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Why the Left Thinks We’re Evil
I think that it’s easier for people on the right to understand that leftists mean well than it is for leftists to understand that people on the right also mean well. In his book, Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlitt wrote:
The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.
In Thomas Sowell’s phrase, a good economist must go beyond “stage one” thinking.
Unfortunately, people on the left tend to get stuck at stage one. They see, for example, that a high minimum wage will make minimum-wage workers better off. Additional thought is needed to understand that increasing the cost of low-skilled labor will reduce the demand for that labor.
Even more thought is required to see that the people helped by the increase – those who keep their jobs or can still find jobs after the increase – are likely to be the most employable. That is, they have the most knowledge and experience and they are the least discriminated against. Those hurt by the laws will be the least employable – the least educated, least skilled, and the most discriminated against. In other words, minimum wages help those who need help the least and hurt those who need help the most.
To someone who can’t, or won’t, go beyond stage one thinking, it’s so blindingly obvious that an increased minimum wage will help the poor that they believe that anyone who disagrees must hate poor people – that is, they must be evil. Someone who can see to stage two or three also understands stage one and is unlikely to believe that someone who can’t get beyond stage one is evil.
Moreover, people who truly believe that an election brought evil people into power are more likely to take to the streets than are those who believe that an election merely put stage one thinkers in office.
Published in General
You made up a bunch of stuff I didn’t say.
I didn’t make it up, though I may have misinterpreted your comment. I read it as saying that exchanges between two people impact other people and that impact justifies government regulation of such exchanges. I’m pointing out that our every action potentially impacts others as well. And I’m asking if secondary and tertiary impacts justify government oversight in one case, why not in all cases? Again, what is the limiting principle?
I suggest that the principle could be based on whether my actions directly hurt you or your property or deny you your Constitutional rights. So, if my factory pollutes the water that flows through your farmland, you should have legal recourse to stop the pollution and/or obtain compensation. But if I choose to trade with John Doe instead of you (whether John lives in this country or not), you cannot demand any redress because you have no legal or Constitutional right to my business.
Our unbridled trade with China has affected our national defense capability and other matters such as our ability to react to the Covid-19 effects. The Constitution conveys powers to the federal government to act in ways to counter that. Those power of the government is in my interests since I support the Constitution. When I don’t agree with the specific actions taken I get to vote. But it is certainly not true that an economic exchange between two parties always affects the interests of only those two.
I agree with your first point. China has weaponized trade with the West by, for example, putting “back doors” in computer equipment. I think that the U.S. should ban the use of Chinese components in all military equipment and in all equipment used for our infrastructure systems (power, water and sewage, transportation, communications, etc.). That would include a ban on equipment – such as laptops, PCs, and smart phones – used by infrastructure support personnel.
I didn’t say that an exchange between two parties affects only those two parties. What I did say was that the fact that such exchanges have secondary and tertiary impacts does not – in and of itself – justify government intervention. I do agree, however, that if such exchanges put national defense at risk, then the government does have the right – even the duty – to intervene.
Okay the Donald Trump of the vaccine movement offers proof: one Andrew Wakefield. That man did a minor thing. He established that something went on after a child was innoculated with the MMR. What he saw as going on was the loss of healthy flora inside the stomach and gut, such that the blood brain barrier was then rendered inoperative. So the kids had stomach-gut lining problems. Then the heavy metals from the vaccine began seeping into their bloodstream and then into their brain.
Wakefield never concluded that children shouldn’t have vaccines. He simply stated that since the problems being identified as autism had begun to manifest in thousands of children after the shots were trivalent, that the public should insist on single shots.
His political supporter in our country was Sen Dan Burton of Indiana.
The amount of venom, name-calling, lies, and distortions that hit Wakefield after his work on this issue had never been seen in such a rampant state until Donald Trump became President. Just as Wakefield attacked the sacred cow of Big Pharma, vaccines, Trump was attacking the sacred cow of the Globalists: the infernal trade deals. Both men have had more fake news pitted against them than any other people I have known of, even going back two hundred years.
Richard, almost nothing out there shows something might be true than the infernal fact checking orgs telling us that it is false. Or that something might be false if the fact checkers tell us it is true.
When my article on RoundUp’s glyphosate in the late 1990’s got some attention, fact checkers said it was false. They cannot say that now.
And at this point I would believe Satan himself before I believed Gates.
A recent news article about vaccine programs in Africa and elsewhere:
Polio outbreaks in Africa caused by mutation of strain in vaccine
The Guardian
“New cases of highly infectious disease that should be ‘consigned to the
history books’ reported in Nigeria, the DRC, CAR and Angola
“New cases of polio linked to the oral vaccine have been reported in
four African countries and more children are now being paralysed by
vaccine-derived viruses than those infected by viruses in the wild,
according to global health numbers.”
Full article at link below
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/nov/28/polio-outbreaks-in-four-african-countries-caused-by-mutation-of-strain-in-vaccine?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR3zhNuOx3qjgBsugrIRITxb1OcKzUYpUJnEa9pPDoep6Q8RtWYWoGQies
Here is a youtube of Princeton Physics professor William Happer, who mentions in his interview on Fox TV that grant money is available for those who go along with the current Global Climate Change mantras of “CO2 is bad, People are destroying the Planet” philosophy and not so available to anyone who is not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vro-yn59uso
Don’t you think the CCP, by being so tardy with information on this virus, has now managed to bring down the Globalists? Looks as if we will all be struggling for a while.
The question is “does a voluntary economic exchange between two people benefit both parties economically?” The answer is “yes”.
You have changed the question to, “does every voluntary economic exchange between two people affect other people?” (The answer is, “yes”). We mustn’t get confused about what question we are answering.
You asked if there is an exception in the case of the first question in the case of an exchange between a “monopolist” and another person. The answer is “no”.
I think it is too early to say. I think we are right now locked into a massive struggle over which way our nation will go. The ACP, or the Left, seeks to overturn everything that Trump was attempting to have happen.
Behind the scenes, the people of Syria are being threatened by unbridled military actions of forces inside Syria. I am not sure this is something Trump wanted.
Then we have industries being shut down here at home. My take on what is happening is that the Dems are using their power on a local level to ensure that food is not being processed; that farmers have even more hurdles than before. If those local efforts to destroy the American food supply occur, then the Globalists will step in and see to it that our food is imported.
I really think Trump needs to shout “Fake science.” If it is true he has moved his coronavirus panel of advisors to the back burner, then Trump must be waking up. He needs to step up the idea that the over-hype of COVID and the Gates-inspired tentacles of the planned future of contact testing, and continual surveillance are not acceptable. As Ben Swann stated yesterday on his show, the entire idea of contact testing is to collect data at the beginning of an illness’ outbreak. The only point of doing this now is to fulfill the tidy amounts of expected profits that Mike Bloomberg and The Clintons wish to achieve via these surveillance programs. (Programs Bill Gates has referred to as “necessary protection for The American people.)
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It’s three minutes long. You can only express an opinion in three minutes. He suggests everything that I’ve heard before. This is it?