Wisconsin Union Wars: The Social Contract

Found this happy little gem on my newsfeed today, and just couldn't resist taking to the keyboard for a little fun.

Today's topic is The Social Contract -- a favorite leftist rhetorical device used to justify wealth confiscation and redistribution. This is taken from a real exchange between real socialists, discussing an article (in the Huffington Post, naturally) called "New York Millionaires Offer to Pay Extra Taxes to Offset Budget Cuts":

Socialist A: Sounds like responsible citizenship and patriotism.

Socialist B: One of them says this: "This is what is decent and sensible as part of the social contract". The notion of the social contract is what seems to be missing from US society these days... And PS I have long wanted a bumpersticker that says "Please raise my taxes." I mean, I'm not a millionaire but I can afford to pay taxes and I believe those taxes should go towards social programs. Why is that so hard to understand???

Well, for one thing, because it's nonsense.

The first thing that's hard to understand is how two people can so totally misunderstand what a real contract is, and what the rules are that govern a legal contract. For instance, for a contract to be legally binding (and I just clipped this from Wikipedia to keep it simple):

1. a party must have capacity to contract


2. the purpose of the contract must be lawful


3. the form of the contract must be legal


4. the parties must intend to create a legal relationship


5. and the parties must consent

Hence, anyone under the legal age of consent can't be bound by this "social contract", because they don't have the capacity to contract in the first place. The same goes for those who are legally incompetent to agree to a contract. And as far as everyone else is concerned, in order to be bound by the "social contract" they would actually have to consent to it. That means it would have to be drawn up as a legal document, and each and every individual who would be legally bound by it would have to voluntarily consent to it. Last time I checked, no one was bothering to do this.

And that's precisely because, as far as the socialists are concerned, the very fact that a person draws breath obliges them to abide by an unwritten, unsigned, non-existant "social contract" that is nothing more than a blank check to seize and redistribute wealth. It's also not a contract in any legally acceptable sense.

Now if you're rich, and you feel guilty about it, and you want to give more of your money to your favorite causes, be my guest. As long as there's no coercion involved, do whatever you want with your money or property. If you believe in social programs, donate to them. Volunteer. Organize fundraisers. That's called voluntary charity, and that's a great thing that I wholeheartedly support. It does more good than throwing public temper tantrums when you lose elections, and it'll probably make you feel better when you're done.

But that's not what most socialists want to do. It's too time intensive, and it cuts into their vital moralizing and problem-solving time ... especially when they've got cushy public service or education-related jobs. Instead, they'd rather use the guns of government (or at least the implied threat of the guns of government) to force everyone, regardless of what they believe in, to cough up more of their hard-earned money for their pet projects.

Which leads me to one final point. I can't resist pointing out that Socialist B obviously hasn't thought much about how government really works. Paying more taxes in no way insures that more money goes to social programs. Paying more taxes just means giving various levels of government more money to spend on something. When you send in the check, there's no mechanism to distribute your contribution according to your wishes. That only works in the private sector (and only if you bother to make such stipulations). So if, dear Socialist B, you really want your taxes raised, good luck making sure that extra cash goes to the welfare recipient you so cherish and not the next Tomahawk missile that gets fired at Libya.

Personally, I'd rather just keep my money.

Wisconsin Union Wars: Return of the Hippies

When the hippies gave up the faith of their fathers, they didn't give up faith per se, just the faith of their fathers. Their fathers' Judeo-Christian, button-down, suburban conformity may have been rejected, but the credulity and acceptance of unsubstantiated claims never wavered ... they just chose to believe in a bunch of new unsubstantiated claims that were different than the ones they'd been brought up with. At no point did they say "We were lied to, so we're going to apply a rigidly objective, scientifically-based methodology to test claims and ascertain what is actually true". Hell, that would have taken actual time and effort. Instead, they just took a stand that was 180% opposite to what they were brought up to believe.
In some ways this was easy, because much of what they were brought up to believe was indeed factually wrong. Plus, rejecting middle-class, suburban, religion-based claims was often pleasant. Smoking pot didn't make you a criminal, masturbation didn't make you go blind, monogamy was not required to have a good relationship and a fulfilling life, dressing casually didn't make it impossible to do a good day's work, and dropping out of the rat race didn't mean you couldn't earn a living.
But this spirit of rebellion also led to throwing the proverbial baby (in this case, reality) out with the bathwater. This has become abundantly clear to me in the past several weeks as I've watched the unfolding of events in Wisconsin. In particular, five things have really gotten under my skin, including (but not limited to) watching the socialist ... ahem ... progressive protesters:

