House of Eratosthenes

People wonder why I spar on social media with the leftwardly-inclined folks, even when said lefties are so obviously full of B.S. There are actually many reasons, which for the most part become clear when you diligently inspect the alternative. Which is to hop into an echo chamber, seal it shut, and enjoy. After awhile, what do you do with that? You can pat yourself on the back for having the more reasonable opinion about things, but compared to what?

So over on the Hello Kitty of Blogging, I made reference to Severian’s Bucket Theory, which is interesting enough that when I tried to vector off from “the purpose of government” to “why are there children,” I failed. Too much “makes you go hmmm” stuff in one post, I guess.

Imagine that we set a whole bunch of famous leaders down and gave them a pop quiz: “What is the purpose of government? What is the State for[?] Then we sort them into buckets.

One common answer would be “the State exists to create Utopia here on earth,” and guys like Lenin, Hitler, Mao, and Obama would be in that bucket. Their Utopias would all look different, and they’d employ different means to get there, but all those guys would agree that their governments are trying to create a perfect world.

Another bucket contains guys like Oliver Cromwell, Suleiman the Magnificent, Charlemagne, and Ferdinand and Isabella. Their answer is something like “government exists to give greater glory to God, and/or punish His enemies.”

A third bucket is full of guys who answered “the purpose of the State is to give me and my entourage the highest possible standard of living” — Genghis Khan, Louis XVI, pick your ancient empire-builder.

A fourth bucket reads “the State exists to keep the natural world in balance.” Egyptian pharaohs and Confucian emperors fit here — they have to do their daily rituals or the world falls out of whack.

A fifth — very small — bucket reads “Government exists to protect its people’s life, liberty, and property.” Here you find George Washington, Jefferson Davis, William Pitt, and (arguably) guys like Pericles and the consuls of the Roman Republic.

I’d argue that the guys in the “state as utopia” bucket are the Left, and the “protect the people’s rights” bucket are the Right. That leaves the vast majority of all governments that have ever existed in the middle three buckets…

I have a former colleague, who’s actually a former colleague of some of my other former colleagues, who defends The Left tirelessly. But, only the label. I’ve learned to handle him by going after issues where I know he disagrees with leftist dogma, whereupon he’ll pull out a boilerplate monologue about how he is an independent thinker and doesn’t agree with The Left on abortion, et al…it doesn’t seem to be within his capacity for comprehension, to realize that what he’s defending is something that doesn’t really exist except in his mind, and he’s just revealed it to anyone who cares to pay attention.

Plant But this time he tossed in a new boilerplate. It’s one you might have seen before somewhere else…the ol’ “Liberals actually believe in the right to [blank] too” thing. We’re supposed to take this stuff seriously, ponder it and then go: Huh. So why are we arguing? Must be because conservatives are racists or something…

I’m not sure how that’s supposed to work, since it’s the guilty-white-liberal brigade who keeps trying that. But I’m having none of it. There’s a problem with this logic, a very serious one, and it deserves at least a mention.

…[L]iberals don’t think of “rights” the way normal people do. When I say “I have a right to own a gun,” what I mean is that if someone in a position of real power is annoyed by my having one, they can’t do anything about it.

When liberals support my “right to own a gun” what they really mean is that they’re not going to stop me from having one until such time as they see fit to do so. And always, this is to be curtailed by their very reasonable (to them) preponderance about what kind of gun I “need,” as in, “no one needs a gun that fires 30 rounds,” etc.

It’s rather like a plant’s “right” to have water. The owner of the plant, much like the liberals who think they’re in charge of everyone, decides day to day, moment to moment, how much water the plant needs.

This is one of those things you jot down all by yourself, and then afterward look at it as if someone else did it. And say to yourself, “Mmmm, that’s quite good, innit?”

Well I don’t know about good. But the Plant Metaphor is…ominous. Everyone who lives in a supposedly free society, should be worried about it, day & night. People are not plants, and rights aren’t needs.

There are three important reasons why they aren’t. The first two have to do with consequences. Think this through now…you live in a society in which rights are needs, needs are rights, and you don’t have any money because you haven’t done anything to help anyone else, and when you did have money, you spent it without a care for the future. Now you need money, you have no way to get any…except, you have a right to it. That would mean someone else is obliged to give it to you. And that, in turn, would have to mean they must give it to you again and again and again, month after month. Are you going to mend your ways and start doing things to help others? Maybe you would if there were conditions attached. But, it’s a right, so that doesn’t apply. Unless it stops being a right…which it would, if you managed to stockpile some savings. The “right” only kicks in when you’re on your bottom dollar, right? Ah. But you’re always going to be there. What incentive is there to save any money? Once you get it done, you’re the plant that’s been watered already…you’ve lost your “right.” Who’d opt in to that?

