“The power to tax and the power to spend = the power to enslave”. It’s a paraphrase from a decision written by Chief Justice John Marshall, in writing the Supreme Court’s decision in McCulloh vs. Maryland, where they said Alexander Hamilton‘s Central Bank was constitutional (one of the earliest unconstitutional decisions). Maryland opposed the Central Bank and so imposed a tax. The Court’s answer was that it was an attack on the supremacy clause, that the federal government had implicit power (there they go again) to empower such a bank, even if it was run by a bunch of private bankers.
They said if Maryland’s claim to power to tax it was the same as the power to destroy it (Marshall’s word).
Pure “democracy” is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. It must be restrained by respect for individual rights.
In these two following sentences is subtly hidden one of the most popular and most wrong ideas about wealth:
Capitalism: Concentration of wealth.
Socialism: Dilution of wealth.
The idea that a majority vote makes confiscation of the fruit of a man’s labor, his “wealth” is okay, is a misguided notion that had me once fooled. It’s an easy delusion.
Confiscation of other people’s wealth, rich or not, is not “democracy”. When one robs his neighbor, it’s theft. The government makes it illegal because it wants to have a monopoly on taking what is yours.
People go along with it because they’ve been indoctrinated into thinking majority vote to rob from the rich is somehow good.
I used to be Leninist gullible idiot myself, duped into buying into the socialist deceit.
This book from Ludwig von Mises lays out the scientific economic analysis of what economics is really all about, what socialism is and why it has led to both dictatorship and economic poverty where it has been done:
http://mises.org/books/socialism/contents.aspx
Capitalism: “An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.”
Capitalism doesn’t “concentrate” wealth. One might “accumulate” wealth by investing, but Steve Jobs accumulating wealth did not prevent Bill Gates from accumulating his. George Soros would be a better example of “concentrating wealth”, because he uses his government cronies to game the system where he has trashed currencies for his own benefit, and greased the financial meltdown for his own treasure trove. “Crony capitalism” is not “capitalism”.
But I don’t care so much about capitalism as I do free market principles, wherein everybody is free to engage under the same rules.
Socialism does indeed dilute wealth, it is confiscation without recompense, and destroys the best incentive for wealth creation, that of one’s fruit of his labor, or the fruit of knowing what other people want to sell it to them.
Socialism is a zero sum game where everybody loses except the rulers on top, the “deciders”.
Socialism in the US meets definition of #2 from The American Heritage® Dictionary:
1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
2. The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved.
But in principle the idea that the government (supposedly elected in a fair election or not) takes what it wants and lets you have what’s left, is the socialist idea at its very core, the idea that it owns it whoever has the nominal “title” to it.—
PEER REVIEW, SCIENCE, AND AGW-DRIVEN POVERTY CREATION
Peer review is status quo enforcement. There are (totally non-creationist) alternative theories to origins that don’t get the first look in peer review journals. Genuine alternate energy technologies such as at http://newenergytimes.com/ are blacklisted from peer review journals but basement labs keep plugging at it.
Besides AGW big name Phillip Jones just blew the whistle on it too. At its best ideal, peer review is a status-quo-enforcement mechanism when it comes to basic establishment paradigms. It’s a formalization of Thomas Kuhn‘s concept of old science stamping down dissent.
Richard Muller published his study straight up so it could get lots of eyeballs immediately. Peer review is under criticism in scientific journals, muted since the journals depend on it.
Hey, that’s what I’ve been saying all along, for years and years! And yet so many people are so gullible to swallow the media-hyped and regime-approved stuff packaged with the label “science”, and accept it, and think they’re smart because somebody told them that the big bad oil companies would oppose it, and of course even though you’re supposed to blame big bad oil companies for the scientists calling foul, except don’t say they’re “scientists”.
Big Money Media is made up of the same things too.
Eventually, though the truth comes out for those who want it.
If you kick off the spin, the packaging and the hype, Richard Muller’s study only corroborates what the AGW-dissenter scientists have been saying all along.
Big Money Media has successfully Pavloved even smart people into confusing AGW with GW in their thinking, so much so that Big Money Media’s writers see this as their own corroboration.
And everybody’s ignoring another fact that one genuine climatologist pointed out: Muller’s own data actually shows that global warming has stopped cold for a decade, and counting.
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