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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (547368)	2/1/2010 6:32:59 PM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 1577125

Talking Down To The Public Will Surely Work A. Barton Hinkle of the Richmond Times-Dispatch writes: This is a complex issue, and the longer it was debated, the more skeptical people became. I take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly to the American people. –Barack Obama, State of the Union. There’s a lot in the bill that people are going to like. It’s just a question of understanding it. –ABC’s Cokie Roberts, Dec. 20. What are the immediate plans for recalibrating the message or intensifying the message to explain better to the American people what you’re trying to do? –Question to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, Jan. 20. It mighty big of man with nice voice to take blame like that. Him not need to. Head honchos not often take blame. Most times after big screw-up, head honchos say they have “full confidence” in someone who work for them — right before pushing someone off edge of cliff, or letting someone twist “slowly, slowly” in wind, like tricky Nixon guy did with man who ran FBI. Man with nice voice not like those other head honchos. Him bring change to Washington already, see? But him right. Him not explain health care good. Use too many big words. Say too many compound-complex sentences. Confuse American people. American people not want that. American people want simple explanation. Simpler the better. Me feel kind of sorry. It must really get on nerves for man with nice voice and people on his side, like lady on TV and cheerleaders in White House press pool. Why can’t lamebrain American people get idea through thick skulls? Them not know how to make choices in own best interests! Need enlightened leaders to make choices for them. (Enlightened = smart. Me look this up in thing called “dictionary.” Dictionary good! Try sometime!) Want example? Take mammogram fight. (Mammogram is thing where doctor squish tender woman part really hard and take picture. Owie!) Last year U.S. Preventive Services Task Force say women not need mammogram until age 50. Say squishing younger women not very clinically effective, so not save many lives. Say sometimes “false positives” scare women. This not good. Smart people must protect silly women, make sure they not get scared! Experts say, from cruising altitude of 32,000 feet saving 12,000 lives over course of 10 years just not worth it. Country should not waste money like that. (Can hardly see someone from that far up anyway.) But crazy right-wing TeaParty people go around saying things like: Well, if it my life or my daughter’s life, maybe me feel different. Maybe me should be one to decide to get squished or not. This just show crazy right-wing Tea-Party people always thinking about themselves. There so many things man with nice voice need to explain gooder. Like, if some people still need health insurance, why not just give them insurance voucher, like housing voucher or food stamps? Why put entire U.S. medical system in Cuisinart and set on Liquefy? And if verbal communication fails, you can always silently bridge the inter-party gap via what the crew of the USS Pueblo presciently dubbed the Hawaiian Good Luck Gesture. realclearpolitics.com pajamasmedia.com

To: Brumar89 who wrote (547368)	4/13/2010 12:28:11 PM
From: TimF	3 Recommendations Respond to of 1577125

True False Consciousness by Donald J. Boudreaux A few years ago I listened to a professor from a prestigious law school speak on the modern economy. This learned scholar was baffled that people voluntarily shop at Wal-Mart and Home Depot. He asked: “Why do so many people patronize large, impersonal retailers who destroy downtowns and sell goods that destroy the human spirit? Why do consumers and workers willingly permit themselves to be oppressed by capitalism?” His answer was one that’s given with appalling frequency by many statist scholars: false consciousness. This is the notion that people act contrary to their true interests because they don’t know what’s good for them. Refusing to abandon juvenile notions about the horrors of private property and free markets, radical leftists instead resort to accusing the masses of collective stupidity. “Workers are falsely conscious,” intoned the law professor. “Their participation in capitalist institutions and their refusal to revolt against them reflect only the awesome power of capitalism to deceive its victims.” Good heavens! Not only does capitalism oppress the body and soul, it oppresses the mind as well—so much so that its cruelly abused victims remain oblivious to the injustices visited upon them. The Economist’s Reaction My initial response to hearing allegations of false consciousness is to dismiss the concept out of hand. People, as economists inelegantly say, are rational. They’re not so stupid as to be oblivious to being abused. But the more I reflect on the matter, the more I realize that false consciousness is real. Contrary to statist claims, however, false consciousness arises only in politics and not in the private sector. When are you most likely to be adequately informed to make choices? When are you most likely to put forth the mental effort necessary to weigh all available information and then exercise the discipline required to make decisions that are best over the long haul? It’s when you have a significant personal stake in the outcome and when your decision matters. One of the great benefits of the rules of private-property rights and freedom of contract is that they oblige each decision-maker to bear the bulk of the costs—and permit each decision-maker to enjoy the bulk of the benefits—of each of his decisions. Also, by concentrating decision-making power in individuals rather than dispersing it among collectives, private property gives each individual genuine influence over the outcome of events. Private-property rights promote true, not false, consciousness. Consider, for example, a woman who voluntarily puts aside a professional career in favor of staying home to raise her children. Many leftists explain this decision as evidence of false consciousness—as evidence that the woman is hoodwinked by the capitalist patriarchy into thinking that raising children is at least as worthy as pursing a career outside the home. Nonsense. The stay-at-home mom makes her choice very carefully. After all, the woman herself bears a large portion of the benefits and costs of the decision, and her decision is decisive: it alone determines what she will do. If she chooses to pursue a career, she pursues a career; if, instead, she chooses to become a homemaker, she becomes a homemaker. These two features—bearing personal consequences and exercising a decisive ability to choose which alternative to pursue—mean that the choice made by any woman in such a situation should be presumed to be the product of rational thought and of a mind cleared of distortions. Likewise for the other decisions that statists assert to be distorted by false consciousness: people’s decisions to shop at Wal-Mart, workers’ decisions to take jobs at non-unionized firms, consumers’ decisions to smoke cigarettes, and women’s decisions to be surrogate mothers. Each such decision has direct consequences for each decision-maker, and each such decision is firmly in the hands of the person who makes it—no one else can lawfully veto it. No other set of circumstances is as likely to prompt humans to be rational, competent, and clear-headed decision-makers. Political False Consciousness Compare the private decisions that statists so distrust to those decisions that statists applaud, namely, political decisions. Unlike private decisions, people make political decisions with no incentive to choose wisely. While private decisions are individualized (that is, no person must share decision-making authority), political decisions typically are made collectively, with no individual exercising decisive influence. For example—and most notoriously—no voter determines the outcome of an election. Therefore, unlike in private settings, Jones can vote for A and get B instead. This is so regardless of how passionately Jones desires A. Knowing that his vote will not swing the election, why should Jones bother to become adequately informed about the relevant issues? In addition, and again unlike in private settings, voters (and legislators and bureaucrats) are permitted to help determine how other people will lead their lives. When the issue in an election is, say, whether or not Sunday alcohol sales should be allowed, each voter is given the opportunity to push the government to override the private decisions of individuals, each of whom knows best whether buying alcohol on Sunday is best for him or her. False consciousness, then, indeed is real. But it afflicts people as voters rather than people as private decision-makers. Only in voting booths are people prone to act consistently contrary to their true interests. Again, if the outcome of an election is unaffected by how you vote—and if the bulk of the consequences of electoral outcomes fall on people other than you—you gain nothing by casting an informed and prudent ballot. Your vote, like everyone else’s, will be uninformed and ill-considered. Statists have it backwards. Capitalism doesn’t foster false consciousness; politics does. The political process encourages ignorant and imprudent decisions that often run counter to the best interests of the very voters who cast their ballots in support of such decisions. One of the many splendid benefits of private property and free markets is that these institutions give each person an unambiguous incentive to make wise decisions—that is, not to suffer false consciousness. thefreemanonline.org