And how it is brought to you by those opposing taxation and redistribution.

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A recent link by “darrenlobo” to an article, Is The Starving Man Free?, provoked a number of comments. One was mine, and dl wrote back with a lengthy comment to that, which I’ve cut and pasted major parts of below, with my responses to those passages (below in bold):

This candid recognition of the contradiction between freedom from coercion and government welfare is more than can be expected from the advocates of the welfare state. Most are not content to admit their preference for government welfare instead of freedom from coercion. Rather, they gloss over the coercive nature of government action altogether. As a case in point of this fraudulent stance we can do little better than Sir Beveridge's own disingenuous statement that "Liberty means more than freedom from the arbitrary power of Governments."[8] In fact, the "liberty" conceived by Sir Beveridge and other welfare statists does not mean freedom from the arbitrary power of government at all. It means precisely the opposite: that people are to be systematically enslaved by their government in order to provide an expanding list of goods and services to those that the government deems worthy.

I recognize the distinction between freedom from coercion and government welfare. Coercion is when I’m told to wear a seat belt, for example, or that I can’t marry another male or a cockroach, or that I can’t buy anything stronger than 3.2 beer. Government welfare is when my paycheck goes to maim and kill people I don’t even know in another country, or to pay the salary of a dictator like George Bush.

None of you have dealt with the moral issue of initiating force against people to separate them from their hard earned pay that the article brings up. The fact that you want to use the loot to try to feed people or give them healthcare is irrelevant from a moral point of view. It's just as bad from a practical point of view since history shows that such redistributive schemes only leave people worse off. Zimbabwe is a good example of this kind of program failing.

I like the redistributive schemes that bring me police and fire protection, clean water and sewage and garbage removal, libraries, most roads that I use, relatively clean air, schools for my kids, medical services that have prevented major epidemics for decades, oftentimes intelligent zoning codes, building safety, relatively reliable electricity, parks and bike paths, recycling, free outdoor concerts, reasonable internet rates, and so on.

But need I go on? Of course you can find some failed redistributive schemes, but does that mean you have to throw out the baby with the bathwater? Why not fix the nature of the redistribution network? Teach people to fish, so they can fish; you don’t necessarily have to keep throwing them fish. The redistributive scheme of public education has worked fairly well, though there’s surely much room for improvement.  

Money is rarely “hard earned” in the U.S. In fact, it generally stolen, since only about 5% of the people do any work that actually supports the rest of us physically. The “loot” is the resources that capitalism generates through grand larceny of resources against future generations, and that loot is largely redistributed to about 5% of the do-nothing population, who suck dry those of us who do actual  work.  Most Americans wouldn’t know a “hard earned” dime if it sat on the end of their nose (I do remember a few from when I was a kid, however).

A better alternative is the voluntary associations that formed in the 19th century to provide for the people's needs: The Voluntary City Choice, Community, and Civil Society

Posing the Problem: The rise and decline of American civic life has provoked wide-ranging responses from all quarters of society. Unfortunately, most proposals for improving communities rely on renewed governmental efforts—without recognizing that the inflexibility and poor accountability of governments have often worsened society’s ills. Most would-be reformers seem profoundly unaware of the wealth of historical and contemporary evidence that decentralized, competitive markets can contribute greatly to community renewal.

If governments are not accountable and are too inflexible, why can’t that be fixed? 1) Folks give up before they try (I call them American’ts); 2) Decentralized, competitive markets don’t exist in the welfare state we’ve created, in the name of capitalism, for corporations—which have all the rights of individuals, but none of the responsibilities. We also have cosmic scale welfare military, welfare slugs in the White House, and welfare outfits like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Westinghouse, Gruman, General Electric, Haliburton, Blackwater, etc., who like to call themselves “entrepreneurial organizations.”

What is a Voluntary City? It is a community built and maintained by private initiative and cooperation, not by the coercive political institutions that many people assume are needed to make communities work. The voluntary city is a paradigm for the community of tomorrow. It is also a historical reality: All of its key pillars—the physical infrastructure, services, and institutional framework that make communities livable—have at various times and places been provided by private initiative. Current legal, political and social trends suggest that its separate pillars may unite to build complete voluntary cities, allowing us to enjoy the myriad benefits of living in a truly civil society.

