Burke Vs Paine, Part V--The Triumph of Thomas Paine

How Thomas Paine Lost the Battle, but Won the War

One of the abiding failures of Thomas Paine has to do with his ardent support for the French Revolution.  This was not the first revolution he championed.  That sobriquet falls upon the American War for Independence or the American Revolution.  But being on "the right side" of history with respect to America shaking off English imperialism was due to a deep sense of mistrust of government on the American side and the the need to keep a measure of  control over those who rule.  Hence the development of the "American system" of limited government, its division of powers, and being bound to a constitution.

When it came to the French Revolution a few years later, Tom Paine was, once again, in boots'n all.  Human rights, human freedom--and the power of a just state to command both at will, justified by appealing to a "higher law", namely, "the will of the people".   But without the checks and balances of American colonial society, the whole enterprise soon turned bloody.

Tom Paine was consequently discredited.  Yet, now we find him resurrected and the ideological victor in our day.  The West has largely followed in Paine's train.  We do not mean that the West has descended into an orgy of totalitarian bloodletting, abortion notwithstanding; rather, we refer to Paine's latter day view of the state as a welfare institution.  In later life, Paine developed the idea of a state with vastly expanded powers, existing to satisfy the "demand rights" of humans.

His old debating foe, Edmund Burke had a much more cautious position.

Modern Mouthpieces for Marx

Deformed Charities

It seems that more-than-a-few charities end up morphing into partisan hucksters promoting Leftist propaganda.  It is understandable, if deeply regrettable.   More than a few Christian based charities have travelled this road to corruption, which is even more deeply regrettable.

Those charities with a global horizon end up being confronted by genocides, famines, and gross injustices.  Of wars and rumours of wars there is no end.  Relying upon faithful donors in the "private sector" (that is, non-state parties) means that every such charity has to live with the dissatisfaction of never being able to make a difference in a global sense.  That is, they can only "win" in a micro, isolated sense.  They cannot win globally.

Faced with this perpetual failure many such charities go over to the dark side.  That is, they seek more and more support and funding from governments.  Why?  Because governments have the big bucks; with support from state-parties they can really make a difference--or so they tell themselves.  Within a decade or so, these now-State-dependant charities become fronts and mouthpieces for Leftist propaganda.  They increasingly look to governments to fulfill their mission.

The Institute of Economic Affairs profiles one such compromised charity: Oxfam.

Snake-Oilers Extraordinaire

 Deceived and Deceiving

Watching Al Jazeera news the other day, we were treated to a doomster (er . . . spokeswoman) from Oxfam telling us that more and more wealth is being concentrated into the hands of fewer and fewer plutocrats, whilst the poor are getting poorer.  The terms of description were profoundly apocalyptic. 

One is left wondering what on earth is going on the minds and hearts of these doomsters.  Surely they know better.  Surely their thinking and reasoning cannot be that purblind and stupid.  Surely they are pulling a confidence trick--and doing so self-consciously.  If that were the case it would be more understandable and (in a perverse way) more respectable than the only other option--which is, that Oxfam personnel really believe their own propaganda.  If the latter were to be the case, it makes them pitiable.

One thing is clear: there is a great confusion involved when spokespeople conflate two quite distinct and separate things together, as if they were the same.  On the one hand, there is the issue of poverty in the world--absolute poverty, no less--and on the other, there is the issue of the discrepancy in wealth between the most wealthy and the least wealthy.  A growing discrepancy or gap between the two tells us precisely nothing about the incidence of poverty in the world. 

The Oxfam spokeswoman, taken in the full flight of apocalyptic dooming, assumed that these two things are the same.  Why, it's so obvious, it need not be debated.  Another grand suppressed premise is that the world's wealth is fixed, finite, and unchangeable, such that the more wealth plutocrat A holds in his Scrooge McDuck-vault, the less wealth is available for the poor. 

Oxfam's nonsense was too much for The Telegraph editorial writers.  Their headline cut to the chase:

Cynicism and Mockery Are the Order of the Day

Why the Paris Climate Deal is Meaningless

The more seriously you take the need to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, the angrier you should be.

