Dysrationalia: “I don’t know any moochers”

In response to a recent article of mine entitled Entitlement Is Unnatural, a friend of a friend on Facebook decided to take exception there.  Not knowing much about this person’s take on the world, I attempted to patiently walk her through the issues.  At length, this conversation would reveal quite a dysrationalic streak in her thinking.

The conversation follows below with her name changed so as not to be patently embarrassing.

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Susie: [After reading Jack’s article, Entitlement is Unnatural)] I think you are confusing the issue with a nature analogy. In the wild newborn animals that are not fed or don’t smell right are left to die or are eaten by their mothers or other animals. In a caring, human society we don’t leave do that to newborns. There are mentally/physically ill humans too. Should we take them into the wild and let them fend for themselves? This is not entitlement. This is caring for our own kind like an animal mother sometimes adopts the newborns of another mother. If we want to go back to living on the land and living as Native Americans, they took care of each other better than that. They worked together. Or we could be like Inuits who tell their elderly it’s time to take a walk in the snow because they are no longer useful. If you want to cut off support to people who need it, then you have to be willing to make those kinds of choices.

Jack:  Susie, this is a complicated issue with lots of tentacles to be addressed. I am not suggesting that humans ought not to take care of their own; I am suggesting that we should STOP DOING HARM. Government does a TERRIBLE job of charity, and having the government do it affords many opportunities for corruption, incompetence, injustice, and waste. Further, it is ILLEGAL under our current constitution. It simply is NOT WORKING well on a number of fronts.

Now, to the philosophy of the whole thing, I observe that in nature, animals do not TEACH their young to be moochers. Our governmental programs, however, do exactly that, luring millions into various entitlements as if it were a GOOD thing to depend on others for what one can do for himself. Such policies and practices do HARM to people, and not good.

If a man’s house burns down, some of his neighbors will, by nature, give him clothing, food, and shelter. And others will not. It is very likely, however, that NONE of them will suggest to the man that he cease all industry and become a ward of the society in which he lives. Further, it is very unlikely that any of them will steal from their unwilling neighbors in order to give to this needy man.

Here is a compelling piece from David Crockett—one that I wish every American would read regularly. http://jackpelham.com/2012/11/11/not-yours-to-give-by-david-crocket/

Susie:  I don’t know any moochers. The ones I know on assistance are working and going to school, trying to better themselves. Or they are legitimately disabled. How many true moochers are we really talking about here? I’ll read your link later.

Jack:  Susie, anyone who receives funds or benefits to which they are not rightfully entitled is a moocher. It doesn’t matter what their need is or how bad their need is, or whether their need exists as a result of their own fault or not; what matters is that they have no RIGHT to the funds or benefits. No matter how noble an idea it may be, for instance, to help a student pay his tuition, a Federal Pell Grant is simply ILLEGAL. Thus does no person have a RIGHT to a Pell Grant, and all who take such grants (I did when I was 18), do so unjustly. It does not make it right just because somebody else thought of it. And it doesn’t not make it right because the GOVERNMENT doled it out.

If you know anybody who works for or owns stock in the bailed-out General Motors, you know moochers. If you know anybody who works for one of the many unconstitutional departments of the federal government, you know moochers. If you know anybody who has taken an SBA loan, you know moochers. If you know anybody who voted for a candidate because they didn’t want to loose welfare, or because they didn’t want federal funding for the arts to be cut, you know moochers. It goes on and on. Most of us have done it at some point, and a great many have no idea that we’ve done it.

I could make a career for myself right now by providing a certain course of instruction to businesses in my state, with the state paying the ENTIRE tuition for each trainee. I could make net over $1,000 a day doing this. So why don’t I do it? It’s because I don’t want to be party to state-sponsored mooching. These people have no right to take funds from that which was collected from private individuals for the general welfare of the state. Nor do I have a right to profit from such a program.

Sure, I could reason that the program exists whether I take advantage of it or not, but I’ll have nothing to do with it BECAUSE IT ISN’T RIGHT.

