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Quote of the Day: Decision-Making
“It would be hard to think of a more ridiculous way to make decisions than to transfer those decisions to third parties who pay no price for being wrong. Yet that is what at least half of the bright ideas of the political left amount to.” – Thomas Sowell
Although Thomas Sowell wrote this years (perhaps decades) ago, it is more relevant today than when he wrote it. We have had our noses rubbed in the consequences of transferring important decisions to third parties who pay no price for being wrong for nearly ten years — certainly since January 2009 when the American people inaugurated a government for experts, of experts, and by experts. Since then, they have made dozens of faulty decisions, for which others paid the price of the “experts” being wrong. The third-party deciders suffer no consequences except occasionally being promoted.
There is nothing more dangerous than putting your wealth, your livelihood, and your health in the hands of third parties who have no skin in the game when their decisions go wrong. And yet when things go wrong, that is what most career politicians suggest as the fix.
Published in General
Not only do they suffer no bad consequences for being wrong, but they stand a good chance of getting their budgets increased to keep the same mistakes from happening again.
Another great quote of his that I love, “Its not about what is best. Its about who decides what is best.”
We’ve been plagued and haunted by “experts” since Woodrow Wilson claimed they were the only ones to rely on. And when mistakes are made, we rarely assess and reverse course. Instead, we push on, ignoring the obvious damage and uselessness. And those third parties couldn’t care less. The consultant who “helped” with Obamacare comes to mind; remember, he said we were all idiots. Those who hired him certainly were. Good quote, @seawriter.
That is a great, and prescient quote. Not a surprise, considering who said it.
This applies not just to politics. I’m going to print this and put it on my wall at work. It’s priceless advice. I’ll shorten it of course.
Healthcare. It applies to healthcare. And the results have been equally, perhaps even more disastrous than they have been for politics.
Great Quote, Sea W.
That is the message that we who advocate freedom should be offering to those who are undecided about which way to go, and are listening to the supplications of both sides.
The message we seem to prefer is “You people are jerks”. It’s catchy, but has a flaw which I will indirectly explain.
Many years ago, a salesman and I were driving back after a customer call. I was a techie* at the time. He explained sales to me in a way that I’ve never forgotten.
“People buy from people they like.”
The rest of this is long, may be skipped at an opportunity cost near zero.
= = = = = = = =
True, this is war, not sales. But war is partly sales. We know this because the goal of war is to destroy the enemy’s will and capacity to resist. “Will”, not just “capacity”. In fact, they should have written the definition as “will or capacity”.
The only way to eliminate capacity is with violence. But what about the will to resist? It can be the energy remaining to pursue the desire to resist. That must be destroyed. But it may be the desire itself.
It is only the leadership of the enemy that is our true enemy.
The masses he directs into battle, as they sit around the fires at night, listen to the songs from around the fires across the river, or the curses. The songs they remember from a childhood they shared with those over there. They understand curses, too.
And the people in the countryside, who must feed one army or the other?
As they hand over their produce, they sometimes use the occasion to ask just what it is that our side is fighting for. They understand the meaning of our response, whether it is spit in their faces, or a common cause expressed as common sense. If it is the common sense, it’s sense from a common childhood with the soldiers temporarily residing in their barns.
Most Democrats are just the militia, waiting to go back to their lives after the elections, or people who stayed in the countryside. They are no different, no better or worse, no different from us.
Thomas Sowell and Seawriter have the right idea about how to speak to them.
*formal job title: Technical Guru Brought in from Region to Talk to the Engineers
I slightly disagree with Dr. Sowell. I can’t name any bright ideas from the political left in the last 45 years.
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Perhaps the word “bright” should be <sarc> tagged.
Dependent people of all stripes will usually vote to increase taxes. They don’t pay taxes themselves so it’s only to their advantage to increase taxes for the rest of us.
If I were dependent on government, I too would probably vote to increase taxes.
All of this reminds me of Thatcher’s criticism of socialism — that it works pretty well until you eventually run out of other people’s money.
Timeless wisdom always seems more relevant as time progresses.
Next time you’re stymied by a lefty’s position and just can’t see what’s wrong, try it in the context of a child or a cared-for minion. People of the left usually assume there’s a parent over them, or rather a common parent over us all. It’s a part of their paradigm, an assumption so fundamental to them that everything they think is in that context of “someone else’s responsibility.”