[Or, as in our case, the more you regard climate change mania an approximation for puerile credulity, the more joyous you should be.  Ed.]

By Oren Cass

Politico

Negotiators from around the world gather in Paris this week to finalize an international climate change agreement, capping a years-long process on which hopes have been riding for global action to limit greenhouse-gas emissions. When those demanding U.S. action speak of the need to show “leadership” and foster international progress, they speak of building momentum toward Paris.

“This year, in Paris, has to be the year that the world finally reaches an agreement to protect the one planet that we’ve got while we still can,” said U.S. President Barack Obama on his recent trip to Alaska. Miguel Cañete, the EU’s chief negotiator, has warned there is “no Plan B — nothing to follow. This is not just ongoing UN discussions. Paris is final.”

 [Let's get that straight.  There is no Plan B.  If Paris fails--and Cass goes on to argue below that its failure is inevitable--the great beast will die of exhaustion on the Plains of Shinar. Whoopee.  JT.] 

But the more seriously you take the need to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, the angrier you should be about the plan for Paris.

Misplaced Responsibity

It's Everyone Else's Fault

The politics of guilt and pity have a lot to answer for.  It's a national plague.  The modern phenomenon of culture-wide guilt and pity arises out of the world-view of egalitarianism.  In this wretched perspective anyone who is less well off, or less wealthy than oneself is an object of pity.  They are the deprived, the suffering, and the afflicted--worthy objects of our compassion.

The welling up of pity assuages the guilt which is also the product of egalitarianism.  The prevailing idea of egalitarianism is that if someone has less, the cause of their deprivation is that others have more.  The pie is fixed in size.  There are only so many pieces to go around.  If someone has a smaller piece than others, it is because others have unjustly seized bigger pieces. 

The politics of guilt and pity lead to one outcome.  A demand that the state "do more" and rule, regulate, and intervene to ensure the greediness of the guilty is compensated by the government, which will "do something" for the deprived.  Hence, in this way, guilt and pity are perfectly reconciled.  Except they are not.  The pity was false to begin with.  As false as the guilt.  Both are products of a madcap and bizarre egalitarianism, which is one of the stupidist notions ever to afflict the most stupid of stupid people.  The escalating of the "problem" to the government to rule, regulate, and fix puts salve on both the guilt and pity feelings.  But the problem was false to begin with.  The "solutions" are equally false. 

Below is an illustration of guilt and pity at work.  Lauren Priestley tells us how a young mum has been hard hit by the housing shortage.

Letter From America (About French Wealth Taxes)

France Shows That Taxing Wealth Has Devastating Consequences

Daniel Hannan

British Conservative MEP

Washington Examiner

January 5, 2015

I was living in Brussels when François Hollande, the President of France, introduced his 75 percent top rate tax in 2012. Immediately, my quartier began to fill with French exiles, who could commute to Paris in just over an hour. One of the few Belgians left in my street, a stern local matriarch, stopped me as I left the house one morning. “You’re in politics, Monsieur le Député, maybe you can tell me something. What kind of hell must these poor souls be fleeing if they see Belgium as a tax haven?”

Three years on, President Hollande is shame-facedly scrapping the 75 percent rate, having forcibly re-learned an ancient truth: Wealth taxes don’t redistribute wealth; they redistribute people. Thousands of well-off Frenchmen made the easy journey north, including the country’s richest man, Bernard Arnault.
Others decided that if you’re going to flee punitive taxation, you can do better than the land of moules frites and speculoos biscuits. Gérard Depardieu, France’s greatest actor — in every sense — went to Russia, where, whatever their other problems, they have a flat rate tax on income of 13 percent (9 percent for dividends).

Not since the expulsion of France’s Protestants in 1685 has there been such an exodus of entrepreneurs to the Anglosphere; and this wave, like that one, has been a transfusion of talent, leaving the English-speaking world more energetic and France more anemic.