Further, Susie, please understand that we are free to adopt whatever public policies we like. But in a constitutional republic, we are by design NOT free to adopt policies that violate our Constitution. So if we want to adopt certain entitlement programs, we need to do it legally. Here’s a post about that:http://jackpelham.com/2011/12/17/if-its-such-a-great-idea-lets-amend-the-constitution/

Susie:  Jack you might want to stop driving on public roads, never call the police or the fire department and go off the grid too. People who are unwilling to share should have plenty of money in the bank and hope they never run out during illness or injury when they are unable to work or earn money.

I have never had the need for public assistance, not even pell grants. My husband and I have never collected anything but unemployment, which we PAID into. The idea with taxes is that you are paying so you can take care of others and have a safety net too. I’ll read your links later.

Jack:  Susie, you are clearly not understanding the finer points of my position. You seem to be adamant on defending, and yet not all that interested in understanding my position. I’m quite willing to be proven wrong about things, and if you’d like to take any of my assertions and show a flaw in its fact or logic, I’d be quite happy to see that. Rather, I just seem to be getting back what amounts to a “Na ah”, from you, rather than actual facts and logic.

For example, I asserted that if we think that Obamacare is a good idea, then we ought to amend the Constitution to allow for that. But you had no response. And I asserted that stealing from one man to pay charity to another is immoral. But you had no response to that.

So if it’s all the same to you, I’d much rather hear specific and focused responses, rather than a global defense of entitlements. Please do read the links and then address the very real and specific problems raised in those articles.

Susie:  Wow, no thanks. Obviously, you don’t have the same morals as me.  If these policies are are unconstitutional, you might want to take it to the supreme court. I don’t agree with you, but maybe the justices will.

Jack:  Susie, it’s not a matter of opinion; it’s a matter of fact. Article I Section 8 of the Constitution lists the powers of Congress. An item is either on that list or it is not.

These are the facts. You may not like the facts, but that doesn’t change them.

The thing is, as much as you seem okie dokie with the system as it is, there’s going to be SOMETHING about our society or our government that bugs you. And you’re likely to try to mount an argument some day based on the FACTS, but you will be frustrated that the people you are talking to just don’t seem to care about the facts that they don’t like. They’re to think that you’re really strange and aloof and “out there”. The same way you are thinking about me now.

Liberals think I must be a Conservative. And Conservatives think I must be a Liberal. Atheists think I must be a Christian and Christians think I must be an Atheist. Evolutionists think I must be a Creationist and Creationists think I must be an Evolutionist. This is because they all tend to think that whoever does not agree with them on whatever the present point of conversation is, must belong to “the other” camp. There is a very small subset of our society, however, who doesn’t buy into the camps and labels idea, but who do their own math on a subject-by-subject basis. And a smaller set still has learned to recognize its own biases and to avoid them.

These are the only people who stand any chance of fixing anything, yet to do so, they’d have to work against the inertia of the masses……that is, of those who staunchly defend the status quo and are not even willing to listen to those who challenge their positions.

Susie:  Jack, I respect you. I think you are very intelligent and you make intelligent arguments. I have mad respect for your wife. I do like her better. I just don’t agree with you on this one. That’s it. It really needs to go to the supreme court. Talk is cheap. Maybe you could work on putting that together.

Jack:  Susie, roughly 95% of what the federal government does is unconstitutional. Further, a great deal of that lawless behavior has been condoned by the Supreme Court. Further yet, nothing in the Constitution gives the Supreme Court the power of judicial review. So even if they say something is unconstitutional, they have no power of enforcement; compliance with their rulings is voluntary.

And the ultimate problem in this very ugly picture is that the public doesn’t care one iota for the rule of law. Almost all of them gripe about certain violations of the Constitution while simultaneously defending their FAVORITE violations of it. (For instance, Obamacare, the Patriot Act, bailouts, etc.) So the rule of law is just another empty talking point here and the public doesn’t even understand the value of it—even with so many of them so mad about so many issues wherein the law has been set aside for a “government of men”.

