The Politics of Equality

It seems these days that the use of the word "equality" may at times act as a kind of beta-blocker, where people's minds have become closed tight and where they suspend any semblance of critical thinking so that whatever is said in the name of equality is generally accepted unhesitatingly and without questions.

I suspect this may be the result of cultural sensibilities arising in the wake of the civil rights movement, if not more so liberals indoctrinating our children with socialist/egalitarianism throughout our public school system.

Whatever the case, liberals and society in general undoubtedly have a heightened, though selective sense of equality, and in some respects they view governments as the best means for enforcing equality.

I say "selective sense of equality" because the good folks on the Left also advocate for such unequal causes as progressive tax rates, affirmative action, disability legislation, so-called diversity programs, etc. (more about this below)

Regardless of good intentions, government enforced equality doesn't work, and even backfires. Dr. Jordan B. Petersons provides several contemporary and past examples

There are several reasons why enforced equality doesn't work

First, equality, itself, is at odds with the natural order of things, particularly the evolutionary principle of natural selection and survival of the fittest. With humans, there are big and small, skinny and fat, women and men, young and old, fast and slow, weak and strong, geniuses and idiots, etc., and variations in-between. According to current sciences, there are 8.7 million species. (see HERE)

Scientifically, and across most all walks of life, we humans tend to be array unequally along a bell curve, or fit the 20/80 rule, or conform to the pareto distribution:. These are  laws which, if ignored or unwittingly challenged, can have disasterous effects:

Second, equality is at odds with the social and economic nature of things. We have loved-ones and strangers and foes, close friends and mere acquaintances, rich and poor, financial adept and inept, presidents and entry level workers. Some of us are dependents and others are providers, etc. and variations in between. We fill hundreds if not thousands of different occupations throughout millions of different companies, trading in untold numbers of products and services at a myriad of prices, and this during good economies and bad. Some of us like to shop, while others like to play sport or read. Some of us are emotional while others are more logical. Some of us are healthy and sane, while others are...well, you get the point.

Third, it is at odds with the political and legal order of things, the Equal Protection Clause notwithstanding. There exists a broad range of power and authority, from presidents and dictators to citizens and surfs. Political beliefs are arrayed from left to right, anarchist to fascists, globalists to nationalists, and on and on. Legal boundaries distinguish between citizen and alien, minors and adults, licensed and unauthorized, innocent and guilty, legal and illegal, etc.

Forth, as indicated above, inequality is the overwhelming rule rather than the exception. For the most part, and in important and meaningful ways, inequality is the organic outcome of virtually every aspect of physical existence, particularly life on earth, more so among humans.

Ironically, advocates for equality tend to contradict themselves by also espouse the notion that "diversity is our strength"--not including diversity of thought  On the one hand they celebrate differences/inequalities, while on the other hand presuming to wipe them out, and enforce conformity in the name of equality.

However, to a great extent the governmental pursuit of universal equality is virtually impossible. There will always be tall and short people, strong and weak, fast and slow, smart and unintelligent, beautiful and ugly, rich and poor, optimists and pessimist, happy and sad, whole and disabled, young and old, lucky and unlucky, and on and on, with advantages to the ones and not the others. And, there isn't much, if anything that governments can reasonably do to change or equalize these things.

Egalitarianism, while perhaps theoretically appealing, is unfeasible on a number of levels, and attempts to press the square peg of unequal reality into the round hole of egalitarian pipe-dreams, is a fools errand and receipt for disaster, as witness by the Leftist LUNCs. For example, please see: Same-Sex Marriage--No "Marriage Equality."

Forth, in addition to inequality as the natural, social, economic, political and legal order of things, attempt to treat different things equally can be intrinsically illogical. Unlike with adults, we don't let minors consume controlled substances such as alcohol and tobacco. We don't permit them to drive automobiles. We don't allow them to vote. We don't let them enter into contractual agreements, etc. For the children's sake, as well as for the sake of society, it makes sense to acknowledge and accept the meaningful differences and rationally discriminate between minors and adults, and treat them unequally. To treat minors and adults equally would  prove problematic, to say the least. It isn't coincidental that legal-aged young adult drivers have higher rates of auto accidents than older drivers. (See HERE)  Imagine the accident rate were toddlers equally allowed behind the wheel.

