House of Eratosthenes

I’ve pretty much resigned myself to the inevitability that every language-aware computer tool I use for the near future is going to put a red underline under the words statism and statist. That is something of a pity because they are among the very most important words in these interesting times. To understand what’s going on, you have to understand the pathology of the statists.

concentration of economic controls and planning in the hands of a highly centralized government often extending to government ownership of industry…

Right now they’re extremely excited, because one among their own said something. Someone else in their camp made a nice image out of it, which is now zipping around the social networking sites like typhoid:

Like all bad ideas, it raises lots of questions when you start to take it seriously. Let’s give it a try, shall we? Elizabeth Warren is right, nobody in this country got rich on his own, nobody. Well — she is right. It’s hard to produce something without relying on somebody else. In years past it was merely difficult, now it is impossible. You grow your own crops, before you can get them to the market you need to transport them on a public road. Then, they’ll have to be inspected. Meanwhile, you’ll be required to carry insurance thanks to ObamaCare…so is Warren criticizing the government because it is legitimizing its own bureaucratic existence, by proliferating all kinds of new rules that don’t really help anyone, but make it an impossibility to get anything constructive done without its participation? Is that what she’s saying? I don’t think so.

But if that’s what she was trying to say, I’d go along with that. Government has eliminated all conscientious objection against it, by making it an impossibility to continue a prosperous life — any life — without its participation.

Grrrr! But the high level of exuberance that swirls around this little observation she has made, creates another question. Like, why? Why the excitement? What makes people so enthused about noticing how hard it is to acquire a little prosperity anymore, without government interference? This doesn’t explain the incredible intensity of anger directed toward those who question why it has to be this way. However, the anger toward the Tea Party movement, along with the thumbs-ups and atta-girls flung toward the sentiment Elizabeth Warren has expressed, does make one thing crystal clear: This is about equity. It’s about, after the product has been delivered and the money has changed hands and the “factory” thrives, a debt has been incurred to this wonderful thing known as government, and it can never be repaid. Rush Limbaugh has been saying for years these people live in a weird little world, one in which government is the source of all that is wonderful — all good things come from the government.

I’ve been maintaining for awhile that Limbaugh is wrong here. He’s thinking too much like a logical person, as he perceives illogical people. Read the quote again: “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.” There is no presence there, there is only absence; indeed, government itself is not mentioned anywhere. Her point is that you didn’t do it.

This is an important point. The central and primary energy within what Warren is saying, is directed as an assault upon the individual. She isn’t propping government up, she is tearing the individual down, and that is the part that has Facebook statists salivating.

Since she is essentially correct, let’s take a look at what we can conclude from her observation as it is pondered with logic and common sense rather than with statist euphoria. Regardless of whether it ought to be possible to succeed without action from the community as a whole, it isn’t; therefore, presumably, if anyone is thankful for a product, or a job, or a hope, or anything else that emanates from a business tycoon who has done well, that gratitude must be extended toward the community — “you were safe because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for.” She isn’t mentioning government, she isn’t giving government credit for anything except its service as the pipeline, the conduit through which the wealth is rounded up and directed toward the police and fire forces, et al. So the point she’s making, and the point that finds resonance, is that no one single person can accomplish anything without the participation of everybody else.

Let’s remove the emotionalism from it by removing government from it. We’re all in a community…let’s say it’s a village of some hundred people. And there is this thing in the middle of the village that is the catalyst of all success. It draws energy from the village inhabitants, and then it creates prosperity and happiness. No individuality in this community, it thrives because of the existence of the — I dunno. Kiosk. Talisman. Skull of a pig someone found somewhere. You pray to the wotsit before you go out hunting, and if you have a good day of hunting it must be because of the wotsit. Next day, it’s time for everyone to do their part and prop up the wotsit, so the wotsit is the conduit through which the energies of the community are absorbed and then directed toward the continuing survival of the community. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

You’ve probably picked up that the wotsit has become a sort of a deity, something of a replacement religion. It has, but that is not the point I seek to make here. That’s a good one to discuss another time, though.

No, the point I seek to make is: As the community descends on the wotsit to do whatever it is they do to re-energize it, some community members will give much and other community members will give nothing at all. This is a meaningful sacrifice involving time, blood, effort…something…so it is meaningful that some community members give up more than others.

