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Defending the Free Market: Breaking Bad Conservative Habits

Conservatives do such a weak job defending the free market system, they let socialists and communists label and define it.

Defending the Free Market: Breaking Bad Conservative Habits

Conservatives do such a weak job defending the free market system, they let socialists and communists label and define it. Bill and Zo start breaking bad Conservative habits with a bold statement that so-called “capitalism” is actually freedom and justice. Your stuff is yours…if you disagree, give it all away now. 

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30 replies on “Defending the Free Market: Breaking Bad Conservative Habits”

I often think the other half of the country is like a bad girlfriend. They enslave their intellects to their emotions, when they do think. So when you think it’s just a barrier to their emotional satisfaction. That’s why leftists get so angry when we use facts and logic.

I’ll grant you, I haven’t listened to the screeching nearly enough to get a valid statistical sample (and I hope I never will)…
…but I suspect you’d find a near perfect inverse proportion between the likelihood of someone shrieking about “greedy corporations” and whether or not they had ever personally produced anything in their lives that was useful to anyone other than themselves.

“Buy a factory so you can exploit the workers…”
This reminds me of another thing I did some years back. Someone I was in an argument with was screeching about CEO pay, how the workers would make minimum wage while the CEO was getting tens of millions of dollars per year.
Well, I did a very hateful and unfair and underhanded thing. I did the math.
I looked up the CEO pay for Yum Brands, a subsidiary of Pepsi that includes Taco Bell, KFC, etc. If memory serves, it was something like $60 million per year. Sounds like they’re exploiting all those minimum wage Taco Bell workers, doesn’t it?
But when I checked out how many people were employed by Yum Brands, and did a little simple arithmetic, I found that the CEO’s pay worked out to something like 3.2 cents per employee per hour. In other words, if the CEO of Yum Brands made zero, and that money was distributed equally among all the employees, the difference in their checks would be about a buck and a quarter per week.
Money…
I don’t remember when or where I heard it (it may be from Asimov’s non-fiction essays), but the beauty of money is that it’s analog. A penny is worth exactly 1/100th of a dollar, and it doesn’t matter which penny it is, which dollar it is, or anything else. There is nothing stopping us from using barter… but how many chickens is a cow worth? What if I don’t want that many chickens? Barter is digital, you can’t break it down without it losing value. Half a cow gives zero milk. Half a chicken lays zero eggs.
Beyond that, money is just a way of keeping score. It’s _____ hours of my labor are worth _____ amount of the stuff I want.
I have thoroughly angered more than one “redistribution of wealth” guys when they asked if ____ should be getting _____ amount of money, and my response was, “I don’t care what he makes… but then I don’t make envy and resentment the basis of my life, either.”
Anybody who advocates for “free healthcare” either doesn’t understand what “free” actually means, thinks doctors and nurses don’t have any bills to pay, or is openly advocating stealing.
Likewise, anybody advocating for “free food” thinks farmers, ranchers, grocery store workers and cooks don’t have bills to pay.
There is a way to actually make a given service “free”. It’s by forced labor of people skilled in that service for zero return. There’s a word for that system, too. It’s called “slavery.”

Very funny anecdote, I am sure that you doing the math for them boggled a mind.
My favorite was when Ronette was in HS and had a few of her friends over and they were discussing the “wage gap”. Of course I could not stay quiet (silence is not my best skill). Since they were in school, I asked them to look up the pay scale for teachers at the HS.
Then I asked them to show me the table where male teachers were paid more than female teachers. Blank stares.
They checked on the Principal / Admin table – again no gender difference.
Then I asked them if male nurses were paid more than female nurses.
Since I work at a mfg plant, I asked them if they thought we paid male welders more than female ones.
This is when one of the young ladies spoke up and said that there weren’t many female welders.
I asked why – the consensus from 5 ladies – it’s dirty nasty work. I added hot and dangerous. But did they know that welders make more than Nurses or teachers. So if you add up what welders are paid vs what teacher or nurses are paid, then separate by sex, you would get the men are paid more. But for different work, not the same work.
I got a few stunned looks but they actually got the point. Ronette just rolled her eyes, she had heard that type of thing from me many times.