And just so you know, I’ve been working on this problem for 8 years. I have built three public initiatives and researched and rejected two others. I called the talk shows enough to learn that they, too, are defenders of the status quo. And I’ve conducted enough initial research to uncover the patterns of irrationality in their talkshow spiel. I have written countless blog posts and have posted the first few sections of a free online book that gets right to the root of the problem. I have been in countless conversations with individuals who refuse to admit even basic FACTS, and who do not at all consider that THEY THEMSELVES might be part of our aggregate national problems. And given the relative failure of all these initiatives, I am presently studying psychology with a view toward the question of whether anything meaningful can be done to get through to the average American. I have some ideas and am preparing, as I learn, to vet their chances of success.

Meanwhile, in that same 8 years or so, my average American counterpart went out to vote 2-4 times, which did nothing to change or even to challenge the status quo. He did not learn anything new, and he sought out no new understanding. He heard a few new ideas along the way and rejected almost all of it out of hand because it didn’t come from established leaders in his favorite political party. He still hasn’t read the Constitution for himself, which he could do in a mere 45 minutes, yet he still considers himself to be a “supporter” of it. He thinks we live in a “democracy” when it’s really an mercantilist oligarchy acting as a constitutional republic, and he’s not really sure how to distinguish these terms from each other. He strongly disapproves of Congress, yet he votes to put the same guys, or clones of them, back into office each time.

So if you think I’m just a cheap talker, I find that summation to be quite ill-informed.

There’s no casual way out of this mess, Susie. At some point, somebody’s going to have to start doing some really radical and outlandishly sacrificial things—such as reading articles, for starters.

Susie:  It sounds like your only hope is a revolution, and I’m not interested, Jack. Good luck with that.

Jack:  That’s absurd. The only real hope here is for the few rational people among us to start a viable movement to educate and motivate enough others to turn this thing around before it gets ugly. Our current populace is so ignorant and base that if somebody starts shooting, it’ll turn into a melee like the French Revolution. I most certainly do not want that.

Now let me address your observable tactic in this conversation. You have routinely steered clear of the facts and tried to steer me first toward the lawless Supreme Court, and then toward revolution. Both of these suggestions, however sincere they may have been, did not require any effort from you at all. This is quite typical of how Americans think. They all want somebody ELSE to fix their country for them. They most certainly do not want to research the facts and do the learning and the UN-learning that’s required. No, if it’s going to mean that they have to change their minds over something, they’d rather just go down with the ship.

I don’t mean to be patently offensive, Cori, but I’m going to say some hard things to you here. You just sit right where you are and watch it all continue to devolve. Keep on supporting the status quo and keep criticizing those who dare to speak up. Tell them clever things like “talk is cheap” as you sit at your little computer, ignorantly refusing to read the material they put forth for your consideration. Keep telling them that YOUR morals are superior to theirs, and that you want nothing to do with a discussion of the actual, workable, granular FACTS of reality. Then one day you can tell your grandchildren how this great country just disintegrated for no reason related to your part in it, and what a shame it is that things aren’t as great as they used to be. And when they ask why you couldn’t do anything about it, be sure to have an excuse already in mind so it sounds credible when you say it. And when the well runs dry and there’s no government left to bring you water, you can curse at the cosmos for not taking care of you—for not giving you what you “deserve” and for not “sharing” with you.

Meanwhile, I’ll move along from you and keep trying to convince other non-reality-based Americans that reality might just be worth their time after all.

I have been very gracious with you in this conversation, yet you have repeatedly shown disdain for fact, logic, and sourcing. I do not respect this behavior in the least and I find it a colossal waste, not only of my time, but of a human mind. It is no casual affair when a fellow human refuses to be accountable for keeping his or her own thoughts soundly based in reality; it is a tragedy and a moral failure of the highest order. I can only hope that your circle of influence is small.

Susie:  LOL, you are making quite a few assumptions about me, Jack. I think you sound bonkers, honestly. Here ya go. Jump on this bandwagon.

http://now.msn.com/15-states-start-petitons-to-leave-the-usa

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Thus ends the discussion with Susie’s appeal to ridicule.