Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Hillary Vs. Trump: Where’s the Opposition to Welfare State Violence?

Ivanka's fraud and Hillary's facts headlined a New Jersey Star-Ledger editorial during the Democrat convention. The subject was Leftist “social welfare” planks that both Clinton and Trump announced they support—Hillary explicitly and Trump through his daughter. The Star-Ledger writes:


Ivanka Trump said all the right things [at her GOP convention speech introducing her father].


She said that quality child care should be affordable and available for everyone, and that as President, her father will "fight for equal pay for equal work," and "change the labor laws that were put into place at a time when women were not a significant portion of the workforce."


The Star-Ledger says you can’t trust Trump to follow through on promises to impose this Leftist agenda. “But what evidence is there that this is more than lip service, and like Clinton, her father will actually follow through?,” it asks.


Of course, if Trump were the Democrat nominee, you can bet that the Star-Ledger would be singing a different tune. I left these comments:


What this editorial shows is that, essentially, we have a choice between two Leftist Democrats, one actual and one dressed up as a Republican. The only debate is over who will expand the welfare state the most, how fast, and in what way.


And if Trump “oozed condescension,” the Star-Ledger is drenched in disingenuousness. Hillary


“pledged to cap child-care spending at 10 percent of family income, expand early childhood home visiting programs, increase pay for child care workers and guarantee 12 weeks of paid family leave.”


How will Hillary meet this pledge? She won’t. She’ll use the government’s guns to force that increased welfare state burden on productive Americans, through taxes and regulations. Make no mistake. Hillary’s agenda is a violent one. Law is deferred violence. If you disobey the law, you will be assaulted by armed government agents, fined, and/or jailed. This is as it should be, up to a point; the point up to which it’s a necessary tool—a “just power”— to protect our rights from criminals like thieves, murderers, rapists, and fraudsters. Beyond that point, the government becomes not a defensive agent but the aggressor, using its law-making powers to assault innocent citizens who have violated no one’s rights.


The regulatory welfare state violates people’s rights to spend their own money as they see fit, and to voluntarily forge employer-employee agreements. Law is force. Law is deferred violence. Government mandates and redistributive taxes come under threat of deferred violence that is inherent in any law. Hillary’s agenda is a violent one.


There’s no escaping that indisputable fact. However, like almost all Leftist opinion pieces, the Star-Ledger dishonestly ignores the means, and focusses only on the ends. “Polling shows the vast majority of Americans, both Republican and Democrat, support equal pay and making child care more available and affordable?” So what? Taken completely out of context, who would not want those things? But are the violent means moral and just? Of course not, even if camouflaged behind a ballot box. It is no more just to vote for politicians to seize your neighbor’s money at gunpoint than to grab a gun and do it yourself. The same goes for forcing innocent fellow Americans to act against their will through government regulations.


There’s no doubt that the ever-increasing economic burden of the regulatory welfare state is making most people’s lives harder and more expensive (e.g., “the rising costs of child care”), which in turn leads to calls for still more welfare statism to compensate. What we need to reverse this destructive never-ending cycle is to recognize the actual nature and immorality of the welfare state. But we’re not having that moral debate—not in the political arena—because we’re faced with a choice between the least bad of two Democrat regressives—the least bad being, of course, Donald Trump.


Related Reading:







This Year’s Election Choice: 3rd Party or Best Platform?

Donald and Hillary in Plunderland—Richard M. Ebeling for FEE

No comments: