Off Topic, but Passionate!

[Greg Peisert <gpeisert@jamesgregory.com>]

On Saturday, February 06, 1999 1:51 PM, Margaret Tarbet 
[SMTP:tarbet@swaa.com] wrote:
> On Sat, 6 Feb 1999 10:12:53 -0500, Greg wrote:
>
> >  So, the implication of your undocumented and unsubstantiated 
statements
> >below (I would at least like to see a reference or two, but let us 
assume
> >they are true),
>
> http://www.salonmagazine.com/news/1999/02/03newsa.html
> for one.  I'm sure you can find more if you're really interested.
> It's generally public information.

  Well, I read the Salon article referenced above. It sounds like Rogan had 
a tough start. I don't know what it means to say he "grew up on welfare." 
That could mean a lot of things. Apparently he worked his way through 
college. It doesn't mention scholarships, but he apparently worked hard and 
did well. I was disappointed in the article. The journalism was shoddy at 
best. Not because of what it said, but because of the illogical 
generalizations with which it was riddled.
>
> >is that in the absence of the welfare state, Mr Rogan would
> >have perished and never achieved the success he has achieved. That would 
be
> >a "non sequitur"...it "does not follow."
>
> Right, and falling off a 5-story building isn't necessarily followed
> by death, either.   But that's the way to bet.

  Sorry...your analogy doesn't work, Margaret. One could cite thousands of 
examples of people who have made it without the nanny state. I have two 
grandfathers, both of whom  came here from Europe, arrived dead broke, 
unable even to speak the language, who by your logic suggest they "fell off 
a five story building and prospered from it." NOT receiving welfare is NOT 
like falling off a building!

>
> [btw, i believe you'll find that 'non-sequitur' is typically used
> for topic switches, not logical failures]

  No, it is generally used for logical inconsistencies, meaning an 
inference or conclusion that does not follow from the premises or evidence. 
You know...like most of your assertions about how helpless individuals are 
apart from the nanny state.

>
> >  We live in the world into which we are born, and we make the best of 
what
> >is available to us.
>
> Ah, how convenient.

  I wouldn't call it "convenient." I'd call it "reality." A "fact." But I'm 
not sure you would recognize such a thing.

> A 'why should i pay taxes for schools, my kids
> are grown now'/NIMBY sort of thing, eh?

  Sorry...you lost me.

> Do you suppose Mr. Rogan
> would look favorably on a proposal that he repay the public monies
> that supported his childhood and his education?   Wouldn't he be
> more honest if he did?

  He would rightly claim he has repaid them. Our punishing tax system has 
seen to that.
>
>
> >Had those social programs not been available, there is
> >nothing to suggest that the outcome for Mr Rogan would have been
> >significantly different.
>
> Of course there is!   There is plenty evidence of what happens to
> people in the lowest strata of society in third-world countries!
> High infant mortality, disease, despair, early death.

  We're not talking about 3rd world countries. We ARE perhaps hypothesizing 
about what kinds of opportunities would be available in an America that had 
continued on in the mode of a limited constitutional government without the 
slide into socialism that began in part with Woodrow Wilson and was capped 
off with the New Deal. Your statement seems to claim that it is the social 
programs that keep America from being like a third world country. That is 
even WORSE than a non sequitur. It is a lie and a gross distortion.

>
> >The opportunities and paths to success are vast in
> >number _in spite of_ the burden of a vast and invasive government. I 
submit
> >that if we cast off the shackles of the nanny state, the overwhelming
> >evidence from history suggests that those opportunities would be  even
> >_more_ plentiful.
>
> My goodness!   I wonder then, why people aren't positively clamoring
> to live in places like Russia, Mexico, Central America, South Korea,
> India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and similar.  There's certainly no
> 'nanny' in operation in those countries.   They have just the sort
> of setup you're advocating, Greg.

  If you actually believe what you wrote, then you don't have the faintest 
idea concerning what I am talking about. You missed my point utterly. 
Places like Russia, Mexico, Central America, South Korea, etc etc are 
exactly the OPPOSITE of what I am talking about. What I am talking about 
are the examples, relatively few though they be, of instances where 
government interference and central control were minimal. In those 
situations, unfailingly, standards of living rose swiftly and dramatically, 
and people at all levels of society did far better than in their 
counterparts where governments attempted to provide central control over 
the means of production and distribution.

>
> Come to that, why haven't _you_ moved to one of those countries?
> You've plenty money, and i understand you can hire programmers
> _really cheaply_ in Russia.  Think of all the extra profits!   Oh,
> but i suppose you probably wouldn't like a _really_ free market with
> no government interference at all, would you?   Like the tearful,
> red-faced 3-y.o. bellowing 'No! Mine! Miiiine!!', you really only
> dislike the idea of having to share _your_ stuff.   Having nanny
> protect you from the bigger kids is no more than Natural Law.  :-)

  Well, now you are doing what liberals always do when they are cornered 
and their logic is depleted. You are resorting to distortion, hyperbole and 
slander. It is interesting how, like your Democratic counterparts in the 
House, you constantly resort to slander and a kind of sneering 
disparagement rather than address the issues or the arguments. Your 
invective doesn't merit a response.

>
>
> >P.S. I have listened to Mr. Rogan a good deal over the past couple of
> >months. He is a marvelous, articulate spokesman for liberty and the rule 
of
> >law. I am beginning to think that it is the "converted liberals" who 
make
> >the best Republicans. They seem to understand the fundamental issues 
with a
> >clarity that others lack.
>
> The only 'fundamental issue' for you folk on the right wing, Greg,
> is greed.