“I am sure that you doing the math for them boggled a mind.”
In fact he was deeply offended when he asked where I had gotten those figures and I told him the CEO pay and the number of employees was publicly available data. Other than that, I am able to do simple arithmetic.
I think the idea that I was willing to trust my own ability to do simple arithmetic rather than blindly accept what someone in authority (with an obvious agenda) told me was what really frosted him. I may be wrong though, it may have just been his “What sorcery is this?” question responded to with my “Dude, it’s not hard” reply.

I wound up putting my reply in it’s own comment.

BTW, if half a cow gives no milk, well that’s just an engineering problem. Sorry, when I was a kid I wanted to be a mad scientist, upon growing up I realized a better term may be deranged engineer. Bwah ha ha ha ha!

An engineer calls his wife just as he’s leaving work, and asks if he should get anything on his way home.
“A gallon of milk please, honey. Oh and if they have any eggs, pick up half a dozen.”
His wife is shocked and bewildered when he gets home and puts 6 gallons of milk on the counter.
“Why did you get 6 gallons of milk? What were you thinking?”
“They had eggs.”

I was a Navy computer tech. I tell people don’t make the mistake of thinking your computer is smart, it isn’t. It seems smart because it’s an idiot at the speed of light.
People who depend on computers hope for artificial intelligence… what they get is artificial stupidity.

Not ceding language to the left is very important. We should be pushing back, not just against the big language errors (a woman is a woman, a man in a dress is a man) but against the subtle ones.
Free Market >> Capitalism is one but there are many others of which we need to be aware and to bring focus.
The group here knows this, I need not list them. Feel free if you like to list your own personal favorites.

“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as “bad luck.”
― Robert Heinlein

If you squint really hard you can find Elon Musk and Elizabeth Warren in that quotation.

I stand by some things I have been saying for many, many years.
***
People are fond of talking about others being “greedy.” The truth is, every advance made by humans since we came down from the trees is the result of someone being “greedy,” “lazy,” or both. He/she wanted to get the same or better results in less time, with less work, at less expense than people around him were doing. So by the standards of his time and place, he was being greedy and lazy.
That’s the motivation behind every advance humanity has ever made since before we were actual humans. If you have a problem with that, spend a year living in a tree naked, bashing your lunch against the trunk to make it stop struggling, and then tell me about it.
***
Every single person I have seen in media railing against the greedy rich has been wealthy, powerful and privileged. Every. Single. One.
And every single one of those people, when they lay out their plans to “tax the rich,” is careful to define “the rich” as having assets comfortably above their own millions.
So they aren’t trying to fix any problems, or trying to help anyone. They’re just playing King of the Hill, trying to knock the guy above them off the top. John Kerry famously said in 2004 that he wanted to pay more taxes… but that didn’t stop him from parking his mega-yacht out of state to avoid paying the taxes on it.
***
Free market economics works because it’s balanced. The surest way to success in a free market economy is to supply something that the largest possible number of complete strangers are willing to pay for. In other words, the way to be most successful at providing for and caring for your friends, family and loved ones, the most important people to you, is to provide something perceived as an improvement to the largest possible number of total strangers, the least important people to you.
No other system has this internal balance. Capitalism requires you to please the customer in order to stay in business. All others, socialism, communism, fascism, even theocracy, ultimately rely on pleasing your own chain of command.

Well said – here is a Heinlein quotation for you that coincides.
“Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.”
― Robert Heinlein

Heh … I was thinking of Heinlein’s “The Man Who Was Too Lazy to Fail” when I was reading Sam’s comment myself.

GMTA. I owe a lot of valuable early life lessons to ol’ Bob. Even when I didn’t, or still don’t, agree with him he put a perspective on things that was eye opening.

