Monday, May 30, 2005
“Working Together”…On Command
I recently read a common statement from leftland where an argument was made comparing conservative libertarians’ desire for “rugged individualism” (their straw man term for autonomy) to some conjured image of a society where we all, “work together” (by their definition).
This saccharine kindergarten-like sound-bite is a shoddy euphemism for the left’s delusion that by erecting a powerful coercive state to confiscate and redistribute wealth, they will somehow produce a cute and fuzzy world of spontaneous “cooperation.”
Part of this pathetic argument includes the assumption that a voluntary non-coerced cooperation leads to a “dog eat dog” style of "ruthless competition" – maybe in their world. I’m not sure who these cruel and heartless people are that the left sees everywhere around them in the free world. To be sure, people are a mix of temperaments and motives, but is the human heart in general really as bleak as the average leftist sees it (when it is unbridled by their favored bureau-schemes)?
While “dog eat dog” is the left’s fantasy image of free society, the reality is in fact the very opposite. Free people interact, cooperate, share, and assist regularly and voluntarily.
The libertarian conservative’s perspective is in no way opposed to anyone – voluntarily – working together. In a free society, individuals work together all the time. The socialist’s primary concern here is that nasty word voluntary. Their conception of cooperation is the vapid and contrived image one sees in a Soviet peasant poster – “cooperation” with their projects, in their way, and – most important -- on their command. One can see this mentality in action already in mandatory “community service” requirements that students must fulfill to graduate from some high schools (remember, community "service" was originally used as a punishment).
Working cooperatively with others is a positive thing of course, and it comes to most humans quite naturally. I don’t, however, think that the more solitary or less “team” oriented among us requires coercion or “reeducation” just to fulfill the socialist demand that everyone follow leftland’s drummer of contrived altruism.
Obeying the dictates of bureaucrats or the philosophies of intellectuals is…socialism, and has literally nothing to do with working together, cooperating, or “making a better world.” With all the politicians, lawyers, bureaucrats, and other minions of state currently harassing the average citizen in innumerable ways, the last thing we need is the foolish rants of armchair philosophers cheering them on further.
The demagogues of the left should save their idealistic and dishonest sound-bites for the pathetic school systems they dominate and leave "working together" to the dynamic and diverse actions of autonomous individuals who freely choose their lifestyles and interactions with others.
With all their attempts to conjure a warm and fuzzy picture of communal obedience, the average authoritarian leftist’s world of cooperation is about as warm and fuzzy as those barbed wire fences that typically sprout up like weeds in the prison camp kingdoms they’ve produced through history.
Indeed, the best of all worlds includes fellow humans working together – but not on command. It takes a village…idiot to see otherwise.
This saccharine kindergarten-like sound-bite is a shoddy euphemism for the left’s delusion that by erecting a powerful coercive state to confiscate and redistribute wealth, they will somehow produce a cute and fuzzy world of spontaneous “cooperation.”
Part of this pathetic argument includes the assumption that a voluntary non-coerced cooperation leads to a “dog eat dog” style of "ruthless competition" – maybe in their world. I’m not sure who these cruel and heartless people are that the left sees everywhere around them in the free world. To be sure, people are a mix of temperaments and motives, but is the human heart in general really as bleak as the average leftist sees it (when it is unbridled by their favored bureau-schemes)?
While “dog eat dog” is the left’s fantasy image of free society, the reality is in fact the very opposite. Free people interact, cooperate, share, and assist regularly and voluntarily.
The libertarian conservative’s perspective is in no way opposed to anyone – voluntarily – working together. In a free society, individuals work together all the time. The socialist’s primary concern here is that nasty word voluntary. Their conception of cooperation is the vapid and contrived image one sees in a Soviet peasant poster – “cooperation” with their projects, in their way, and – most important -- on their command. One can see this mentality in action already in mandatory “community service” requirements that students must fulfill to graduate from some high schools (remember, community "service" was originally used as a punishment).
Working cooperatively with others is a positive thing of course, and it comes to most humans quite naturally. I don’t, however, think that the more solitary or less “team” oriented among us requires coercion or “reeducation” just to fulfill the socialist demand that everyone follow leftland’s drummer of contrived altruism.
Obeying the dictates of bureaucrats or the philosophies of intellectuals is…socialism, and has literally nothing to do with working together, cooperating, or “making a better world.” With all the politicians, lawyers, bureaucrats, and other minions of state currently harassing the average citizen in innumerable ways, the last thing we need is the foolish rants of armchair philosophers cheering them on further.
The demagogues of the left should save their idealistic and dishonest sound-bites for the pathetic school systems they dominate and leave "working together" to the dynamic and diverse actions of autonomous individuals who freely choose their lifestyles and interactions with others.
With all their attempts to conjure a warm and fuzzy picture of communal obedience, the average authoritarian leftist’s world of cooperation is about as warm and fuzzy as those barbed wire fences that typically sprout up like weeds in the prison camp kingdoms they’ve produced through history.
Indeed, the best of all worlds includes fellow humans working together – but not on command. It takes a village…idiot to see otherwise.