Hollande’s tax, levied on incomes above one million euros, has been a miserable failure. Over its lifespan, it raised around $500 million, a tiny fraction of the original projections. Why? Well, the Paris bureaucrats who made those projections overlooked something rather important. Rich people don’t sit around waiting to be taxed. They have all sorts of ways of beating the system, not necessarily involving accountants. The two most straightforward forms of legal tax avoidance are earlier retirement and emigration, and wealthy Frenchmen have made ample use of both.

Making Matters Much Worse

When Solutions are the Problem

One of the reasons Western capitalist societies are struggling is due to a bizarre approach to supply and demand.  We say, "one" of the reasons, for there are legion.  Nonetheless the deliberate skewing of supply and demand is a significant impediment.

Let's consider some of the ways the productive economy is inhibited and made inefficient by inappropriate interference with the buying and selling, investing and producing populace.

The first is a relentless compulsion to restrict the supply of resources useful for constructing and delivering goods and services.  This is largely driven by the notion that natural resources are finite and are running out.  Oil, gas, energy, land, timber, coal, steel, water, etc. are all limited.  Consumption will reduce their supply.  Therefore, it is prudent to restrict their use and application to make them last longer.  But rumours of the disappearance of natural resources are greatly exaggerated.  Remember the shrill, siren calls of the looming, dooming devastation of "peak-oil" about to wreak havoc upon us all.  The Sirens began shrieking in around 2008; "peak-oil" was supposed to hit in 2012.  Now, world oil supply is such that we presently have a glut.  Go figure.    

A second inhibition comes from the various ideologies of Greenism.

Don't Steal--The Government Does Not Like Competition

It's Redistribution, But Not As We Had Thought of It

Quantitative easing has been a massive thievery of ordinary citizens and a redistribution of wealth to the monied classed operating in the financial sector.  A Mckinsey report documents how this has played out in the UK (and in the US, and Europe in general).

Meaningless Morass, Part II

Holy Discrimination

In Part I of "Meaningless Morass" we argued that the concept of social justice is meaningless because it can be expanded to embrace anything which a human being thinks is good.  Social justice, once the "good" is identified is a social or political order which delivers the good, whatever it may be.

Take, as an example, the evil of abortion.  Since some believe that a woman's "right" to her own body is axiomatic and ultimate, the rights of the unborn child are subordinate (at best), non-existent, at worst (the unborn is not human, therefore by definition cannot have human rights).  Therefore, abortion is a good thing, preserving a woman's control (or, property right) over her own body.  Consequently the cause of social justice must provide free, accessible abortion.  If not, injustice stalks the land. 

In addition, modern Nazi organizations assert they are committed to social justice for white people, which means getting for white people what they are due.  What white people are due, presumably, is their rightful position of racial supremacy.  Modern communist parties also claim they are committed to achieving social justice.  Naturally, the notion of what is just is worlds apart from Nazi ideology.  But both alike claim they represent the cause of social justice.

Christians are starting to get swept up in this errant nonsense.

An Embarrassing Result

Facts Undermine a "Good Story"

New Zealand's crime is falling off, according to a report in the NZ Herald:

New Zealand's crime rate has dropped to an all-time low, latest figures reveal.  The annual crime statistics released by the police today showed recorded crime dropped 5.2 per cent on the previous year.

There were 394,522 recorded offences in the 2011-2012 fiscal year, compared with 416,324 the previous year - a decrease of 21,802 offences.  New Zealand's population increased by 0.7 per cent during the period, resulting in a 5.9 per cent decrease in the number of offences recorded per 10,000 of population.

This was the lowest number of offences in any fiscal year since 1988-1989, and the lowest crime rate per head of population since before electronic records were maintained, police said.

Some caveats are in order.

Exposing the Hypocrisy Beneath

"You First" Tax

We at Contra Celsum are proposing a new kind of tax.  We realise it's a bit different, but we believe it's way past time.