Yes, lot’s of good stuff in Bob’s work. I always thought there were some that would translate to video better. Unfortunately most of the attempts have been terrible.
Some of the short stories could make good source material for Bill’s new venture.
The Roads Must Roll
Misfit (the Andy Libby story about moving asteroids into near orbit)
Or a multi-episodic / seasonal arc starting with Methuselah’s children going through TEFL and then hitting those stories Lazarus tells, including the Man Too Lazy to Fail.
There is one (name escapes me) about a pilot on the Space station to Moon run whose wife is worried. Small cast, quick moving, rugged individualists.
Might need deep pockets to get the rights, though.

I agree that some of Heinlein’s stuff would be really good in a video format. I’ve been listening to his audio books for years now, mostly while sitting on a tractor mowing lawn.

Someone bought the film rights to “Have Space Suit — Will Travel” about 10 years ago but I don’t think anything ever came of it.

“The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” would make a great movie. As would “The Cat Who Walks Through Walls”. Lots of action, a little romance and intrigue — it would be good stuff to build a movie on.

If Peter Jackson picked up “Time Enough for Love” and approached the film with the same fidelity and accuracy he gave Tolkien’s work that would be pretty good too.

I’ve watched and enjoyed the first season of “Foundation” but they didn’t really stay true to Asimov’s story. I get that they have to make some concessions to modern pressures and that’s not what I mean. The story is materially different. It’s still fun SciFi TV and you can still see the ghost of Asimov’s work in it but if someone wanted to do Heinlein that way I’d just as soon they leave it alone.

The movie version of “Starship Troopers” was fun but hollow because so much of what Heinlein had to say was ignored.

Asimov’s Foundation series is entertainment without any real message. It’s just speculative “future history”. Most of what Heinlein did carries a message delivered along with the entertainment. Ripping the spine out of the story by removing the lesson would ruin most of Heinlein’s stuff.

Of course, I’m sure some wokenista could have a field day with “I Will Fear No Evil”.

Did you ever get a chance to read “Pursuit of the Pankara”? If so, what did you think of it?

I still need to read that. Got into a historical mode and tackled Churnow’s “Grant” but it was long. Then a few mysteries as palate cleanser.
I think I will pick up Pankara if I can at the library. Reading it and Number of the Beast back to back may make a good beach read for later this summer.
I had high hopes for Foundation, don’t have YT TV so didn’t watch it. Always thought the main theme was people are people no matter where they are from.
There are many stories that would make good video productions if someone treats them well. And something I hadn’t thought about it that Time Enough for Love actual has many themes and vignettes that the alphabet mafia would like.

I really enjoyed “Pankara” and your plan to read it back-to-back with “Number of the Beast” while on vacation is an excellent one.

If you don’t mind a suggestion I’d advise reading “Beast” first. That will put you in the proper frame of mind to appreciate all the things explained by “Pankara”.

Do you use a reader or are you strictly a paper kind of guy?

I have a Kindle – but if I can get something from the Library for free vs paying for it on Kindle – my inherent cheapness often wins out.
My brother and sister, both older, tried to shame me by derogatory nicknames referring to lack of paying for the lifestyle that they went into debt to live. But my home is paid for and we were able to cash flow Ronette’s college. My sister’s 2nd hubby is pretty well off, so she is fine but my bro is older and talking about having to work til he is 70. I think I win this round.
There are lots of free books on Kindle – re-read 1984 that way.

That was the first thing that came to my mind too. Perhaps the biggest problem with government is that it makes it really hard for people to be too lasy to fail. If someone invented a easy chair like the one in “Idiocracy” it would quickly become a “Human Right,”™ On the other hand, it goes after kids with lawn mowers an lemonade stands.

Bill talks about “for the first time in human history” we have fat poor people but …

That’s not the only “first time in human history” that America and Western Civilization has accomplished. We’ve accomplished a LOT in the last few generations that has never been done in human history.

The United States alone has created a society and a government unique in the history of mankind. When I was a youngster in school I often wondered why other nations newly formed after our Constitutional Republic had proven itself didn’t just adopt our Constitution verbatim, plugging in whatever geopolitical and semantic entities (like Provinces for States, or Prime Minister for President, etc.) fit their particular national character.