Which brings us to the other consequence, the one that has to do with those toiling away under the obligation to fork over their loot, whenever someone else pops up with a more intensive need. They’re trying to do something higher up on the Maslow Pyramid than merely surviving; go on vacation, buy a boat, send their kids off to college, start a business. In a Twentieth-Century Motor Company match-up of “who needs it more desperately,” they’d lose. So the name of the game is, get the money saved and then get it spent, toot-sweet, thus completing the objective before some martinet comes along to declare the wealth-transfer obligation to have materialized, since there’s a drier plant nearby. So there is a motivation here, too, and like the motivation mentioned above, it persuades against the noble objective of saving.

In modern America, liberals have won that fight. Rather decisively, and sustainably. Round up a hundred or so citizens who do not self-identify as left or right…assuming they’re honest about this…and ask ’em. Here’s a guy who “needs” money and doesn’t have any, does he have a “right” to it? Now forget about the answers they give you, concentrate instead on how they formulate the answers. Any time over the last hundred years or more…the average American will do it the liberal way. The wrong way. Why yes! Whatever it takes, for the alternative would be cold and heartless…I don’t want to be that. Oh, and does the other guy have a “right” to the money that belongs to him? Well I don’t know…you mean, a right to keep it away from the one who needs it? Why would he want to do that? What a meanie. No, I don’t think so…that’s mean. We don’t have a right to be mean, do we? If we do, we shouldn’t…

In addition to the two problems listed above, there’s yet another that has to do with — I keep going back to this, broken-record style — definitions. The process of arbitration, by which one concludes “he needs it.” Who’s to say?

I recall another dust-up I had, not so public, with a nice Canadian lady who thought herself middle of the road. The issue was teevee sets. Ay-yup…some people “need” more than one, and maybe one of those has to be enormous, bigger than any teevee set owned by the taxpayers who are subsidizing the needy person’s lifestyle. Who’s to say otherwise? Maybe they have kids. Kids need teevee sets. So someone has to figure out if the plant really is dry. It isn’t something you can measure. Someone’s got to go with their gut. Now, who’s that going to be? I’m sure we’ll do a great job of embracing equality, and we’ll come up with a thick stack of written rules lickety-split to make sure everyone’s needs are assessed the same way. (I’m also sure it won’t be enforced everywhere, it’ll only be enforced when someone’s watching, but that’s a whole different stew-pot of problems I suppose.)

The point to all this is that people aren’t plants, rights aren’t needs, and a right isn’t a right if it has to be reassessed, and maintained on condition of whatever’s going on at that instant or in that locale. If you have to keep getting a “Mother May I?” then it isn’t a right.

A right is something you get to enjoy even if people in power are pig-biting mad over you having it. If they can’t do anything about it, even if their entrenched power is formidable and their anger is piqued — then, maybe, that really is a right.

But that is not what liberals have in mind when they say “As a liberal, I support your ‘right’ to…” They’re speaking of the “right” a plant has to water. With someone providing it day by day…and, assessing the “need” for it, moment by moment.

“It isn’t something you can measure.” Well…despite the alter protests, SOME immigration would have worked IF there was an attempt made to 1.) Follow the rules (which liberals won’t do, case in point Obama) and 2.) Have some form of vetting in place.

Which is besides the point, because das RACIS’!! to measure (if you’re a liberal). If you’re a RINO, it’s too costly. If you’re a libertarian it’s too restrictive. If you’re a wishy-washy conservative it’s too hard. It can be done. It should be done. But with our congress and with the Cloud People always pushing left our nation will never again do the RIGHT thing.
- P_Ang | 10/26/2017 @ 09:21
“Liberals actually believe in the right to [blank] too”

Oh, y’all do? Then you wouldn’t mind putting it to a vote, then? Please, by all means, let’s have that discussion about how many guns — if any! — any given individual “needs.” Let’s hash it all out. First we’ll vote on “shall the Second Amendment be retained?” If that passes, let’s start with flintlock muskets — since, you know, that was the technology available to the Founders; surely that’s what they had in mind when they wrote the 2nd Amendment, back 100 years ago or whenever it was. Assuming that passes, let’s have referenda on clip size, fire rate, heck, even aesthetics (because “assault weapons” just look so dang scary!).

Since y’all believe in our right to own guns, surely you’re ok with this? I mean, we’re voting. We’re finally having that “national conversation” you always claim you want. What could be more socially just, more democratic, than this?

I await y’all’s reply… but I won’t be holding my breath.
- Severian | 10/26/2017 @ 15:16
[…] House Of Eratosthenes has an interesting plant metaphor […]
- Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup » Pirate's Cove | 10/29/2017 @ 06:12

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Plant MetaphorThursday, October 26th, 2017

Plant Metaphor
Thursday, October 26th, 2017