It is called the "You First" tax.  The radical component is that the You First tax will not just be targeted at legal persons-- whether corporations, groups, or individuals.  The principle of individually targeted tax law is well established.  Penalty taxes, for example, are applied only to those people who are late in paying their dues.

The radical and refreshing aspect of the new tax is that it focuses only upon those people advocating redistribution of income and wealth.

A Necessary Evil

Poverty is A Requirement of Modern Life

Our Lord said that we would always have the poor with us.  We never imagined how those words would be twisted and perverted by modern Unbelief.  The prevailing narrative of state exacted redistribution of property to achieve equality (or as near to it as possible) requires that the poor be always with us--for propaganda purposes.  We repeat, the seize-and-redistribute property brigade requires a narrative where the poor perpetually exist.  How else could you justify perpetually increasing exactions of other people's property and assets?  How else could you maintain the politics of guilt and pity? 

One of our favorites in New Zealand is the inequality approach.

Klingon Cloaking Devices

Unmasked by Boat People

It was inevitable.  Sooner or later a boat filled with desperate people would set out from India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, whatever, for New Zealand.  We have been "protected" to date only by an accident of geography--New Zealand's relative distance.  Australia has faced the problem for decades. 

A group of Sri Lankan poor (allegedly Tamils previously caught up in the former civil war) have boarded a boat large enough to make it all the way here.  They have been declaring their intent to sail to New Zealand to seek asylum.  The Prime Minister has made dark hints that he has received intelligence briefings that leave him in no doubt that New Zealand was the intended destination.  Others have accused him of overreacting.  We believe Mr Key in this instance. 

The Commentariat is having conniptions.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Meum and Tuum
Culture and Politics - Obama Nation Building
Written by Douglas Wilson
Tuesday, April 13, 2010


So let's come at this from another angle. We are talking about whether governments can steal, and once that seemingly obvious point is settled, at what point their taking becomes pillage. And the brief answer is that it become indefensible when they can't defend what they are doing from the Word of God.

In City of God, Augustine tells the story of a pirate who was captured and brought before Alexander the Great, and boldly asked why he was called a pirate for doing with one ship to other ships what Alexander with great armies to other nations. We lose track of what happened to the witty pirate after that, but his question is manifestly a reasonable one.

"What would it be called if we did that?" is a reasonable way to begin the discussion.
If the directors the Ponzi-scheme Social Security program were in the private sector, they would all be down the hall from Bernie Madoff. This is not a radical anarchist question either. There are times when the magistrate can answer the question -- e.g. "you can't take personal vengeance on your enemies because God has given the sword of vengeance to us."

Someone might object that I intruded the Scriptures into the equation, making it impossible for us to determine what is right and wrong for the magistrate to do apart from God's Word to us. And that would be correct. We are sinners. We need Christ. We need Christ individually, and we need Christ collectively. We need Christ preached in our pulpits and offered on our communion tables, we need Christ remembered and honored around our family dinner tables, and we need Christ in the public square.

What is the American problem? What is the American dilemma?

"If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god; Shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart" (Psalm 44: 20-21).

We have forgotten the name of our God, and that is why we don't even know what stealing is anymore.

There are three basic governments that God has established among men. The overweening state wants one government, overseeing atomistic individuals. Those individuals are all dumped into a statist sack, which has the structural integrity of a bean bag chair. Each individual can be isolated -- easily -- by the state if he becomes obstreperous. This is why the behavior of solitary tax protester types is so easy for the civil totalizers to deal with. It is the atom against the collective.

A biblical civilization rests upon Burke's little platoons, which in turn spin out of the three governments mentioned above. God created the family, God created civil order, and God created the church. When Paul says that no authority exists except what God has established, he did not say that all the authority was located in one spot, or that all of it had been invested in one man, parked on one throne. God has more than one deacon.

The family is His Ministry of Health, Education, and Welfare. The civil order is His Ministry of Justice. The church is His Ministry of Grace and Truth. That's the basic set-up. Dislocations begin to manifest themselves when any one of these established governments get above themselves and try to usurp functions that God assigned to the others. The church did this in the middle ages, the family has done it in times of tribal wars and feuds, and the state is doing it now.