The reason we’re not much, much further ahead than we are boils down to two faults in our own citizenship.

  1. A lack of perspective.
  2. A dearth of gratitude.

You’ll generally find that the lines between Right and Left cleave across those two problems. This is why our political opponents advance indoctrination over education. The truly educated have a correct perspective while the indoctrinated have only what they’ve been taught to believe. This treachery is compounded by their efforts to destroy anything that even smells like it might be a tiny bit of gratitude. Because with proper perspective and humble gratitude you cannot be on the side of the Leftist agenda.

This is the real, base cause of Leftist doctrine and it is wholly destructive. There is no point where the destruction is sufficient to the Leftist agenda. The moment any equilibrium is reached they start to lose power. The more stable and prosperous, the more equal and benign, the more educated and grateful, the less power Social Marxism has. The levers that the Left uses to move people all grow shorter and weaker when the fulcrum is moved towards the good and constructive and away from the bad and destructive.

I often hear people say they don’t want to call political opposition “evil”. It’s true it’s not good to demonize the undeserving. But that is not a hard and fast rule that always applies everywhere to everything. It is just as bad and more often even worse not to recognize and name Evil when it is encountered.

Naming a thing or a group of people “evil” is not something that should be done without solid, demonstrable cause. Lest the naming of Evil lose its potency. Evil would love that to happen. This is why even here on Bill Whittle’s site I take exception to hyperbolic speech and apoplectic attitudes.

The people who strive to gain and keep power by the means employed on the Left are evil at heart. By their fruits you shall know them. Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden et. al. are evil people who have sold their souls and their principles in a bargain with Satan himself … Whether they are aware of doing so or not.

The people deceived by them are not necessarily evil though certainly not preponderantly good either. Never forget that Evil is extremely adept at deception, it is the fault of the liar not the lied to that they are deceived. Also don’t forget that we have our own measure of Evil on our side of the political aisle, the Left does not hold a monopoly on Evil.

Still, there is a good deal of hope and solid grounds for some optimism. One of the major problems, and perhaps the most fatal of many, with Evil’s deception is Evil has to work with flawed human beings just the same as Good does. So the evil at heart in the practice of their deceptions eventually begin to believe their own lies are true and actionable. When this happens, and it is clear we are seeing this happen now, Evil reveals it’s hand and in all cases the result is undeniably disastrous.

The Leftists and the evil at heart now controlling the Democrat Party are unable to change their policies and amend their course because they have become so addicted to the success of their lies they have fallen into their own trap. The lies that got them were they are worked, they learned from the process because for them it was successful. So bigger, better and more clever lies appear to be the solution to their political dilemma and the threat of impending major loss in power.

Another way of saying this is that they have gone off the deep end and don’t even realize they’re drowning. This is often the end result of the application of Evil.

The only real question is will America let them take us down with them when they drown and … I don’t think we will. I do not claim to be a prophet and I can be wrong but when people actually start to feel the real pain inflicted by Evil they tend to recoil vigorously. A stove is a benign provider of tasty food until the day it burns you. Fortunately the systems in place in our Republic are agile enough to deal with that pain before it becomes a full-blown disaster while still tamping down the reaction enough to avoid a fatal swing to the extreme on the other side of the spectrum.

We of Faith all know that Good in the form of our Creator will triumph in the end. We also know where the Evil comes from. Most of us, of Faith or not, also know by virtue of thought and education that Evil tends to implode because it dwells outside of Truth. Our job at this point in time is to help it implode as quickly and thoroughly as possible.

Our pal Jordan Peterson talks about a “dominance hierarchy” that is innate to pretty much all living things. Capitalism is most in line with the behaviors that living things optimize in order to “play the game” of life itself. Government taking away our procured gains works against what makes life itself work. If government can justify a balance that the makers and success stories of capitalism can wrap their heads around, maybe by making the environment around the taxed individual safer or easier to get around, the taxed individual can justify the loss to a certain degree. Justifying todays taxation rates is hard.

Shoot – if capitalism was just rebranded as “free market economy” most of the left would beat a path to the right lickety-split! Free, you know.

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