage in the meantime and still don’t have it. Health care is simply unaffordable, or unavailable, for millions of people. That is unacceptable for any society that calls itself developed and civilized.
L. Simon
How can I be more clear what I stand for? I can sum it up in one word - Liberty.
You read my arguments with pre-concieved notion of who I am and what I stand for. I do not consider myself a conservative, and certainly not in the same vein as either Bush. In fact, George W. Bush, in particular, is an affront to most everything I stand for. “We are abandoning our free-market principles in order to save them” - Seriously.
You say I am mean, then chide me for not wanting to be forced to provide for others. You say I lack empathy and then demand that others work at your behest. You tell me that I make false, offensive assumptions, then equate me with Rush Limbaugh, who you obviously consider to be the very epitome of offensive persons.
You say you are for empathy, but refuse to see that you are stealing from me and people like me. Instead, you tell me that I’m a bad person for being resentful of the theft.
You are either a hypocrit, or you have not taken the time to sit down and examine your own beliefs and their rational conclusions.
To Anna - I did not claim that all people who live off of government subsidy are obese and spend their money on TVs - but I know of many examples where that is exactly the case. There is something wrong with a world where I work 50+ hours every week at a job, go home and run an internet business, and I have less income than someone who simply decides they don’t want to work. This is not a generalization - this is a conclusion derived from my own experiences.
OK, I get it now. You are an anarchist.
L. Simon
I’m an Objectivist libertarian. Government is a necessity, but one that should be as limited as possible, and challenged every time it attempts to grow.
Anarchy is not a stable governmental system, it is the portion of a transitionary period where organized government does not exist. I suppose you could call me a “minarchist”, if you insist on a simple label. I’m far more of a Jeffersonian than a Randist.
I told you you were reading too much Ayn Rand.
So you want government to protect you. You want government to protect you from thieves who would break into your house. Would you want government to protect you from graft and financial schemes that might cause you ruin? Would you want government to protect you from racist policies? Would you want government to protect you from polluters who poison the land you live on or the stream behind your house?
You want to draw the line, as I see it, to protect you as you define yourself with all your isms. Other people are on their own. If they can’t get health insurance, well, too bad.
And, man, are you bitter!
L. Simon
You want government to protect you from thieves who would break into your house.
<ul>
<li><span style=“font-size: small;”><span>Prosecute, yes. Protect? No. They don’t do that now.</span></span></li>
</ul>
Would you want government to protect you from graft and financial schemes that might cause you ruin?
<ul>
<li><span style=“font-size: small;”><span>Asbolutely not.</span></span></li>
</ul>
Would you want government to protect you from racist policies?
<ul>
<li><span style=“font-size: small;”><span>No.</span></span></li>
</ul>
Would you want government to protect you from polluters who poison the land you live on or the stream behind your house?
<ul>
<li><span style=“font-size: small;”><span>No</span></span></li>
</ul>
You want to draw the line, as I see it, to protect you as you define yourself with all your isms. Other people are on their own. If they can’t get health insurance, well, too bad.
And, man, are you bitter!
———————————————————————————————————
I want none of the above - all of those things are served better in a free economy. Not only are other people on their own, but *I’m* on my own. I am responsible for myself and my own actions, as every person on Earth is, whether they realize it or not. If you want a group around you to protect you if you fail, form one - one that doesn’t force me to participate at the point of a gun.
As for health insurance - insurance is not a right. The current plan in front of Congress actually seeks to fine me if I choose to pay for my own care out of pocket. That’s ludicrous.
There is one thing I’ll agree with Rand on—the *only* legitimate role of government is to punish the instigation of physical violence between private parties. Anything beyond that is immoral.
L. Simon
<div>
You want government to protect you from thieves who would break into your house.
<ul>
<li><span style=“font-size: small;”><span>Prosecute, yes. Protect? No. They don’t do that now.</span></span></li>
</ul>
Would you want government to protect you from graft and financial schemes that might cause you ruin?
<ul>
<li><span style=“font-size: small;”><span>Asbolutely not.</span></span></li>
</ul>
Would you want government to protect you from racist policies?
<ul>
<li><span style=“font-size: small;”><span>No.</span></span></li>
</ul>
Would you want government to protect you from polluters who poison the land you live on or the stream behind your house?
<ul>
<li><span style=“font-size: small;”><span>No</span></span></li>
</ul>
You want to draw the line, as I see it, to protect you as you define yourself with all your isms. Other people are on their own. If they can’t get health insurance, well, too bad.