When authority is decentralized, and located in small, interlocking entities (families, churches, townships, nations, volunary societies, etc.), then the strength of that society is molecular. This can happen in a healthy way only when Christ is the point of integration, when Christ is acknowledged as the one in whom all things hold together (Colossians 1:17). When a secular state tries to hold us all together, the necessary results will be brittle, authoritarian, and oppressive. These men refuse to rule in the name of Jesus, and this is why they do not know what justice is. This is why they do not have even the most basic grasp of the differences between meum and tuum (between what belongs to me and what belongs to you).

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

More on Government Thievery
Culture and Politics - Obama Nation Building
Written by Douglas Wilson
Monday, April 12, 2010


The discussion about what constitutes governmental theft is most important -- because an awful lot of it is going on these days, and an awful lot of Christians do not appear to have the principles straight on how to identify it. The Scriptures are clear -- qualification to rule must include a hatred of covetousness. This is obviously because the rulers have guns (part of their job, right?) and if they don't hate covetousness, then the natural tendency will be to use their power to feed their lusts. So much is self-evident.

If this is not recognized as a basic civic problem (rulers share in the depravity issues, remember), then it is time to return to basic Calvinism 101 stuff. If you can't see Calvin behind Madison, then you probably can't see Paul behind either one of them.

But what about the passage in Hebrews (Hebrews 10:34) that says Christians joyfully accepted the confiscation of their property? A basic distinction has to be made here. Accepting the confiscation of your property is not the same thing as accepting the lies that the confiscators tell about what is happening. Every Christian is responsible to rejoice at all times, and in all things (Philippians 4:4). Every Christian is to give thanks for all things (Ephesians 5:20). We are to be content in every circumstance (Philippians 4:11), even if that circumstance is that of having no food -- and this includes those occasions where we have no food because somebody stole it all. So, if the IRS comes in and takes all my stuff, I must thank the Lord. But, I might add, I am supposed to do the same thing if pirates take all my stuff also.

But rejoicing in God's sovereign control over all things does not mean that I have moral obligation to be blind to the existence of pirates. Nor does it mean that I cannot resist them, within the parameters that God has set for this kind of thing in His law. The same deal with thieving magistrates. I may resist them the way God says, and I may not resist them in ways contrary to His Word, and if my resistance is insufficient, and I lose, I must rejoice in God, He who does all things well.

Now what do we call it if the rulers are not godly, are not free from covetousness, and are running around the country with guns, taking people's stuff? What sin is it? It is not adultery. It is not making graven images. It is not dishonoring father and mother. To remove private property from someone's possession when you have no authorization from God to do so is theft. That is what theft is.

Murder is not taking a life. Murder is taking a life contrary to the revealed will of God. Rape is not defined as sexual intercourse. Rape is sexual intercourse that is contrary to the revealed will of God in a particular way. So theft is not the government removing property from someone who doesn't want them to. That is not the definition. Theft occurs when property is transferred from an unwilling "donor" without the express authorization of Scripture.

Put another way, I don't have to show that a sixty percent tax rate is theft, just like I don't have to show that the fire-bombing of Dresden was murder. The burden of proof lies elsewhere. If we understand the nature of man and the nature of coercion, and the subtlety of the serpent, and the greasy covetousness of rulers who do not fear God, the burden of proof is on the magistrate who supports such a proposal. He has to prove to us from the Bible that his exorbitant tax rates aren't theft. He is the one that God requires to hate covetousness, as a prerequisite of holding his office in justice.

And one quick comment about "redistribution." All tax monies that are gathered are redistributed to somebody. So in line with the principles above, that element is not what makes the process theft. The question is whether it is a scripturally authorized redistribution. If we are redistributing the money to the sheriff to catch bad guys, it is not theft. If it is so that some lazy bum with thirty-eight tattoos can cash in his Federal Plasma HD Television Voucher, it is theft. And in between those two clear examples, there is a line somewhere. At some point it has to become theft, right? If governments can steal, then there has to be a point where what they are doing would be stealing, right? That should be a simple point.