Key pillars from private initiative? You mean like the Jay Goulds, Vanderbilts, Rockerfellers, Gates, Cheneys, and Waltons, who loot the public in uncountable ways, then piss a few dollars at the rest of us, and tell us frankly it is “trickle down” money? Why not coerce these folks to limit their greed, which they can’t seem to do themselves, and use the wealth to fertilize our most valuable national resources—young, developing minds? Why? Because Big Behinds matter more than Little Minds, in the so-called free capitalist market.

Compassionate Mutual Aid: Before the rise of the welfare state, mutual-aid societies provided social services to millions of Americas, Britons and Australians. By 1925, member societies of the National Fraternal Congress represented 120,000 American lodges. Member benefits often included medical care, unemployment insurance, sickness insurance, and other services.

And these folks vanished because there was no money in the deal? Or do they now call themselves compassionate conservatives, like the ones who like torture as a new form of Christianity?

Responsive Law Enforcement: Community policing is seen as responsive to local needs because it is relatively decentralized. Law enforcement in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries was even more decentralized and responsive because the private sector provided for public safety and the enforcement of contracts. When Britain’s Bobbies (public police) later came on to the scene, they were jeered not praised.

Who’s arguing against decentralization? Why a strawman argument, that is rather insane, since every progressive I ever heard of wants decentralized government, wherever it is possible. Sometimes, of course, that is not possible, even when it should be—such as regulations on car mileage, clean air, clean water, keeping out of coastal areas, etc.

Fairer Laws: The Law Merchant was a non-governmental system of commercial-dispute resolution that arose in Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Merchants viewed it as fair and abided by its decisions because it was created and administered by and for merchants. The Law Merchant was highly successful until governments began to subvert it and expand their own power. But because government-run legal systems have become increasingly slow and arbitrary, the Law Merchant is returning in the form of private arbitration and mediation services, which now help resolve criminal as well as commercial disputes.

There are many commercial dispute resolutions around today. I’ve got one in my contract with a toy company, and I’d probably need another business to afford to use it. I also tried that concept when I was kicked out of a tenured teaching position, which I never got back. When these benign but toothless venues don't work, you need a court system that does work—though that is precisely what we don’t have now--thanks to Big Business controlling the courts, brought to you by unregulated capitalism.

Livable Communities: Private neighborhood associations have grown dramatically in the United States in recent years. An important alternative to government zoning and the tragedy of the urban commons, they represent the most far-reaching trend in privatization today. The hotel, the forerunner of better residential communities, is the prototypical “proprietary community.”

We have a lot of ugly paranoid gated communities around Salt Lake. I also got kicked out or more and more beautiful and to me sacred places when I was growing up on Long Island, because the wealthy few started scarfing up the land and keeping everyone else off. Try finding a beach on the north shore of Long Island where you can actually enjoy the solitude and beauty of nature, and you’ll find a place I never did. Try painting your house a color you like but your neighbors don’t in some of these wonderful communities, and you’ll be an instant criminal. Freedom my ass.

Educational Innovation: Prior to state involvement, literacy and school attendance rates in England, Wales, and the United States were 90 percent and rising. Perhaps more surprising is that private education is enjoying a remarkable ren-aissance in many developing countries today such as India, Brazil, Colombia and South Africa. In these countries, a large private-education industry, often aimed at serving the poorest of students, exists to alleviate the failure of government-run schools.

I worked in one of the most exclusive elementary schools in the U.S. (on the north shore of Long Island) for nearly four years, and saw some of the ugliest behavior exhibited by human beings—not so much the kids, though they were headed in that direction. Contrast that to a poverty-stricken west side school I worked in here in SLC, and it was truly beautiful, with kids from every corner of the world (over 20 languages spoken), and somehow learning to get along with each other.

FYI, I was an infinitely better educator by the time I was working here, than when I first started out back east. So much for vouchers and private schools. And why would anyone in their right mind NOT want to improve public education, in every way possible? Don’t you know it is individual human minds that have brought us every single usable artifact humans have had, from stone chisels to the Hubble Telescope?

Government Failures and Market Challenges: Many laws governing cities are based on faulty notions about what governments are likely to achieve. In contrast, the non-governmental alternatives presented in The Voluntary City are based on historical case studies that illustrate the difference between entrepreneurial incentives and political incentives. Private entrepreneurs typically deliver better “public” goods and services than do government bureaucrats, and market failure is less common than government failure.

