The New "Right" to Peace of Mind
I am usually pleased when I think I have learned something new. I have to say "usually" because learning things like this is not pleasing, at least to me. A new federal program in Pennsylvania is providing free cell phones and 250 free minutes a month to those who cannot otherwise pay for it. The program is funded through fees imposed on those who can pay by their helpful cell phone provider.
We are told by a spokesperson for the program that it is a good thing because we have "a right to have peace of mind." Before today I did not know that I had a right to have peace of mind. Apparently those who can pay their cell phone bill already possess peace of mind.
This does follow logically from FDR's argument that government should provide us all with freedom from fear and want. But FDR thought we should do this for the whole world, so I suppose the next step is to fund programs to make sure that everyone in the world who cannot otherwise pay for it has access to a phone and 250 minutes a month without charge. This should not be a problem. US citizens who can pay their cell phone bills will I am sure be able to fund this program. If those who can pay squawk, they can simply be reminded that they need to pay their fair share and eat their peas.
We can be certain that providing peace of mind abroad will enhance our security at home. After all, if you have peace of mind, you will not become a terrorist right?
Once government has spread peace of mind about with a liberal hand, paradise cannot be far off. Imagine a world where everyone has peace of mind through their taxpayer provided cell phones . . . .
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May '10
Re: The New "Right" to Peace of Mind
So, what exactly do the "poor" actually have to pay for on their own?
Oct '10
Re: The New "Right" to Peace of Mind
Just what Peace of Mind will a free cell phone bring a homeless person ?
Re: The New "Right" to Peace of Mind
Caryn,
That is really unclear. Robert Rector's recent study about poverty in American pointed out that most Americans defined as poor have access to a lot of luxuries these days! But government now does not see a cell phone (or broadband if you read the linked article) as luxuries--they are now necessities.
It is also unclear how one qualifies as not being able to pay. I wonder how many who are eligible for this program pay for cable, video games etc.
May '10
Re: The New "Right" to Peace of Mind
All I know is that my income puts me solidly in the middle class and I don't have cable, I don't have broadband, I don't even have a computer at home. What I do have is a big tax bill to pay for someone else to have those things. Is something wrong with this picture? Hmmmm...is this what they mean by class envy?
May '10
Re: The New "Right" to Peace of Mind
I'm almost afraid to ask...but what happens when they go over their minutes quota?
Nov '10
Re: The New "Right" to Peace of Mind
This does follow logically from FDR's argument that government should provide us all with freedom from fear and want...After all, if you have peace of mind, you will not become a terrorist right?
"Believing in the renunciation of ends in favor of the unlimited abundance of means [unlimited abundance of means = Hobbesian "peace of mind"], one will fight far more ruthlessly when confronted with an enemy who does not accept this renunciation. The goal of the renunciation of war, for example, leads, as we now well know, only to ever greater wars. It leads as well to the intensification of the claims of those regimes -- those tyrannies -- that proclaim the end of war (and of politics) as intrinsic to their success. Marxist Communism is in truth the regime embodying the claims of modern liberalism."
Emphasis mine.
--Harry Jaffa, "Neumann or Nihilism," Liberalism (Carolina Academic Press, 1991, p. 72).
Might as well throw in the link, for any who might be interested: excerpts from Jaffa's essay available here.
Edited on Aug 4, 2011 at 2:37pmJun '10
Re: The New "Right" to Peace of Mind
They have it backwards. The only time I have any peace of mind is when I forget to take my phone with me. I'm like a dog who has broken his leash (in my case, it's an electronic leash).
Jun '10
Re: The New "Right" to Peace of Mind
The poor you will always have with you,..(Matthew 26:11) has been incorporated into public policy as a statistical construct. Poverty is defined relatively not absolutely. No matter how much access the "poor" have to education, healthcare, transportation, income support, foodstamps and free cell phones they will be defined as below the poverty threshold as long as most of us have more. Forget the actual resources available, the progressive model is built on transferring wealth from those +2 standard deviations to -2 standard deviations on the income distribution, regardless of how much the -2SD may have in absolute terms.
Sep '10
Re: The New "Right" to Peace of Mind
Cigarettes and booze? Or is there a program for that too?