When we are close to the line, wherever that line is, the questions are more difficult, admittedly (which is why we need wise men as rulers, instead of our current cowards, thugs and punks). So let's have a civilized debate about things that are more problematic. But we are not going to be able to have a civilized debate about any of that unless we stop pretending that civil governments cannot break the tenets of the Decalogue, that they cannot legalize plunder. As we have done in this nation, some years back.

There Ain't No Free Lunch

A People Who Worship Their Belly

In the Scriptures, the Apostle Paul characterises Cretans as a people who were "always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons." Titus 1:12 Their god was their belly (Philippians 3:19). It is an apt characterisation of our modern age in the West.

By and large, in the West, politicians, government, and people in general are concerned predominantly with one thing, and one thing only--how to get more into our mouths. The pre-occupation with getting more money in the hand (and therefore food in the belly) through the agency of the state is universal in the West. Political opponents and voters debate endlessly the quantum, not the morality of state expropriations and re-distribution. Even those who would argue for less state re-distribution at the same time ardently defend the legality and morality of state expropriation and redistribution in principle.

These days it has become fashionable for state expropriations to extend to future generations as governments run up billions of dollars of debt to pay for food in the belly of today's Cretans. "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die" is the underlying ethic of both politicians and people as redistribution relentlessly rises.

But now and again we see shock at reality bites. One of the truly liberal newspapers in the United States, the Chicago Tribune has woken up and found that the cupboard is bare. (Remember this is Obama's native political soil; it is the homeland of corrupt crony politics, and sweetheart deals, of under-the-table payoffs. Rich Trzupek tells the grimly ironical story:

The very day that the United States Congress passed sweeping legislation that will undermine the economy, increase debt and send tax rates soaring, a leading liberal media outlet criticized the elected officials who have been in charge of the president’s home state for repeatedly passing legislation that has: undermined Illinois’ economy, increased Illinois’ debt and sent Illinois tax rates soaring, thus poisoning the business environment and employment prospects in the state. It appears that government’s mission isn’t to tax and spend. Who knew?

For decades, Illinois has engaged in spend, spend, spend Cretan politics. Like the corrupt Roman emperors of old, the Caesars of Chicago maintained their political power by showering bread upon the plebians at the circus. But now the system is broke, really broke.

It will be hard to believe, but when Illinois Democrats passed all of the legislation that got Illinois into this cesspool of a fiscal crisis, both they and the MSM assured voters that the there was nothing to worry about. These great new programs, they said, will actually make the state more prosperous and, if you disagreed with that proposition, then you were obviously a crabby conservative trying make political hay at the expense of what was obviously the best thing for the people of the state of Illinois. Sound familiar?

Suddenly the Chicago Tribune as woken up, its bloated belly quivering in righteous indignation.

Still, it’s nice for the Trib to finally notice:

State government’s free-fall into insolvency was designed intentionally and executed methodically. Over the years, legislators devoted more to hoarding power and ensuring their re-election than to smart governance. They repeatedly created employee benefits, entitlement coverage and spending obligations that the people of Illinois cannot pay as costs come due.

That’s a keeper. Substitute “federal government” for “state government” and “the United States” for “Illinois” and you have a paragraph that the Trib can trot out again around 2020. That’s about when the Trib’s editors will figure out that the reason the United States is $100 trillion in debt and unemployment rates are competing with inflation rates to see which can soar the highest is because Congress created – starting on May 21, 2010, “employee benefits, entitlement coverage and spending obligations” that are simply unsustainable.

What we see happening at the state level all over the United States is what is going to happen at a national, federal level. It is inevitable. It is locked and loaded. Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow you will die. But, not to worry. The Tribune has thought of a way out.

How to solve Illinois’ problems? The Trib hit upon a novel solution:

You can re-elect lawmakers who, for two decades, have grown state obligations at twice the rate of inflation. Or you can mobilize en masse and elect a responsive new legislature.

