The Pantry Proof.

Staghounds shows why Statism doesn't work.

In short, have you never run out of a household item? Has a statist? If you can't run a command-economy of one, what makes you think you can run someone else's life? A whole country?


Via Roberta X
Roberta also talks on how even the military goofs on command economy and what that implies:

And that's Our Military, who have gone in for stats and analysis and planing in a big way, and who issue standardized everything to more-or-less standardized fighting men and women, most of them operating in known places under known conditions: if they still have trouble getting it right even playing with loaded dice in a generally-predictable environment, how much more difficult is the task for a non=-uniform population? (And a lot of that fine .mil surplus one buys is the other side of central planning; not only do they run you outta bumfodder, you end up with a jillion extra tortoise forks and eventually have to sell 'em as scrap, back into the....drumroll...uncontrolled market).

Emphasis added.

Even in the best case, the smart set can't run things.

I suppose the desire for Statism comes from the desire to control others, the desire to "help" others see these quotes, and the desire to be "helped".

If someone can't run their own life, if they can't stay out of debt, if they can't be frugal, if they can't be genrous, if they can't be responsible, if they can't be healthy well... why not look to some paternal figure to do all that stuff for them.


Statism depends on the idea that the "smart" people can run things and run them better than an uncontrolled market, country, society.

And that's not even talking about the unintended (and intended) consequences of adding a 2000 page bloated law that was not even read by the legislators voting on it, and not comprehended by the controllers that wrote it.


Related to today's Moring Jolt. Sorry subscription only. Jim Geraghty cites a WSJ piece by Will McGurn.

As the controversy over the planned Islamic Center near Ground Zero escalates, we have had many secular sermons on the need to recognize that the vast majority of Muslims should not be confused with the terrorists. No argument there. But how much more fruitful our own debates might be if the Judge Walkers, Mayor Bloombergs and Speaker Pelosis could extend that same presumption of decency to the American people.

Geraghty comments:

I think McGurn expects them to do something they're not quite capable of doing. The elites in question don't choose not to extend the presumption of decency; their uncharity -- believing that non-elite Californians are homophobic, that Arizonans are xenophobic, that New Yorkers are bigots, that health-care opponents are Nazis, etc. -- is at the heart of their worldview. If the masses could make their own good judgments, they wouldn't need the elites to steer them.

Indeed. Sheep need to be lead, curs need to be corrected. The common rabble have to be worse than the elite, otherwise why are they being ruled?