Jul '10
Re: The New "Right" to Peace of Mind
Mark Belling Fan
Cigarettes and booze? Or is there a program for that too? · Aug 4 at 2:37pm
Yes, drug dealing, for which these phones will come in handy.
Sep '10
Re: The New "Right" to Peace of Mind
Reminds me of one of the old Free To Choose episodes where a young and feisty Thomas Sowell is arguing with some mealy mouthed welfare beaurocrat.
"Does your program plan to eliminate there being a bottom 20%?"
Dec '10
Re: The New "Right" to Peace of Mind
Cigarettes and booze? There's an app for that. If you live in an "inner city" environment, when you go to the local grocery store, there is always a little line of people that assess your cart and step up, if they see the right items. They offer to pay for your groceries with their government-issued debit cards, if you will pay them cash, usually around half the cash value of your purchases.
Florida has a similar cellphone program, but also continues to maintain and staff a system of "callboxes" on our highways, so that the poor and those elderly that won't adopt cellphones have a means to call for help when they have a flat.
Dec '10
Re: The New "Right" to Peace of Mind
Crony Capitalism + Political Patronage = Government Planned Collectivism.
Who would care to guess that those free phones cost 5x to 10x more than the ones we pay for out of our own pocket?
Or, that the ratio of users to the number of newly pensioned public employees staffing the agencies, outreach initiatives, awareness communications, and gender, sexual orientation, and ethnic diversity compliance authority(s) administering the program, while not exactly 1 : 1, will be close to that after the next stimulus?
Feb '11
Re: The New "Right" to Peace of Mind
We are living in a stark raving lunatic asylum and the most demented inmates are running it.
Re: The New "Right" to Peace of Mind
Jaffa's essay is great. Neumann's book is a must-read imho.
Robert Lux: This does follow logically from FDR's argument that government should provide us all with freedom from fear and want...After all, if you have peace of mind, you will not become a terrorist right?
"Believing in the renunciation of ends in favor of the unlimited abundance of means [unlimited abundance of means = Hobbesian "peace of mind"], one will fight far more ruthlessly when confronted with an enemy who does not accept this renunciation. The goal of the renunciation of war, for example, leads, as we now well know, only to ever greater wars. It leads as well to the intensification of the claims of those regimes -- those tyrannies -- that proclaim the end of war (and of politics) as intrinsic to their success. Marxist Communism is in truth the regime embodying the claims of modern liberalism."
Emphasis mine.
--Harry Jaffa, "Neumann or Nihilism," Liberalism (Carolina Academic Press, 1991, p. 72).
Might as well throw in the link, for any who might be interested: excerpts from Jaffa's essay available here. · Aug 4 at 2:35pm
Edited on Aug 04 at 02:37 pm
Jul '10
Re: The New "Right" to Peace of Mind
This is the logic that arises from the assumption of Roosevelt's Bottomless Money Box. Sadly, that box is not merely exhausted, but buried in IOUs to be paid off by our distant descendants. They want to eat the goose and still receive the golden eggs.
An American "community organizer" would teach people to fish, not to beg the government for fish.
Apr '11
Re: The New "Right" to Peace of Mind
How does a cell phone with 250 minutes provide "Peace of Mind?"
How can a device that didn't even exist on a public market thirty years ago assure that we pursue "Peace of Mind?"
How does anything achieve "Peace of Mind?"
There are few things worse than a government program with a subjective goal.
Dec '10
Re: The New "Right" to Peace of Mind
Channeling Thomas Sowell, the only thing more expensive than something for “free” is a government program supplying it.
In a market transaction, there is a buyer and a seller. But in a government regulated transaction, the number of intermediaries is limited only to man’s imagination—and if there’s truth to the origin of his creation being in the image of his Creator, then it is close to being unlimited—consisting of exogenous, extraneous, worthless, labyrinthine bureaucracies subordinate to the dictates of political patronage.
The poor are the only thing government is good at producing.
Sep '10
Re: The New "Right" to Peace of Mind
What if the government's $14 trillion debt is eroding my peace of mind? Is there a program for that?
May '11
Re: The New "Right" to Peace of Mind
Fault my logic. The government is paying for citizens' cell phones and usage. Why not cut out the middleman and just socialize the phone companies? Just think of all that obscene profit that could be saved. AND we could get rid of all those annoying phone commercials and actually go to more bars in more places.