Also, take for instance what is indicated in my article on Environmental LUNCS. As  Jerry Taylor has sardonically stated, "The inescapable differences between millions of pollution sinks, environmental carrying capacities, and manufacturing processes are inevitably blurred and 'averaged' in one-size-fits-all regulations that — while not always efficient or environmentally optimal — at least have the virtue of requiring fewer than a million regulators."

Another good example where liberals have illogically treated meaningfully different things equally, is the legalization of same-sex marriage. I explicate the inanity here: Same-Sex Marriage--Destructive Compassion.

Yet another good example is the liberal movement advocating for income equality, particularly between the sexes. The hue and cry is for "equal pay for equal work," which assume that men and women have been and are doing equal work, whereas in truth they haven't and don't. And, in spite of this fact, liberals mindlessly, though with big-hearts, strive for wage parity, not realizing that when pursued through government enforcement, not only produce the opposite unintended effect, it ironically must of necessity violate the right of women to freely choose their own career paths. (See the series starting HERE)

The same, in principle, applies to the liberal issue of wealth inequality--the gap between the rich and poor. (See HERE)

Experience ought to tell us that there are meaningful differences between men and women, educated and uneducated, rich and poor, whole and disabled, corporations and sole proprietorships, doctors and nurses, lawyers and court stenographers, military and civilians, police and criminals, public servants and private employees, married and single, cars and boats, rural and city, and on and on. As such, it makes no sense to ignore these inequalities and presume to treat them as equals. In point of fact, and for good reason, the vast majority of laws on the book tacitly acknowledge meaningful differences and rationally discriminate and pragmatically treat different people and things differently--the exceptions noted above notwithstanding. This is as it should be.

Fifth, governmental pursuit of equality may defy the primary intents for which laws were enacted to begin with. Auto speed-limits have been instituted for public safety and energy saving purposes, and not to equalize the disparity between owners of slow versus fast cars. Regulations governing medical licensing were passed to better assure that properly educated and competent people would be administering to our most vulnerable citizens, and not to equally allow any and all who wished, to call themselves a doctor. Zoning requirements have been set up to encourage wise land use, and not to permit landfills equal rights to the same area as hospitals and residential neighborhoods. The list of examples is virtually endless.

The point being, laws are enacted for rational purposes (typically to produce results which are in society's interest), and not for equality sake. Leftist LUNCs tend to occur when the rational basis behind laws are ignored and the focus is misplaced on equality.

I can think of no better example of this than the issue of same-sex marriage. Under the guise of equality, leftist advocates have rallied to mangle the several millennium-year-old definition of marriage, and nowhere or in no way have they given indication that they understood the rational basis for governments regulating and promoting marriage for centuries. If they had bothered to find out, they would realize that it has precisely nothing to do with homosexuality or equality, and very much to do with attempting to limit procreative sex (male-female sex) to formally committed, long-term relationships. Because of the risk of pregnancy, there are a host of negative social ripple effects from heterosexuals having indiscriminate sexual relations. (See HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE)  So, governments have rightly thought it wise to minimize the number of out-of-wedlock births by encouraging legal marriage. Since there is no risk of pregnancy between homosexual couples, governments haven't, and still don't have a rational basis to encourage same-sex marriage. From a cost-benefit or state's interest perspective, the people as a government, have nothing to gain from promoting gay marriage or homosexual relationships, and much to lose. The opposite is true for heterosexual relationships.

Sixth, Leftist LUNCs occur because in many cases governmental pursuit of equality works at cross purposes and tends to be devolutionary--i.e. catering to the lowest common denominator. This is made most evident in the graduated income tax rate that places considerably greater and unequal tax burdens on the rich, and effectively redistributes their wealth to the poor in a way the trickles up poverty. In other words, inequality is hypocritically being used in cross-purpose with the pursuit of equality, and instead of raising the poor up closer to the level of the rich, the rich are brought down closer to the level of the poor. This tends to disadvantage both rich and poor, though mostly the poor.

