The Politics of Unintended Consequences

Who could shoot down a great idea based on sound research and motivated by the best of intentions?








If the idea crept out of the incestuous swamp we call Washington, I would summarily execute that idea. No blindfold, no last cigarette, no drum roll, as fast as they could foment new ideas; I would gun them down. 

Wait, I know what you're thinking...

"I just hate all government so it stands to reason I would hate any idea that came from government officials." 

I understand why you might feel that way, but my judgment is not based on knee-jerk emotional reactions or some visceral reflex. In truth, I have a great deal of respect for government so long as the government has a great deal of respect for the Constitution, and not a second longer. You see as long as the government respects the Constitution it is bound by the ideals it embodies. The foremost of which is, the government must respect my person, my faith, my privacy, my property, my liberty, and yours as well. When one takes the time for thoughtful deliberation rather than flying off on some rash tangent because it feels good at the moment it is a sign of wisdom. The virtue of wisdom, like all other virtues, are nearly extinct in Washington.


Unintended consequences are the political equivalent of Sir Isaac Newton's third law of motion, which states “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. 

1.      The Treaty of Versailles was not supposed to incite the German people to into provoking another world war, but it did.

2.      The “Great Society” programs were not intended to increase out-of-wedlock births and broken families, but it has.

3.      Extended unemployment benefits were not meant to discourage employment searches or dissuade entrepreneurship, but it has.

4.      Guaranteeing the solvency of the banks was not meant to make them more reckless in their lending and investing practices, but it has.

5.      Social Security and Medicare was not meant to nearly eliminate personal planning for retirement, but it has.

6.      Easy credit loans were not intended to create massive foreclosures, destroying families, and their finances, but it did.

7.      Student Loans were not intended to send tuition costs skyrocketing while trapping graduates in a crushing debt load which threatens to destroy their careers before they begin, but they did.

8.      Farm Subsidies were not intended to artificially raise the price of food and diminish the production so high that low income families required Food Stamps to eat, but they did.

9.      The welfare system was not intended to become a snare for the impoverished entrapping them at a serf like subsistence existence for generations, but it does.

10.   Public schools were not intended to produce the lowest common denominator of education with continuously declining standards, but it has.

If this were the total of the unintended consequences produced by the short-sighted, herd-mentality policy makers we seem to have no shortage of in Washington it wouldn't be so bad, however it isn't the total and it is worse... 

 And yet more unintended consequences...

 

And more...

I could go on but at this point I'm too disgusted to write...

PRINCIPLES without Interest

 

 

My Response to: Confessions of a Flip-Flopper November 21, 2011 - 1:18 am - by Roger L Simon

 

Changing one’s mind as we go through a process of gathering more information is an intellectual right, however there is a very clear line where matters of PRINCIPLE are non-negotiable.

I am not speaking of a choice between which deficit financed budget is more palatable to one’s own constituency be they conservative or liberal.

I AM speaking of, for instance, the PRINCIPLE that theft is wrong. There is no time, situation, or scenario when you will be found to have commissioned a "justifiable theft".

With blatant disregard, we are daily passing on debt we cannot by any reasonable means repay to our unborn future generations who have no voice or roll in these obligations other than to pay the bill.

That is THEFT and that is WRONG!  Furthermore, looking at the global debt crises, it is an act of global inter -generational suicide upon our species! We, by the power of the printing press, are eating our own children. It is mass psychotic behavior on a scale which makes the Holocaust look more like a temporary FLIP-FLOP of good judgment for German citizens on their national policies.

I do not mean to offend the survivors of the Holocaust by trivializing their suffering. My intent is to elevate awareness to the eventual consequences our current course of action will have upon our children and their children for generations to come.

The Burden of Shame

 
Do you feel the people inhabiting the modern day city of Rome should bear the burden of shame for the Roman decimation of the native (Indigenous) peoples who once resided, presumably peacefully, on that portion of the present day Italian Peninsula?

They were a pre-literate agrarian society known as the Etruscans, who were so thoroughly snuffed out by the Romans that not much more than this is known about them. The picture to the left is what a common Etruscan Sod and Stone Dwelling from the First Millennium BC would have looked like.

Perhaps, my initial question is premature since the Etruscans at the very least displaced, but more likely conquered and possibly enslaved, a previous civilization. This unnamed pre-Etruscan civilization built basic tombs and had developed religious rights for their dead. They crafted tools from not only elk bones, but had and developed metallurgy to the point of producing numerous bronze artifacts such as rings and axes specifically designed for war as well as others designed for hunting.

Wait, the evidence of war axes made of bronze indicates that even these ancient indigenous people had the blood of some other previous occupants of the real estate that the Pope calls “home” on their hands.

We really don’t need to creep around in the dark recesses of history where Stone Age people may have pounced upon one another for the nicer cave with all the modern conveniences (e.g. - access to hunting grounds, water, less bat shit, or what have you). What of the bloody Roman Empire? People flock from all over the world to see the Coliseum where the blood of millions of subjugated peoples was spilled for fun of the common Roman. Aren’t the People of modern Rome, as well as the modern nation of Italy as a whole, at this very moment not only enjoying the spoils of these murdered people, but they are profiting from the tourist trade. Hundreds of millions of Euros flow to Rome every year, should they not hang their heads in shame for their crimes against humanity?

No!
From Beijing to Machu Picchu and from Ireland to Polynesia everyone wiped out or enslaved someone else to take their resources or real estate. This process isn’t a recent occurrence either. It was not brought on by over-population of the virus, more commonly known as humanity. It is not caused by Capitalism, Western civilization, some murky inherent dehumanization within industrial society, or the religious “Right”, as many Social(ist) Studies textbooks in use today would have you and your children believe. These tools of  "Critical theory" believe that the American people as a whole are culpable for an offence given by generations long dead against a people who are no longer living. Their ill-concieved rant fails to note that the vast majority of American citizens today are not descendants of those who profited from either slavery or the near extermination of the indigenous peoples of North America.

In truth, while the atrocities of African slavery and tribal genocide were being carried out, the majority of our European ancestors were living under near Medieval feudalism in Europe. The life of a serf is arguably equal to if not worse than that of a slave. A slave was purchased at a cost and considered valued property, while a serf was merely another mouth for the noble lord to feed once his crops had been harvested and when he needed no bodies to impale against another feudal lords pikes in his ambitious plan to take something that did not belong to him.

Once, again if anyone is to blame or to be called into account, it is not the People of the United States, Western culture, Capitalism, or Christendom, but government controlled by the few and claiming to be acting on behalf of a cause much higher than their own naked ambition.