Homeowner Forum / Construction / September 2005

Pardon me but wasn't the belief in the U.S. once stated as follows:

Get yourself a good education and you'll have a job for life.

Now it's get and pay for an expensive education and maybe you'll have a
job for ten years. After that you're on your f.cking own.

I just love the smug attitude of those who've gotten there. I'll bet
you're some codger who is close to retirement age.

Against Greenspan? Every time Greenspan tries to raise interest rates a
quarter point, people here complain that he's a Nazi or something.

We don't have a fiscal policy and Greenspan only has monetary policy to
work with. I've suggested that government provide legislation that would
allow Greenspan to modulate fiscal policy too.

With no government oversight, the booms and busts were more frequent and
more painful so something positive has been going on, I think.

Where did anyone say there was something wrong with that?  The example
was to illustrate my point that acquiring things is human nature, not
just American materialism.  Also, I didn't say that the Chinese town
was subsistance level, unless lack of Ipods indicates subsistence
level!

Sue(tm)
Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself!

No, just a smart a.s.

I have no particular objection to consumer goods per se  -- I like being
able to watch The Seven Samurai whenever I want to, and if I redid my
kitchen I might very well put in granite countertops, since they provide
a great cutting surface and are easy to clean, and I cook a lot.  My
point was more general -- the cost of this unprecedented availability of
consumer goods is an economy which requires constant growth, and the
only way to achieve that growth is through equally unprecedented levels
of debt.  It's a genteel ponzi scheme, and someday it's going to crash
about our collective ears.

Except that when people as individuals allocate resources, they are
allocated better than when they are allocated by any other known means.

"chris.holt" <chris.holt@ncl.ac.uk> wrote in news:dgktms$iag$1
@ucsnew1.ncl.ac.uk:

Sick your nose into other peoples' business and steal
from them, you mean, you lying leftist.

"chris.holt" <chris.holt@ncl.ac.uk> wrote in news:dgnd0b$jls$3
@ucsnew1.ncl.ac.uk:

http://rightwingnation.com/index.php/2005/09/04/225/

Private Property 101 for Liberals
by rightwingprof @ 6:48 am. Edit This Filed under Those Silly
Liberals!, Conservatism
Trackback URL:
http://rightwingnation.com/index.php/2005/09/04/225/trackback/

I don’t know if we’re infested with sociopaths, or people whose parents
never taught them basic civilized behavior, or both. Being an optimist,
I’ll assume you liberals were just cheated out of the basics at home
and in kidergarten, so we’ll cover them now.

Bob works for a living and what Bob owns is his. That includes his
paychecks. Now John may not own as much as Bob, but that’s irrelevant.
Bob’s stuff is Bob’s stuff. If John takes it, he is a thief, period,
that’s it.

John may be as black as the ace of spades and Bob may be so white he’s
pink, but that’s irrelevant. What Bob owns, Bob owns. If John takes it,
he is a thief, period, that’s it.

John can go on all he wants about being “oppressed” or “marginalized”
or “disenfranchised,” and he can go on all he wants about “racism,” but
if John takes what Bob owns, John is a thief, period, that’s it.

Of course, John can vote for a thief, who will then go to Congress, and
with the other thieves, vote to take part of Bob’s property and give it
to John. But theft is theft, and that is what it is, period, that’s it.

It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference why Bob has more things than
John, or how many more things Bob has. Not. One. Goddamn. Bit. Of.
Difference. If John takes Bob’s property, either himself or through
taxes, John is a thief, period, that’s it.

Unfortunately, children are now being taught in school that Bob’s
property belongs to everybody but Bob. Children come in on the first
day, put the books and notebooks and pencils and pens in a big box so
the teacher can pass everything out and everybody will have the same
things.

That’s theft, period, that’s it. Theft.

After the Kelo decision, liberals objected, but for entirely the wrong
reasons. Liberals howled because the city stole private property to
give to a developer. Who is getting the property is irrelevant. Theft
is theft, no matter if the city gives the property to a business or
turns it into some bullshit walking trail or wildlife preserve.

I’ll wrap up with this updated fable.

OLD VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long,
building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The
grasshopper thinks he’s a fool and laughs and dances and plays the
summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper
has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MODERN VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer
long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The
grasshopper thinks he’s a fool and laughs and dances and plays the
summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press
conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm
and well fed while others are cold and starving. CBS, NBC, and ABC show
up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of
the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America
is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of
such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Kermit the
Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when
they sing, “It’s Not Easy Being Green.”

Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where
the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.” Jesse
then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper’s
sake. Howard Dean & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Peter
Jennings that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper,
and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his
“fair share.” Finally, the EEOC drafts the “Economic Equity and Anti-
Grasshopper Act,” retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant
is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and,
having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is
confiscated by the government. Hillary gets her old law firm to
represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the
case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill appointed from
a list of single-parent welfare recipients. The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of
the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which just happens
to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around him because he doesn’t
maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. The grasshopper is
found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is
taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful
neighborhood.