In short, the liberal pursuit of equality oft breeds inequality. (See HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE)

As one pundit put it: "Liberalism thus falls into contradiction and fails in the most fundamental way possible. Enforcing freedom denies freedom, enforcing equality makes the enforcers unequal, enforcing tolerance requires a comprehensive system of supervision and control, and giving people what they want is not what people really want." (See HERE)

The leftist public education system is a case in point. By diminishing the incentive for healthy competition, and by equalizing rewards for educational achievement, relatively flat grading and advancement systems have become unequally deleterious to smarter and harder working students and high achievers, resulting in the general dumbing-down of U.S. students, which in turns compromises other aspects of our nation's welfare. (See HERE. See also the Leftist LUNC on Public Education when it is published)

Various other good examples may be found in my series of articles on Obamanomics, starting with, ""Trickle-Up Poverty."

Seventh, the notion of "eqiuality" is overly vague and high risk of divergence of interpretation and application. As I wrote elsewhere (see HERE, page 3), "One set of human advocates may have equality of outcome in mind, whereas other advocates may have equality of opportunity in mind, Some of the advocates for equality of opportunity may have state-enforced "level playing field" and "quotas" in mind, while other advocates of equality of opportunity may have free markets and rule of law in mind. The lists can go on and on. Ironically, there is considerable inequality of purpose in relation to the objective of equality. 

Here twice again the notion of equality breeds inequality. 

"And, that is not all..In order to achieve equality of outcome as a proactive objective (high priority or otherwise) necessitates discriminating against (treating unequally) high achievers, hard and long workers, the well adaptive and adept, the fast and strong, the more intelligent, etc. The goal of quality breeds inequality.

"Were that not enough, the goal of equality of outcome also necessitates discriminating against those it is supposed to help. For example, as I explain at my blog on Equal Pay for Equal Work , state enforced closure of the mythical gender wage gap, besides having made the gap wider, ultimately necessitates denying women the freedom to chose different careers than men,  as well as the choice to start careers later than men, work less hours than men, and interrupt their careers for long periods of time unlike men.

"On the other hand, realizing the goal of equality of opportunity, particularly for the "level playing field" and "quotas" crowd, necessitates giving preferential treatment (treating unequally) to select classes of people (specific races, gender, sexual orientation, ages, etc.), as a way of supposedly righting past wrong. The goal of equality breeds inequality.

"Whether the goal is for equality of outcome or equality of opportunity, if it is achieved through government enforcement, necessarily discriminates against, and thus treats unequally, freedom lovers."

Eight, the irrational obsession with equality is one of the fastest ways to radically distorted thinking. It causes people to imagine prejudice lurking around every bush. This is a malady that afflicts the Right as well as the Left (see HERE), but by far more so the Left (see  HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE)  It tends to engender a flurry of false accusations besmirching the innocent, and it often turns back on itself, causing the afflicted to engage in the most nefarious forms of inequality. (See above and also HERE)

Here is a simial perspective from another author: Egalitarianism Without Equality is Tyranny.

George Will also provides "A Philosopher's Take on the Left's Obsession with Income Inequality," which is based, in part, on Harry G Frankfurt's book on "Inequality." Please also see Kevin D. Williamson's article on A Few Thoughts on a Futile Project: Income Inequality.

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The Politics of Emotions

Winston Churchill is attributed as saying: "If your not a Liberal at twenty, you have no heart. If you're not a Conservative at forty, you have no brain."

There is also the maxim, "if you want to FEEL good be a liberal but if you want to DO good be a conservative." (See HERE)

Now, if one doubts that emotions are a substantial, controlling influence for liberals, one need but consider the motives behind and nature of most if not all liberal causes. As indicated in a previous post, the Left is all about compassion and caring, and this to the point that some consider liberal governments to be "nanny-ish." (See HERE and HERE)

Over the last century or so, liberals have been harrowed-up by the depth and breadth of human suffering, and have been emotionally moved to protest the ravages of war, set up soup lines and food banks, provide homeless shelters, man civil rights marches, advocate for the disabled, speak out for the environment and against animal cruelty, pass legislation to assist the elderly, poor, sick and afflicted, and the list goes on. This is to their credit.