Therefore, logically, if this survival configuration means we cannot build anything ourselves and say “hey look what I’ve got going on, I must be on the ball because I’ve built this thing” and instead we are to give credit to the pig-skull wotsit…said credit must be directed through the pig-skull-kiosk wotsit, and toward the community members who sacrificed the greatest share to rejuvenate it. As one of my Facebook friends pointed out, Warren has it backwards. The system through which “the rest of us paid for” these things, owes its existence to the “nobodies” who got rich and then paid the lion’s share of the taxes.

Our gratitude, then, would extend toward the, uh…what does Barack Obama call them? The “millionaires and billionaires.”

That, obviously, is not what the statists are all about. Seriously, talk with any one from among them for a few minutes. The M&B have nothing coming their way except derision, name-calling, righteous anger, a bigger tax bill, more regulations and maybe some prison time.

The statists, therefore, stand uncovered, naked, revealed. They are narcissists. And the point of the exercise is not to sustain the community or to make hunting expeditions more bountiful. It is not to pay for fire forces and police forces and sidewalks. The point is obscurity. Government acts, not as a conduit through which these energies are to be drawn from individuals and then directed toward fulfillment of the community’s desires so the individuals can realize success — it acts as a fractal lens, a diffuser of light, a tool of obfuscation. It is there to conceal the fact that some people did something right and other people did something wrong. It is there to make it easier for people to ignore plain truths, if they find it gives them comfort to ignore those truths.

That is what is generating such excitement about Elizabeth Warren’s quote, I think. We’ve got a lot of sad people walking around who like to engage in a belief that individual effort is futile, that individual success is an impossibility and a nullity. They don’t want to face up to the fact that somebody else did something better than they did. They’d rather engage in a systemic belief that there is no prosperity, there is only a state of being “rich” which means you must’ve ripped someone off.

That’s what makes them so incredibly dangerous. They are not trying to foment revolution of any kind. Revolutions can fail. They aren’t in the midst of a revolution, they’re in the midst of a sickness. They’re using narcissism to self-medicate their sickness, reaching for it, just like an alcoholic reaches for the next shot of bourbon.

Fixed illustration now available over at my place.
- vanderleun | 09/23/2011 @ 06:52
The point is obscurity. Government acts, not as a conduit through which these energies are to be drawn from individuals and then directed toward fulfillment of the community’s desires so the individuals can realize success — it acts as a fractal lens, a diffuser of light, a tool of obfuscation.

Well said. It’s crab-pot logic (another invention of yours, I believe) all over again — if I can’t do anything noteworthy, then I’ll do my damnedest to make sure nobody else can either.

Her whole rant falls apart with one word: PAID. Ummmm, hon? How, exactly, did the “rest of us” pay for those teachers and firefighters and roads? Presumably it was in specie, no? Legal tender, good for all debts public and private, in God we trust, yes? Which we got from… where? Working our…. whats? Which we were hired to do by… whom?

Checking the google machine… yep, Elizabeth Warren is a perfesser. Fucking figures. You can smell ’em a mile away. They actually DO get their money straight from the government tit. Hell, most of ’em go straight from high school to undergrad to grad school to the ivory tower, all paid for by either a) daddy or b) the government, aka substitute daddy, in the form of grants and student loans. In other words, the vast majority of them have NEVER held a payroll job (trust me on this). They have NEVER gone through a normal hiring process (again, you’ll probably have to trust me, but the academic “hiring” process is the kind of old boys’ club a Gilded Age robber baron could only fantasize about in his wettest wet dream). They have NEVER faced the possibility of layoffs (if wiki is right, Elizabeth Warren went straight from undergrad to law school to teaching law school to government). They have NEVER had to worry about meeting a production deadline, a dip in consumer confidence, a fluctuation in the marketplace, design flaws, cost overruns, regulatory changes… none of it. Money has ALWAYS come from the state tit — on the 1st and 15th of every month, money just kinda shows up in the ol’ bank account.

