Quote du jour

In the standard historical usage of the term, a “right” is something that exists simultaneously among people. As such, a right imposes no obligation on another. For example, the right to free speech is something we all possess. My right to free speech imposes no obligation upon another except that of noninterference. Similarly, I have a right to travel freely. Again, that right imposes no obligation upon another except that of noninterference.

Contrast those rights to free speech and travel with the supposed rights to medical care and decent housing. Those supposed rights do impose obligations upon others. We see that by recognizing that there is no Santa Claus or tooth fairy. If one does not have money to pay for a medical service or decent housing and the government provides it, where do you think the government gets the money?

-Walter E. Williams

Quote du jour

The framers gave us the Second Amendment not so we could go deer or duck hunting but to give us a modicum of protection against congressional tyranny.

- Walter Williams

Quote du jour

“Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man.”

― Walter E. Williams

"Duped by Congressional Lies"

An open letter to Walter Williams.

Dear Dr. Williams: I am a big fan of yours. Whether reading your books, or your columns or listening to you guest host for Limbaugh, I have enjoyed your gift for making economics both educational and entertaining. I read your piece "Duped by Congressional Lies" with mixed admiration and dismay. You certainly make a persuasive argument. And as one who has paid into Social Security for the better part of half a century, I can sympathize with the genuine feelings of "entitlement" that people feel about Social Security. It was sold to us as a retirement instrument, that the government managed for us (since we couldn't be trusted to manage our own money wisely ourselves). We knew for a long time that SS was a relatively "crappy investment" at best, maybe a 2% return, and that we could have done far better managing our "accounts" ourselves.

But faced with the reality that there are no "accounts", our money was stolen from us, and that the only way the government can pay us what it promised is to steal it from someone else, it would seem to put us on the horns of a moral dilemma.

Until I got to thinking how the government deals with the crooks that they catch. It's called "restitution". When Bernie Madoff was sent to jail for his Ponzi scheme, the government went to his estate, to recover as much of the stolen money as they could. In drug cases, if it could be reasonable assumed that a drug dealer's car or house or other assets were purchased with proceeds from an illegal activity, those assets are seized and sold.

Since the government has been buying up land and other assets with the money they stole from me and my generation for years, how about some simple restitution? We bring this before a Federal judge, (perhaps under a RICO statute, since this organized crime stretched out over every state in the union), or encourage our leaders in the House to get the ball rolling and make the government sell off or deed over their assets to their victims, and fund Social Security?

Instead of forty acres and a mule, give me forty acres of western land sitting over a vein of low sulfur coal or oil shale and the mineral rights to it, and, of course, remove all those ridiculous prohibitions about recovering the nation's wealth, and it's possible that I might call it even! I'd even settle for a good, productive uranium mine!

Or we could open up ANWR and earmark that revenue to current and future Social Security recipients. That way, we retirees and soon to be retirees, would not be stealing the bread from the mouths of current and future generations, and might possibly give us an alternative to either working 'til we die, or subsisting on cat food and dumpster diving.

The Federal government has more land than it needs and is sitting on a fortune in oil and mineral assets waiting to be unearthed. Since it can be reasonably assumed that those lands and mineral rights were procured with the proceeds from illegal activity, that is to say the Ponzi scheme that was and is Social Security, wouldn't you agree with me that a little restitution to the victims is in order? And that selling off government assets would be morally superior to stealing from future generations? Just a thought...

Respectfully yours,

Proof


Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

Quote du jour

Tragically, minimum wages have the unquestioned support of good-hearted, well-meaning people with little understanding, who become the useful idiots of charlatans, quacks and racists.

-Walter E. Williams