I don't know if it is due to the feminization of the Left or not, but liberals are quite sensitive. Feelings are very important to them. This is also made evident in the way they oft make emotive appeals to the public when advancing their causes--be it through heart-wrenching stories about innocent people who were killed by collateral damage,  prisoners that were water-boarded, oceans soiled by oil, cute polar bears that have been dwindling in numbers, ice caps that are melting, children murdered by crazed gunmen and drive-by shooters; or be it through fear-mongering ads, news reports, and movies about the elderly being deprived of their benefits, the earth's ecology on the verge of collapse, certain animals facing extinction, potential epidemic or pandemic spread of disease, and so on and so forth.

In many respects, and as repeatedly underscored throughout my Leftist LUNCs of the Week blog, these are noble quests and the emotional motives are to be respected.

However, as our bodies tell us, just as the mind can't live without the heart, neither can the heart live without the mind. Both the intellect and emotions are of value and need to be rightly balanced and compliment one another and kept in check by one another.

When the mind acts without the heart, there is coldness and apathy. And, when the heart acts without the mind, there is stupidity and inanity. When they work together, there is wisdom, virtue, and practicality.

Think of the mind as the rudder and the heart as the wind in the sails. What good is a rudder if there is no wind to move about the ship of state? And what good is the wind if there is no rudder to give determined direction, but where the ship of state is left to be tossed to a fro wherever the winds of emotion are want to blow?  

Unfortunately, while liberals clearly have big hearts, there is serious question about the bigness of their minds--and this in spite of how oft some of them pride themselves on their alleged superior or elite intellects. Whereas, the proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Would many of the Leftist LUNCs have occurred, let alone near invariably and at such grand scales, if liberals were ruled as much by their minds as their hearts? Would the liberal ship of state be continually blown off course by the winds of emotions and run aground on the shoals of bankruptcy and disaster if there were sufficient intellectual rudder providing much needed and intelligent direction?

Perhaps it is just me, but in my experience with liberals these days,  particularly during on-line discussions, there appears to be ample sounds and fury and passion, superficiality, and much echoing of talking points, but little describable in-depth reasoning or coherent analysis. To me, not only does critical thinking seems to have become a relic of the distant liberal past, but a trend seems to have emerged where leftist activists and respondents appear to have developed a remarkable complacency with inanity. It doesn't matter the compelling power of arguments or strength and wealth of evidence contravening what liberals propose, nor the mounting bleakness of economic and foreign policies, and not even the litany of scandals constantly in the news, many liberals appear completely unaffected. Evidently, what matters to them isn't what makes the most sense or what demonstrably works or fails miserably, but rather having the right intent and feelings and being associated with the politically correct and popular causes. It seems more important to them not to offend than to do what is best and right.

And as if that were not enough,  many of them genuinely and fervently believe that they are the ones making perfect sense and that their opponents are banal. Up is down and down is up.

Again, is it any wonder that Leftist LUNCs occur and re-occur with relative abandonment?

Examples of liberal political emoting are replete, though perhaps no more so than during the prime-time "news programs" at MSNBC.

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The Politics of Compassion

Before reading my explanation, it would be good to watch this video by Dennis Prager on liberal compassion and the size of government::

In addition to what Dennis intimated, the politics of compassion causes Leftist LUNCs because:

1) "The greater the distance between the giver and the receiver, the more the receiver develops a sense of entitlement" (see HERE)--fostering the dysfunction of victimization and dependency (see HERE and HERE),

Case in point:

 2) The greater distance between giver and receiver, the less the giver is sensitive and responsive to the respective needs of the receiver. (see HERE)  Governments, particularly centralized governments, make for very poor charitable organizations, oft leaving recipients of charity worse off than before the government stepped in. (see HERE)

Stefan Molyneux provides another perspective:

The end result of leftist "compassion" may be catastrophic:

Also, I suspect that while the hearts of the majority of liberals may be in the right place when it comes to matters of compassion, other liberals are not so charitably disposed--to put it mildly.