I am a very serious private entrepreneur. I was just at a three hour meeting last night, where were working on a business plan that will literally change the world, within the decade. For the better or for the worse, will depend on how government regulates what we do. And so far, I’m sad to say, the government will regulate it the wrong way and use our ideas for mostly wrong purposes. That won’t stop me from trying to direct the course of events properly, but it is ideas like yours, and the insane fear of intelligent regulation and the urgent necessity of people working and cooperating together on a grander scale, that are the problem.

Authors Website: http://www.hyperblimp.com

Authors Bio:

In my run for U.S. Senate against Utah's Orrin Hatch, I posted many progressive ideas and principles that I internalized over the years. I'm leaving that site up indefinitely, since it describes what I believe most members of our species truly want: www.voteutah.us. I thank those who sent such wonderful comments, even though it forced me to go buy a few larger hats, which were among my top campaign expenses (just kidding).

My forever-to-write novel (now my favorite book for some unfathomable reason), A Summer with Freeman, finally got out the door, via Kindle and CreateSpace. Readers of this site, and anyone else with two or more brain cells who want some "serious humorous relief" may want to check it out: http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-Summer-with-Freeman-nov-by-Daniel-Geery-130528-385.html

My family and I lived off the grid in an earth-sheltered, solar powered underground house for 15 years, starting in the early '80s, proving, at least to myself, the feasibility of solar power. Such a feat would be much infinitely easier with off-the-shelf materials available now, though the bureaucracy holding us back is probably worse. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Living-on-Sunshine-Underg-by-Daniel-Geery-110318-547.html

I wrote a book on earth-sheltered solar greenhouses that has many good ideas, but should be condensed from 400 down to 50 pages, with new info from living off the grid. It's on my "to do" list, but you can find used copies kicking around online. Just don't get the one I see for $250, being hawked by some capitalist... well, some capitalist.

I'm 68 with what is now a 26 year old heart--literally, as it was transplanted in 2005 (a virus, they think). This is why I strongly encourage you and everyone else to be an organ donor--and get a heart transplant if you're over 50, unless your name is Dick Cheney.

I may be the only tenured teacher you'll meet who got fired with a perfect teaching record. I spent seven years in court fighting that, only to find out that little guys always lose (http://www.opednews.com/articles/Letter-to-NEA-Leadership--by-Daniel-Geery-101027-833.html; recommended reading if you happen to be a parent, teacher, or concerned citizen).

I managed to get another teaching job, working in a multi-cultural elementary school for ten years (we had well over 20 native tongues when I left, proving to me that we don't need war to get along--no one even got killed there!). http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_daniel_g_060716_alternatives_to_exti.htm

I spent a few thousand hours working on upward-gliding airships, after reading The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed by John McPhee. But I did my modelling in the water, so it took only two years and 5,000 models to get a shape that worked. You can Google "aquaglider" to learn more about these. As far as I know, this invention represents the first alteration of Archimedes'principle, spelled out 2,500 years ago.

"Airside," the water toys evolved into more of a cigar shape, as this was easier to engineer. Also, solar panels now come as thin as half a manila folder, making it possible for airships to be solar powered. You can see one of the four I made in action by Googling "hyperblimp"(along with many related, advanced versions).

Along with others, I was honored to receive a Charles Lindbergh Foundation Award, to use my airships to study right whales off Argentina. Now we just have to make it happen and are long overdue, for reasons that would probably not fit on the internet.

In 2010 I married a beautiful woman who is an excellent writer and editor, in addition to being a gourmet cook, gardener, kind, gentle, warm, funny, spiritual, and extremely loving. We met via "Plenty-of-Fish" and a number of seemingly cosmic connections. Christine wrote Heart Full of Hope, which many readers have raved about, as you may note on Amazon.

I get blitzed reading the news damn near every day, and wonder why I do it, especially when it's the same old shit recycled, just more of it. In spite of Barbara Ehrenreich and reality, I'm a sucker for positive thinking and have read many books on it. I find many many of them insane and the source of much negativity on my part. My favorites these days are by Alan Cohen, who seems to speak my language, and likewise thinks a bit like Albert Einstein did (as do I on this note). Albert: "Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent, in fact, I am religious."

Though I rapidly note that I've kept alive my deceased and "devout atheist" friend's book, http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Foundation-of-Religion-by-Daniel-Geery-110510-382.html

Lastly, kudos to Rob Kall and those who make OEN the site that it is: one of the last bastions of free speech.