1. reliving their 1960's salad days in the "movement"


2. bonding with young socialists who weren't even alive during the "movement" but are equally as confused as their leftist forefathers


3. parroting 1930's-vintage Marxist class warfare and pro-union rhetoric


4. displaying astounding economic ignorance


5. when all else fails falling back upon the "tu quoque" logical fallacy

For years I've been developing the hypothesis that what the 60's were really about was a wholesale rejection of reality, and a corresponding inability to recognize hypocrisy. Lo and behold the Madison protesters confirm this. Consider, if you will, this little gem of reasoning I found on Facebook recently:

"In their rush to make Wisconsin a one-party state, they don't care if they kill democracy in the process. All's fair when they've decided it's a moral war, and they need to win by whatever means."

Now, I've been out of Wisconsin for a while, but I think if anyone bothers to check, the current governor, assembly and state senate were, in fact, elected democratically. There was no coupe de etat. They just got more votes than the other side (despite, I'm quite sure, considerable union contributions to their opponents). Sounds like democracy is pretty much alive and well to me. I don't see them proposing or passing laws to keep themselves in power for life (unlike leftist hearthrob Hugo Chavez). But -- they did win, and as none other than lovable old Barak Obama pointed out to the Republicrats in 2009, if you win the election and you've got the votes to do what you want, you get to pass your agenda.
While I have no doubt that my socialist ... ahem ... progressive friends in Wisconsin were grinning from ear to ear when Obama told the Republicrats that they could take a flying leap in '09, they don't seem to like their own governor doing the exact same thing in 2011. All of a sudden, they want to redefine "democracy" to mean that the winning party is supposed to essentially defer to the losing party. And they'll march, picket, and set up a virtual underground railroad to spirit Demopublican senators out of the state to stop government from functioning. They seem to see this as a noble resistance to tyranny. I have another explanation: just as they did in the 60's, spoiled, dependent, petulant, hypocritical children are acting like ... well ... spoiled, dependent, petulant, hypocritical children.
Despite all of their singing, chanting, drum beating and other flower-power inspired gum beating, the bottom line is that they simply will not take "no" for an answer. If they don't win at the ballot box, they'll take to the streets and pitch a giant temper tantrum. If they're not happy, nobody is allowed to be happy. They can't even wait for the next election cycle, where -- if the policies this governor enacts are really so terrible -- they should be able to re-assume power and go back to voting themselves rich. Nope, the socialist ... ahem ... progressive vision entitles them to rule, even if they lose (which is curiously reminiscent of the god's-own-lobotomy culture warriors of the christian right).
Plus -- and this is where the hypocrisy really kicks in -- they're whining endlessly about how the Republicrats are trying to stack the deck against them, when in fact it's the attempt to unstack the deck in favor of the Demopublicans that has everyone so cheesed off in the first place.
Think about it: when the Republicrats take contributions from their corporate buddies or defense contractors, get elected, and then dole out expropriated taxpayer loot in the form of government contracts, the socialists ... ahem ... progressives get their Che Guevara monogrammed boxers in a bunch and angrily send granola flying across the room in a fit of indignant outrage. But, when public employee unions contribute equally large amounts of money to the very same Demopublican politicians with whom they then negotiate their employment and benefits, this is somehow supposed to be non-collusive and "democratic". And this troubles me, because I agree with the Demopublicans when they criticize the Republicrats for doing this. I just wish they'd apply the same standards to themselves.
But it's not just the petulance and hypocrisy of the Madison socialists ... ahem ... progressives that shines through. There's also their romanticized view of unions, their vintage 1930's class warfare mentality, and their almost fundamentalist belief in Keynesian economics that really sets them apart. But I'll leave those for the next installment.