According to Lord Acton, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Liberal politicians, like other politicians, are not immune, and have been enticed by the allure of power to not only work to expand their power base, but also stay in power by staying in office. To accomplish both within democratic systems, they have needed to attract money, influence, and votes, and they have done so by at least seeming to give people what is appealing and popular and what they want.

Liberal politicians understand that compassion has high emotional appeal and is a relative easy sell. When peddled effectively, the use of compassion and sympathy ploys have not only "bought" support and provided job security and expanded the power of politicians, it has also been used as a stick with which to beat opponents over the head.  (see HERE)

Power isn't the only thing that corrupts. Selfishness also corrupts, and absolute selfishness corrupts absolutely. To some extent, the selling of compassion by politicians has been easy, particularly to a broad spectrum of opportunists. Certain bureaucrats have viewed compassion as a great way to grow government and create public jobs for themselves as well as politicians. Various non-profit and for-profit organizations have seen dollar signs in relation to potential compassion-oriented grants and contracts. Then there are some of the electorate who take advantage of public assistance and free-load off and game the system for all its worth.

In such cases (politicians, bureaucrats, and electorate alike) the foremost objective wasn't compassion, but self-interest. The priority wasn't keeping children safe, or caring for the sick, preserving the environment, helping the poor, etc. though such may have been secondary or tertiary interests. Rather, the real and primary purpose was to exploit the government for personal gain. Compassion was used and abused as an excuse or the means to achieve selfish ends, and a way to create the illusion of virtue and legitimacy.

Worse yet, the politics of compassion has moved beyond political exploitation, to actual fraud--which some have referred to as "sympathy grifting". (See HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE)

Unfortunately, while the primary motive for the majority of liberals may have been compassion, and they have acted in good faith, to a considerable extent they have been played by those acting in self-interest. They have been the victims of a remarkably skillful and elaborate bait-and-switch con. They were led to believe that they were merely feeding the hungry, caring for those in need, preserving the environment, and so forth, when in fact they were providing job security, sureing up power-bases, lining pockets, and constructing one of the most expansive government-industrial complexes in human history--which now significantly dwarfs the military-industrial complex warned against by President Eisenhower.. (See  Social Services Industrial Complex. And, for an in-depth analysis of the government-industrial complex of compassion, please see also HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE)

Is it any wonder, then, that Leftist LUNCs have occurred? Since selfishness was really the main goal behind certain so-called compassionate governmental programs, then it is logical and ought to be expected that selfishness would be the result. Garbage in...garbage out. Sadly, what may seem as unintended negative consequences to those who were conned, have in reality been quite intended and welcomed by those liberals acting in their own self-interest.

There are a number of examples that could be cited, but some of the shenanigans perpetrated in relation to Obamacare are illustrative, such as the voter registration requirement for Obamacare, which many suspect is a way of further solidifying the liberal power base. (see HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE)

Selfish and power-hungry liberals aren't the only ones to blame for compassion-generated Leftist LUNCs.  Compassionate liberals, themselves, have contributed to the problem, and perhaps even more so than selfish liberals, because their compassion has often been uniformed, mindless, misdirected, inane, and ultimately destructive. The good folks on the Left have errantly assumed that good and compassionate intents is what matters, rather than results, and consequently the results of their compassion has frequently been deplorable.

Few examples manifest this better than the legalization of same-sex marriage. Please see my blog post on: Same-Sex Marriage--Destructive Compassion.

The transgender and other disturbed communities haves also been ill-effected by liberal "compassion": 50 Tears of Sex-changes Mental Disorders, and Too Many Suicides

In the future, as I look at Leftist LUNCs in relation to things like liberal immigration policies, Obananomics (particularly corporate and bank bailouts and the misnamed "Economic Stimulous Package"), etc., more examples will be provided.