And, man, are you bitter!
———————————————————————————————————
I want none of the above - all of those things are served better in a free economy. Not only are other people on their own, but *I’m* on my own. I am responsible for myself and my own actions, as every person on Earth is, whether they realize it or not. If you want a group around you to protect you if you fail, form one - one that doesn’t force me to participate at the point of a gun.
As for health insurance - insurance is not a right. The current plan in front of Congress actually seeks to fine me if I choose to pay for my own care out of pocket. That’s ludicrous.
There is one thing I’ll agree with Rand on—the *only* legitimate role of government is to punish the instigation of physical violence between private parties. Anything beyond that is immoral.
</div>
L. Simon
Sorry for the duplicate, messy posts - the site’s comment mechanism was “unable to accept your comment at this time.”
Sorry, I am unable to accept your comments at this time.
Actually, thanks for explaining your position. The kind of government you describe reminds me of Asperger’s Syndrome, when people are incapable of expressing empathy.
So, good luck on your quest for a government that doesn’t govern or help its citizens.
Oddly, though, the things you demand seem pretty much available to you anyway. You can live that kind of life, on your own, protecting yourself as you will, paying for your own health care regardless of the cost or without limits on what insurance charges, always pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and never asking for help or expecting others to ask you for help. On your own.
Me, I’m just going to pay my taxes. And the next time there’s a Katrina situation, I’d be proud of my country if it came to the rescue of people. And if it didn’t or wouldn’t or wasn’t set up for such social services, then I’d be ashamed. As I was last time.
L. Simon
And yet, you are advocating laws that would imprison me for opting out of your Socialist utopia. Show me the form I can sign to stop paying in to Social Security - I would be more than happy to irrevocably abandon any claim to the system.
L. Simon
One more thing - my area was without power for three weeks last winter. People died because of lack of heat, and because their houses burnt when the electricity finally did come back on in the middle of the night.
Why haven’t we had the feds come riding to the rescue? Is this where I play the race card?
There is something wrong with a world where I work 50+ hours every week at a job, go home and run an internet business, and I have less income than someone who simply decides they don’t want to work.
At the risk of prolonging this, I have to challenge the statement above. Unless your internet company is losing all your day wages, I find it hard to believe that someone on welfare makes more money than you do. Please cite.
L. Simon
I’m not going to be giving out my financial details on a public forum, but it is easy to see how someone living in subsidized housing, on medicaid, and collecting EBT benefits, and on SSI would be quite a bit ahead of someone working, but paying a mortgage or rent, medical insurance (or medical bills, take your pick), and buying all of their own food.
I have family members who have taken the welfare route, and while far from “well off”, they have a newer car than I can afford, live in a much nicer home, and buy name-brand groceries. Far from being jealous of this (which I know someone will invariably say), I’m offended. I work hard for what I have, and they do nothing. Literally, nothing. They leave the house about once a week, to go buy food and cigarettes. The rest of the time, they play World of Warcraft, or watch TV.
No, you wouldn’t be jealous. You might be envious.
Envy is inspired by things others have—a nice car, for example. Jealously is inspired by things you have—a not-nice wife, for example.
@ pg springer (comment 44)
Let me first say how much I appreciate your arguments, both those in your article and those in your comments. It seems that you’ve struck a chord that needs very much to be struck.
But now I’ll nitpick: It is a myth that Autism or Aspergers syndrome (which is part of the Autism Spectrum) prevents someone from feeling or expressing empathy. While Aspergers is indeed associated with social difficulties, it is far too simplistic to say that a person with Aspergers can’t feel empathy. Our brains just aren’t that simple.
If you’re interested, here’s some info: http://www.autismspeaks.org/whatisit/aspergers.php
I do apologize. It was rash of me to invoke Asperger’s, although I did check Wikipedia and found this mention regarding empathy: “It is named after the Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger who, in 1944, described children in his practice who lacked nonverbal communication skills, demonstrated limited empathy with their peers, and were physically clumsy.”
This has been an interesting conversation—it is astonishing to me that someone would defend the rights of corporations to pollute the environment unchecked, all in the name of ‘liberty’—but I’m been trying to withdraw from it. It has gotten entirely too twisty, personal and Freudian.
Thanks for the clarification.
L. Simon
I know it doesn’t come across well in written form, but I can assure you that I’m not too fired up about it. I agree, also, that we drifted quite a ways from the original topic.