  Nope. It is true compassion. It is, if you will, "tough love." Someone 
last night asked Justice Thomas whether he considered himself to be 
"compassionate" as a jurist. He spoke a bit about compassion, about his 
grandfather and how his grandfather's discipline, which he did not always 
appreciate at the time, was full of compassion. "Compassion," Justice 
Thomas said, "Is to give someone the wherewithal to survive in a hostile 
world." He made it abundantly clear that such "wherewithal" consists of a 
set of values, of courage, of a willingness to work, the guts to suffer 
adversity, and the character to press on in the face of it. It involves a 
willingness to get up again after you've been knocked down. I claim that 
such "wherewithal" is what we ought to teach and promote. That is why the 
welfare reform bill is indeed "compassionate." It helps people break a 
vicious cycle of hopelessness and despair. "Compassion" is not making a 
victim out of somebody by telling them that because of their background, 
their circumstances, their hard luck or their race they "can't make it" and 
that they are so helpless they can't make it without the corrupting 
benevolence of the welfare state. That is the very opposite of compassion.

> Like that 3-y.o., your world centers on your needs and
> yours alone.

  Your moralizing and your abusive judgments do not become you, Margaret. 
You don't know anything about me. You know nothing of my circumstances, of 
my background, of my struggles. You don't know about me working my way 
through college selling door to door, day after day, through all kinds of 
weather. Thousands of doors. I hated it. You don't know of the times my 
wife and I, with two little kids, lived in what amounted to a condemned 
building because we had no money. You know nothing about me. You don't know 
about my being knocked down and having to pick myself up. You don't know 
about me, in my desperation, having worked for a sales outfit for two weeks 
only to find when I went to collect my desperately needed paycheck with a 
wife and two little children to feed, the place was GONE, lock stock and 
barrel! You don't know about my being almost dead broke, facing a HUGE 
hospital bill for my 6-month old's pneumonia, with no health insurance and 
no job. I've been there, Margaret. But you wouldn't know about that now, 
would you. You don't know about the hundreds of personal hours, not just 
money, but time, that I donate year after year, to my community, to 
non-profit educational work through our Discovery Museum. You don't know 
the risks I took to start my business, the risks we still face. You don't 
know about the times I have tried and failed before my current business, 
which is by no means a "guaranteed success" (They never are, but you 
wouldn't understand that kind of risk, putting everything you have and have 
worked so hard for, on the line, would you, Margaret.) You wouldn't know 
what it is like to have families with little children depending on you to 
make a payroll. You wouldn't know about 100-hour weeks sweating it out, 
trying to make sure you get that contract, so you can stay in business. The 
fact is, Margaret, you don't know shit about me. All you have is a grab bag 
full of non-sequiturs based on a set of faulty assumptions and misguided 
premises. Your moralistic judgments and high-minded rubbish doesn't serve 
you well at all. It is unbecoming. Indeed, it is nauseating.

  And after all that I've been through, do I regret it? Do I wish the 
government had helped me more? Absolutely NOT! I'm where I am today, and 
more importantly, I am WHO I am today, because I went through what I went 
through. Those tough times build character, inner strength. They reinforce 
a belief in one's self. I am so grateful that I happen to live in a country 
where it is still possible by persistence, by hard work, by believing in 
one's self, to raise one's standard of living, to find fulfilling work and 
to pursue the American Dream. And by god I'll fight to my last breath for a 
society in which anyone, regardless of their birth or circumstances, has 
the opportunity to pursue their passions and their dreams. I believe in 
helping people. I do it a lot. I don't believe in _government_ helping 
people. And if government would get out of the welfare business, we would 
find people at all levels of society helping others in unprecedented ways. 
Americans, and people around the world, for that matter, are compassionate. 
It is the welfare state, not some flaw in human nature, that has destroyed 
the spirit of altruism for the poor and the disadvantaged in our society. 
Without the welfare state, we would see the same compassionate outpouring 
of help and assistance from private sources for the poor and the 
disadvantaged that today we see invoked whenever there is a disaster and 
thousands of people find themselves victims of circumstances beyond their 
control. The difference, of course, is that those people wouldn't STAY 
poor. The help from private sources tends to be of a nature not to simply 
feed them, but to hand them a shovel and teach them to use it.

>  You think that it's perfectly natural and proper that
> mummy should take care of your needs and yours alone.  After all,
> other people barely exist, in your world.  So you feel entitled to
> share their toys while keeping your own safe, and you don't think
> there's anything strange or inappropriate about that at all.  Your
> world is very simple and ego-centric in the purest meaning of that
> term.   Being physical grown-ups, you can 'wrap yourself in the
> flag', as it were, and cloak your childlike desires in rhetoric.
> But yours is still the self-centered greed of the pre-social child.

  Well, as one of my hero's Ronald Reagan would say, There you go again, 
Margaret. Moralizing. Judging. Slandering. Pop-psychologizing. You can't 
refute the arguments. You won't address the facts. You can't refute the 
models for the FairTax system. You can't refute the power for good, for 
opportunity, for economic growth and societal well-being that free market 
forces unleash whenever they are allowed to operate (which is anywhere BUT 
the countries you mentioned earlier). So instead, you rail baseless 
absurdities about me, or those who think like me. In so doing, you reveal 
the moral depravity and intellectual bankruptcy of your own position. You 
seem to think that those of us who call on people to be adults, to take 
responsibility for their lives, to better themselves and to believe in 
themselves are somehow more "childish" or "selfish" than those who would 
victimize society and tell people that, like children, they are incapable 
of managing their lives without the invasive and pervasive reign of a 
welfare state that has done nothing over the past 30 years but demonstrate 
the utter ineptitude of its ideas. And you hope to convince any thinking 
person of the veracity of your ideas using THAT species of specious 
argumentation?! Good luck.

-- Greg