[Update 08/30/15: The Politics and Demographics of Food Stamp Recipients]

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Gov: Wrong Tool for the Right Job--Cold Nanny

By their very nature, bureaucracies are often distant, cumbersome, lumbering, unresponsive, and the list of negative adjectives goes on.

However, what strikes me as incredibly odd is that leftist causes are typically matters of deep compassion and love, and yet those loving causes are being turned over to one of the most cold, unloving, faceless entities on the planet--i.e. the government. Big-hearted issues are being shifted to relatively heartless and faceless bureaucracies.

Metaphorically, it is like attempting to nurture and love using machines.

The movement to embrace the cold nanny of government has spiked of late in response to the increasingly popular notion of "nudge," which Mark Tapson described as: "a seemingly innocuous form of social engineering designed to steer us lazy, infantile Americans subtly toward making the 'correct' choices in our personal and social lives. He [David Brooks] calls it 'social paternalism'; think of it as a kinder, gentler totalitarianism." (See HERE)

Mark goes on to say: "Brooks looks to saviors he calls 'public spirited people' to design ways to rescue us from our incompetence and sloth. These betters of ours are designing 'choice architectures' that guide us, like cattle, in the direction of what the left deems to be the proper moral and societal choices." (ibid.)

This underscores what I said about the Left in my post on Elitism and Specialization.

Mark continues: "In the one paragraph in his piece that will resonate with everyone who isn’t a utopian academic, Brooks then plays devil’s advocate. 'Do we want government stepping in to protect us from our own mistakes?… This kind of soft paternalism will inevitably slide into a hard paternalism, with government elites manipulating us into doing the sorts of things they want us to do.' (Of course, that is precisely what nudging is.) And Brooks acknowledges that policy makers are human too, and could 'design imperfect interventions even if they mean well.' And there you have it: for all the well-meaning intentions of the left to perfect human nature and design an earthly paradise, they live in denial that their supposedly benign experiments constrain freedom and end in totalitarianism." (See HERE)

Is it any wonder, then, that leftist causes often fail and turn out just the opposite from what was intended? (See the Leftist LUNCs on Obamacare, Environmentalism, and Government Welfare. More examples will be listed once they are posted.)

In short, governments are good tools for some things, but bad tools for worthy big-hearted liberal projects.

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Gov: Wrong Tool for the Right Job--Elitism and Specialization

Liberals also like governments because of elitism and specialization. They are comforted by the belief that supposedly stronger and smarter people, and those who are highly trained and experienced, are specifically dedicated and working to resolve some of the more challenging societal problems. They like being able to trustingly shift certain tasks to seemingly more capable people, and put those tasks out of sight and mind so they can focus on other tasks for which they, themselves, are well suited. Understandably, liberals may be so engrossed in their own careers that they haven't the time or energy to examine the intricacies of foreign policies or the minute details of appropriation bills, and so it is nice for them to have people far more knowledgeable in those areas analyzing and making decisions.

Again, this makes some sense, but cuts both ways. It is not uncommon for the best and the brightest and the most experienced to come up with some of the more profoundly asinine ideas and the most colossal failures known to man. It seems as though there is a fine line between genius and idiocy, where much of the time the line is crossed in the direction of idiocy--Leftist LUNCs being a case in point.

Besides, the governments that liberals are so fond of aren't necessarily filled with the best and the brightest and elite experts. In fact, it is not uncommon for people to seek employment in the public sector because they failed to make it in the private sector.  As mentioned in the Obamacare LUNCs, Obamacare "greatly expands federal and state governments, increases taxes (contrary to what was promised), and it puts life-and-death health care decisions in the hands of the entity that can't rightly fix potholes or deliver the mail on time. And, with the recent scandals, it is unsettling to know that the IRS will be the go-to collection agency."  Steven Horwitz says: "Obamacare’s approach to fixing the very real problems of U.S. medical care is exactly backward. It undermines the market-driven parts that are working, and expands government control that is not." (See HERE)

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Gov: Wrong Tool for the Right Job--Strength in Numbers

Before reading my explanation, it would be good to watch this video by Dennis Prager on liberal compassion and the size of government::

Liberals have an affinity for government because, for one, they believe there is strength in numbers. To them, many hands make light work. For instance, medical treatment for catastrophic illnesses can wipe out family savings, but the financial burden would hardly be felt when distributed by governments across an entire community or nation  Hence, the leftist rationale for things like Obamacare.

