LJ_Reloaded
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- Joined
- Apr 3, 2010
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Most Conservatives see the threat of riots in the face of cutting social safety nets as having the effect of holding a country hostage and using the threat of violence to get one's way.
(Ishmael, I am talking about people like you.)
Conservatives, thus, have a poor grasp of the concept of cause and effect.
In the jungle, the law is survival of the fittest. Animals do what they can, as best they can, to survive. There is no safety net, the weak perish as food for the strong. Animals die at the hands of others all the time in the jungle.
Human societies that are absent any safety net tend to follow the same rule. The most devious, well-armed or well-connected forces dominate. Without any safety net, this leads to people killing each other, or even going to war, over ideology, access to women, territory or resources. Given the level of human technology this can escalate to biological warfare, and in the past, it has escalated to exactly that. Now, however, it is possible for smaller and smaller groups to unleash a horrible pathogen that is either new and engineered or an "old friend" of humanity that we're not adequately prepared to stop its resurgence. (Say, a really ugly flu hits an airport worker who decides to come to work sick instead of getting fired for staying home. We'll get to that later.)
When you tell your citizens that their choice is to sink or swim you are in effect telling them the law of the jungle is in effect. You are telling them to deal with life the way animals do. You can defend this by saying that not doing so makes people weak and lazy, but even if your argument holds water, you are still saying that your citizens should deal with life the way animals do: there is no safety net, and no free lunch, and if you flounder and die, so be it. The strong prosper and the weak perish. That's the way of the jungle.
You can't have the law of the jungle and then expect people to be civilized. You're contradicting yourself. If you are telling people that they must fend for themselves you are in fact justifying survival by any means necessary. What rational creature is going to just lay down and die? That is not something that any animal does. Remember, you have already declared the law of the jungle by taking away social safety nets. The logical result of this is that people will, instead of laying down and die, prey on others for their survival. This means crimes, or worse, rioting. Riots lead to rebellions and terrorist groups. The latter, in today's age, carries an unprecedented risk of disaster for everyone.
Now, about the sick airline worker. Having been told to fend for themselves, the sick worker is looking at being fired for taking too many sick days. So, eventually, one worker stricken with a flu that is deadlier and more infectious than they realize (or care to realize), will do the only thing that is logically consistent with their well-being: they will come to work to avoid being fired, what with there being no social safety net to cushion them against the financial cost of staying home. This person will spread their infection to other workers and passengers, potentially aggravating things into a pandemic. Conservatives will dismiss this as science fiction, but ask anyone at the Centers of Disease Control - this is a real scenario that they live in fear of. Also look up: presenteeism.
When you push the belief that there is no free lunch, you need to be prepared to deal with the fact that the consequences of your beliefs may result in riots, terrorism and pandemics - the very same problems you claim you are trying to avoid by eschewing liberalism and the nanny state.
(Ishmael, I am talking about people like you.)
Conservatives, thus, have a poor grasp of the concept of cause and effect.
In the jungle, the law is survival of the fittest. Animals do what they can, as best they can, to survive. There is no safety net, the weak perish as food for the strong. Animals die at the hands of others all the time in the jungle.
Human societies that are absent any safety net tend to follow the same rule. The most devious, well-armed or well-connected forces dominate. Without any safety net, this leads to people killing each other, or even going to war, over ideology, access to women, territory or resources. Given the level of human technology this can escalate to biological warfare, and in the past, it has escalated to exactly that. Now, however, it is possible for smaller and smaller groups to unleash a horrible pathogen that is either new and engineered or an "old friend" of humanity that we're not adequately prepared to stop its resurgence. (Say, a really ugly flu hits an airport worker who decides to come to work sick instead of getting fired for staying home. We'll get to that later.)
When you tell your citizens that their choice is to sink or swim you are in effect telling them the law of the jungle is in effect. You are telling them to deal with life the way animals do. You can defend this by saying that not doing so makes people weak and lazy, but even if your argument holds water, you are still saying that your citizens should deal with life the way animals do: there is no safety net, and no free lunch, and if you flounder and die, so be it. The strong prosper and the weak perish. That's the way of the jungle.
You can't have the law of the jungle and then expect people to be civilized. You're contradicting yourself. If you are telling people that they must fend for themselves you are in fact justifying survival by any means necessary. What rational creature is going to just lay down and die? That is not something that any animal does. Remember, you have already declared the law of the jungle by taking away social safety nets. The logical result of this is that people will, instead of laying down and die, prey on others for their survival. This means crimes, or worse, rioting. Riots lead to rebellions and terrorist groups. The latter, in today's age, carries an unprecedented risk of disaster for everyone.
Now, about the sick airline worker. Having been told to fend for themselves, the sick worker is looking at being fired for taking too many sick days. So, eventually, one worker stricken with a flu that is deadlier and more infectious than they realize (or care to realize), will do the only thing that is logically consistent with their well-being: they will come to work to avoid being fired, what with there being no social safety net to cushion them against the financial cost of staying home. This person will spread their infection to other workers and passengers, potentially aggravating things into a pandemic. Conservatives will dismiss this as science fiction, but ask anyone at the Centers of Disease Control - this is a real scenario that they live in fear of. Also look up: presenteeism.
When you push the belief that there is no free lunch, you need to be prepared to deal with the fact that the consequences of your beliefs may result in riots, terrorism and pandemics - the very same problems you claim you are trying to avoid by eschewing liberalism and the nanny state.
