Yes, I am still on the road, and exceeding the government-imposed driving quotas mentioned by an earlier commenter.
But hey, that’s probably because I’m a “slave” to my driving. Or to the evil automobile/oil industry which enslaves and oppresses us all! I am a victim, doncha know?
Liberals think they can free us from this slavery, by imposing regulations on cars and driving and gasoline and liberating us so we can ride bicycles.
Liberals are the quintessential slavery people. Everything is about slavery. Yesterday I saw a poster warning us that slavery exists in the form of human trafficking, under which people are compelled to work. No doubt that would include any illegal alien in a “power imbalance” with his employer. And to a classical Marxist, any wage slave, meaning any worker. (Consent is irrelevant of course.) A nice foot in the door for calling us all victims of someone.
Unfortunately, conservatives are not immune to the slavery temptation. Earlier today I saw a billboard proclaiming that pornography is slavery. Nothing new. But later a comment Dave made reminded me of it:
“Conservatives are, however, regrettably sometimes intellectually inconsistent regarding the use of coercion.”
I had been thinking along similar during the drive today.
I wish I had more time for a real post, but I am crashing in mid-Missouri. Still, I have been thinking about the slavery people. Across the political spectrum, a good way of not giving credit to people for what they do is to accuse them of being slaves. Drug addicts, homosexuals, and porn lovers become victims of what they like. The left has a similar equation going on with money. People who need money are victims of those who pay them — or who don’t. They are the exploited classes. No one is responsible for his or her own life’s decisions.
On the major slavery point, there is agreement by both sides.
What I can’t figure out is how it follows that if someone is a slave, he deserves to be punished.
Anyway, the slavery people annoy the hell out of me. Enough to write a blog post on the road when I should be sleeping, which is a lot.
Comments
3 responses to “800 miles later, and the slavery people won’t let me sleep!”
The economy runs entirely on disagreement.
A voluntary trade happens only when each side values what he gets more than what he gives.
The difference in valuations is profit which is divided somehow between the two sides.
Add up the profits over all the nation’s trades, and the nation’s standard of living rises by that amount.
Division of labor is the world’s greatest generator of disagreement. The specializer values his stuff much, much less than the taker of it in trade. The nation’s standard of living soars.
Self-sufficiency is the world’s greatest generator of abject poverty.
A consequence of all this is that you must be paid less than your job is worth to your employer, and more than then job is worth to you. That’s why you’re employed.
Teachers, who should know better, are always saying that their jobs are worth so much more than they’re paid. If true, the market response would be more teachers as people found them valuable and hired them, not higher pay.
Wage slavery has to be profitable to both sides, or it doesn’t happen.
[…] (as I touched on in a post last week) a lot of people think that things they don’t like constitute […]
“What I can’t figure out is how it follows that if someone is a slave, he deserves to be punished.”
I think their idea is more on the lines that if people sell themselves into slavery they deserve to be punished. Which is an attitude I can comprehend, even as I disagree. IMO, slavery is punishment enough. (Mind you, I also disagree (vehemently) with their definitions of slavery.)