I truly do respect your opinions on the matter, I just don’t want to be forced into living your worldview. The place for the passionate debate is the floor of Congress and the chambers of the Supreme Court - unfortunately, I can’t think of a single member of Congress who understands *either* of our views. They all seem to be too interested in “bringing money to their district” concerned with things like Liberty and the quality of life of their constituents. The Court is a bit better, but they are silent on far too many important issues. It took 80 years for them to revisit the Second Amendment in Heller, and even then, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of teeth in their decision.
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hey, if hair ain’t gon’ be over your head, my jokes may as well be.
Okay, almost 24 hours later and I finally got Issac’s Summer joke. I’m an idiot.
Swap the dog for a fire pit and it sounds like you’re writing about my back yard. Very nice.
funny, as your summer begins, another Summer ends.
And that, my friend, is love. Bob, I think I still owe you for my wedding cake, served in 1998. But nevermind.
I believe the kiss between Rob and I was documented on low-quality videotape in the mid-ninties porn classic, Dirty Harry…and Sticky.
“Do I have to sign some forms, or am I just considered ‘in.’” You’re in!
Got damn, Coulter. You are the greatest.
I have no specific memory of it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d kissed Mike, too—once we’d both drunk ourselves gay. And earlier this week I gave Clarence Shelley a back rub. Do I have to sign some forms, or am I just considered “in.”
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As a liberal conservative, and a person who favors taxes & services ... and also a sense of proportion; I savor the comic potential that still exists in this comments section. I’m pretty sure we can goad more anti-government rhetoric from confirmed progressives and government employees. If…
Did the Crave Truck get a permit to park in city metered spots and city right of way? Or did they just get a permit? The city clerk’s office seems to be a suspect here, but it’s not clear they did anything wrong. Did the Crave Truck…
High-profile whining. AKA Lobbying.
it’s quite choice. looking forward to seeing how it and its patronage grow and develop over the course of the year. could be a neat little ecosystem.
“It was at this point, before he started his business, that working with city employees should’ve raised red flags…” But they didn’t because: 1) The City Clerk’s office originally mis-interpreted the rules, or are indeed re-interpreting them. 2) Champaign’s brick-n-mortar merchants hadn’t yet started whining about The Crave Truck.
Super cool! Excellent track, Excellent band.
Looking forward to trying this place!
I’m in the middle (or the beginning or end, depending on how you look at it) of re-reading Slaughterhouse Five. What a great companion column.
Get yours early. The Rave’s CD will be available at Exile and at The C-U Flea on Saturday. C-U Flea details here: http://www.smilepolitely.com/news/sp_radio_podcast_c-u_flea_arrives/
I don’t know about Gerard and a random police sargeant. My (mild) outrage is based on this: “...he worked closely with Champaign City Clerk Marilyn Banks to make sure he was licensed properly as a transient food peddler, filling out the necessary paperwork and paying a $225…
Local Yocal pretty much nails it here. I suspect there will be merchants who oppose food trucks because they arguably don’t pay their fair share to locate their trucks in high traffic (high rent) areas. The food trucks take away business from rent payers, park in city…
Oh nice! I’d totally vote for Matt Campbell!
“Smile Politely sports writer announces candidacy for city government.”
I also got to visit Big Grove Tavern during the soft open and definitely enjoyed the pork belly the most of all the dishes I sampled. The cheesy grits and the vinegary pickled vegetables were a perfect compliment to the rich pork belly.
The Alan Partridge lookalike on the right in the first small photo has nothing to condescend to anyone about. AH HA!
Snell and the little Hitlers of the neighborhood association need to chill out. Legitimate businesses should have the freedom to exist without having to endure the slings and arrows of ignorant and misguided opposition.
represent, Matt.
Yeah, I’d agree that Transporter Room 3 is the worst house venue I’ve ever seen.
Food trucks are the start-up, small businesses of the future for those unable to afford real estate. No surprise, that merchants who pay rent, utilities, and maintenance on a property would despise the traveling competition. Or developers who build more empty retail spaces would want to close…
Not so much far-right Tea Party as a balanced, moderate viewpoint between letting businesses succeed and protecting society with reasonable regulations. In spite of what the city reps are saying, the interpretation of policy on this issue certainly has changed. Letting a business start up under one…
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I’m in the middle (or the beginning or end, depending on how you look at it) of re-reading Slaughterhouse Five. What a great companion column.