Gosh, thanks for the advice Tribune editorial-writers. Anyone reading your paper for the last decade would be forgiven for assuming that there’s some sort of state law that requires Illinois residents to vote Democrat. Illinois Democrats have had control of both chambers of the legislature and the Governor’s office for eight years and have spent most of their time spending tax dollars, most of which don’t yet exist, like a drunken sailor on shore leave. It would have been something of a public service for the old media to notice what was happening before now – before Illinois’ economic situation could be described in the following terms:

(Illinois ranks) a pathetic 48th in job creation (and) now suffers an unemployment rate of 12.2 percent, the highest in 27 years. Here’s a damning metric: The January jobless rate in all 12 Illinois metro areas exceeded the previous year’s rate — for the 32nd consecutive month.

Might the Tribune have seen this crisis coming before it reached these epic proportions? It might have, had the paper been listening to conservative Illinois Republicans who predicted this was going to happen as far back as 2002. That was when then Illinois state senator Steve Rauschenberger, a strong fiscal conservative and a Republican, outlined in horrifying detail exactly how the state’s economy was going to crash and burn if Blagojevich and the Democrats went forward with their plans. And, at that point, all Blago and the Dems were doing was robbing state pension funds to pay for other government goodies.

The freight train that has just smashed into Chicago could be heard coming down the line years ago. But then it was still the "eat, drink, and be merry" phase, so the rumbling was drowned out by the noise of revelling.

The Trib was all but blind to what was going on as the crisis was building in Illinois. They gleefully joined in the “Great Bush Bash of 2006,” which saw Democrats swept into office in overwhelming numbers. When Republican state level candidates in Illinois tried to make state finances the focus of their campaigns in 2006, the newspaper’s editorial board was much more interested in a candidate’s views on immigration reform (which isn’t in the purview of state government), abortion (ditto), and – I’m not making this up – whether foie gras should be illegal or not. The economy was going to hell in a hand basket and the Trib wanted to talk about goose liver. Now that it’s clear to everyone this side of Richie Daley that Illinois Democrats have screwed up Illinois so badly that it’s going to take a Herculean effort to fix this state, the Trib is reacting like Claude Raines in Casablanca.
They are “shocked, shocked!” to find that the lawmakers in Springfield have been so irresponsible. And, if Barack Obama’s grand plan to socialize medicine in the United States is not somehow derailed, we can expect to have much the same conversation in about ten years, on a much larger scale.

Meanwhile, let's party on, and enjoy the foie gras.

A Simple Question

Avoiding the Obvious

The New Zealand government has taken a tentative step (which some are calling radical and revolutionary) towards getting people off welfare rolls. It likely will not make any impact at all, and may make things worse in the long run. (For an initial critical evaluation, see Lindsay Mitchell's piece, here.)

There is only a limited political window opportunity for these kinds of changes. Good intentions by politicians (and one does not doubt the intentions of the Prime Minister, John Key or the Minister of Social Development, Paula Bennett) do not cut the mustard. What is done must be effective or else future politicians and governments will simply scrap the changes as ineffectual--and they are usually right, at least at that point.

The indications are that this "reform" will not work. Nevertheless, the media used the occasion to do the normal interview of people on the welfare rolls who express how hard and difficult it all is to survive, and how harsh the forthcoming changes will be. Not one of the media pieces asked the really important question, the urgent critical question. We believe it is a question which must be asked over and over and over. It is a simple question.

Every such interview should include the following: Why do you think other people should be forced to pay money to support you? No interview or discussion with beneficiaries should proceed without that vital question being asked--every time.

Every time a beneficiary applicant or re-applicant enters a Winz office they should be required to fill out a statement explaining why they believe other people should be forced to pay money to them. Around the walls of every Winz office should be large posters asking the embarrassing "Why?" question. Only when this issue is part of "entitlement discourse" will a government be able to make most, if not all, benefits temporary only and time-limited.