Of course these people don’t understand what it takes to run a business. They don’t even understand what it’s like to work for a business. But they sure as hell know that you’re selfishly holding back your fair share of the loot, you bastard, because… well, because you’re not getting your ration coupons from the state like a good little prole. But don’t worry — a law professor and “consumer advocate” knows exactly how much of everything you need. You’ll see. Once we’ve overfulfilled the next Five Year Plan, everything will be just aces. Trust us. We’re from the government, and we’re here to help.
- Severian | 09/23/2011 @ 07:00
[…] of people are taking this Elizabeth Warren person out behind the woodshed. I thought I’d add my two […]
- Tenured Ignorance | academiczoology | 09/23/2011 @ 07:56
Good one, Vanderleun.

Fixed cartoon at my place.

I saw that quote up on some blog or story somewhere, and the first comment was “This woman should be president.”

To which I replied “don’t you mean ‘dictator’?”

More on that later at my place, when I get some time.
- philmon | 09/23/2011 @ 09:47
Said this on FB already, but worth repeating:

“Actually, the thing that stuck out in my mind when watching her video rant is the obvious logic hole in believing that rich people didn’t also contribute (through taxes) to roads and general infrastructure. To argue that they owe society, because they’ve used things subsidized by society to become successful, further plays into this notion that the rich are somehow separate from civilization, but making money off the backs of it.

When in reality, the rich (and movers and shakers, in general) are disproportionately responsible for the many things that the rest of us take advantage of and contribute less to. And not the other way around. They bring new products to market, they pay more taxes, etc.

I’m sure that point has also been made by others, but I’m not really seeing it nearly as much as the “she’s an idiot because she lives in a subsidized world” argument. It’s an accurate perspective, but not really cutting to the heart of the matter.”
- sanskara | 09/23/2011 @ 12:18
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK…

M&B: Hello?

EW: We are from the wotsit and we are here to help.
- Whitehawk | 09/23/2011 @ 12:20
Warren’s point here is nothing more than a retread of yet another tired, shopworn, left-wing talking point. Here’s how it goes:

– Set up a strawman: conservatives /GOPers/ Tea Partiers / corporations hate and oppose all government. False, but never mind.

– Point out a handful of noncontroversial things “government” does – maintain roads, maintain a standing army that secures the peace from without, maintain police forces that secure the peace from within, inspects food, keeps fire fighters on standby, etc. Come up with a handful of government services, federal state or local, that even the most ardent libertarian mindset wouldn’t object to.

– Finally, deploy the argument that since government does all these “good” things, those who oppose expanding government and allowing its tentacles into every corner of our lives and allowing it to confiscate every dollar we have to fund those tentacles…must be “evil” and not care about those noncontroversial basic government services mentioned earlier.

See how this works? The entire argument is nothing but a house of cards. It appears reasonable until you examine it, and then hey, waitaminnit, you realize it’s complete and total horse puckey.

If you don’t support a government takeover of the healthcare system, then you must also be opposed to police and fire protection. If you oppose the government just taxing the hell out of us, you must also have a problem with “paying your fair share.”

Unbelievable.
- cylarz | 09/23/2011 @ 15:10
Lizzie Warren pimped a tax
Claimed it on our envied sacks
When folks saw what she had done
She hid in coach on Air Force One
- CaptDMO | 09/23/2011 @ 19:42
[…] “That’s what makes them so incredibly dangerous. They are not trying to foment revolution of any kind. Revolutions can fail. They aren’t in the midst of a revolution, they’re in the midst of a sickness. They’re using narcissism to self-medicate their sickness, reaching for it, just like an alcoholic reaches for the next shot of bourbon.” — House of Eratosthenes […]
- Mid-Weekend browsing | On the North River | 09/24/2011 @ 21:37
[…] Elizabeth Warren syllogism I’ve picked up from what she said (for the uninitiated, it is here) — […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 10/07/2011 @ 05:55
[…] care about politics one way or another, this is the packaging. How did Elizabeth Warren put it: Nobody does anything on their own. Okay, she too didn’t say A she said B: Her quote has to do with getting rich on your own. […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 11/16/2011 @ 04:23
[…] quote of hers that was trumpeted up by MoveOnDotOrg, is just dumb. If I agreed with it, and I don’t, I’d see nothing special about it. It […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 05/03/2012 @ 07:30
[…] Elizabeth Warren went and said her dumb thing there was a lot of enthusiasm about it, as I recall. …the high level of exuberance that […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 07/24/2012 @ 10:06

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StatismFriday, September 23rd, 2011

Statism
Friday, September 23rd, 2011