This appears to make sense, and for some things it actually does. However, the principle of "safety in numbers" cuts two ways. Metaphorically, while it is easier for many people to raise the walls and roof of a barn, yet when there are too many people in the loft, the barn may collapse. So, not always is there strength in numbers. Sometimes, too much of a good thing is bad. Each of us have likely witnessed how poorly certain corporations run when they get "too big." The same is true for governments, if not more so. (See HERE)

Furthermore, financial and other burdens can be made light when many are carrying a few, but it is just the opposite when a few are carrying the many. For a number of liberal causes, the later tends to be the rule

For example, in relation to my article on Welfare LUNCs, entitlement spending has skyrocketed, and to make matters worse, in recent times there have been proportionately less and less tax payers shouldering the burden of those skyrocketing costs. I am not just talking about the progressive tax rate where, according to Kipplinger, the top 10 percent of income earners covered 70 percent of income taxes. And, I am also not just talking about birth rates, where in 2002 they began to decline and reached a 90-year low in 2012, coming precariously close to European rates that portend to population decline--particularly among white non-Hispanics. (See HERE) What I have in mind is the U.S. labor force that has been shrinking since 2000, where today there are proportionately less people on the job and paying taxes than in 1979. (See HERE) The labor force participation rate peaked in 2000 at 67.3 percent, and as of May 2013, it was down to only 63.4 percent. (See HERE and HERE)

In other words, fewer people are supporting more people. Yet,  more disturbing, as of May, 2013, in the U.S. there were about 155 million people employed in the private sector, and about 107 million people receiving government assistance. (ibid, see also HERE) And, nearly 50 percent of households in the U.S. were receiving some type of government help. (See HERE) When you factor in government employees (about 23 percent of the population) whose wages are paid by private sector taxes, this means that only about 40 percent of the country is supporting themselves and the rest of the country.  According to Forbes Magazine, there are now eleven states where the number of people dependent to varying degrees upon the government exceeds the number of people with private sector jobs. These states have been dubbed, "Death Spiral States."

This is critical because the models upon which many liberal government programs were built and sold to the American public (like entitlements) assumed continuing growth in population and labor force. So, the decline in both makes those programs unsustainable even were the projected costs at the time they were enacted to have remained constant and not skyrocketed. This is why, in part, many of those leftist programs end up on the verge of bankruptcy, and why we have a mounting national debt, presumably to be shouldered by future generations.

It may be of interest to also note that other leftest causes (like abortion, birth/population control, same-sex marriage, unemployment and disability insurance, Social Security, etc.) may have contributed to the decline in population and labor force, thus inadvertently working at cross purposes with funding of other liberal causes like welfare and entitlement programs.

Again, for many leftist causes, there is weakness rather than strength in numbers (fewer people supporting many). Hence, the Leftist LUNCs

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Gov: Wrong Tool for the Right Job--Intro

Introduction--Costly Government

Each of the Leftist LUNCs that have and will be explored in my other blog have at least one thing in common--i.e. "costly and deleterious expansion of government." Liberals tend to look to governments, particularly centralized governments, as the means to their worthy ends.

Unfortunately, though, as will be made clear, in many cases governments are the worst means, and they are often a part of the problem rather than the solution

This is not to say that governments are completely worthless. They are good and perhaps even the best means for certain ends (particularly those things listed in the Constitution), but not so good for others. It is just that Liberals tend to champion causes for which governments are terrible, and shy away from or challenge causes for which governments work best. (See below)

Uncanny?

See also Gov: Wrong Tool for the Right Job:

• Strength in Numbers  -For many leftist causes, there is weakness rather than strength in numbers because the many are being supported by the few.
• Elitism and Specialization -Most of government isn't peopled with the best and brightest.
• Cold Nanny -It doesn't make sense to turn big-hearted projects over to an entity with no heart.

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